Whooping all the way down to earth sounds cool in theory until you crash face first into a snowdrift, going from comfortably warm on the way down to the sudden stop and sudden cold.
In hindsight I should have asked to take a door to earth.
I somehow managed to close my mouth in time for impact and save my self from suffocating/drowning in the slush but that was only a small mercy compared to the fact that I was; on a mountain, in the snow, and wearing nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms that were now sopping wet and freezing. Quickly scrambling to my feet and frantically searching for any form of shelter or civilization, I saw that night had fallen, it was snowing, and there was a sporadic breeze that brought sheer and bitter cold biting at my skin.
Suddenly, I heard a voice echoing around the mountain.
"WELL, WELL, WELL. THE TENDERFOOT NEEDS A LITTLE DIRECTION!" This voice had a vaguely Midwestern accent, amusement dancing in his tone "LOOK FOR THE CABIN WITH THE LIGHTS ON!"
After a few more panicked looks I saw it further up the mountain, the front door wide open and the lights within shining bright.
"YOU BETTER HURRY, BOY!" another voice, a woman's, upper class New Englander? Stern but from urgency. "THERE'S A BLIZZARD COMING IN!"
Soon as I heard the word "Blizzard" I took off.
My heart pounded, I slowly lost feeling in my feet, ears, and arms. I forced myself through the knifes of cold tearing into me with every step.
The snowfall grew heavier, the wind fiercer. I was starting to have to wade through chest high snowbanks. I knew I was moving forward, but the cabin just seemed to get further and further away.
Despite all of this I pressed on, the fear of dying to the cold on some godforsaken mountain beating out any chance of giving up. Survival instinct for the win.
I teared and clawed through the snow, not caring about the loss of feeling, the pain, the cold. Anything to get my ass out of this frozen hell and into that cabin.
After what seemed like hours of frantic stumbling through snowfall that felt like a rain of blades, I made it.
With nothing but the urge to find warmth, I used the last of my strength to stumble through the open door and crawled my way to the fire, my hands almost grasping the flames in an attempt to get warm.
My eyes were heavy, my arms more-so, it wouldn't have taken much for me to just nod off in front of the fire. It wasn't long till I felt gentle hands drape a heavy blanket over my shoulders.
"There, there, boy." The upper class woman from New England said to me "You made it."
"Well, at least we know he can run." The Midwesterner spoke up with no sympathy. "Worst run of his life probably."
I brought the blanket tighter around me and turned around with what little strength I could muster to face the source of these voices. Sitting on a large couch and smoking a large cigar was a black haired man that looked around his thirties or early forties, wearing an old fashioned winter coat out of the 19th century. Kneeling next to me was a woman that seemed around the same age wearing a similarly old fashioned winter getup with her brown hair in braid, and near the now shut door was a man whose features were wreathed in the shadows being cast by the woman and I.
"You could stand to show the boy a bit of sympathy." The woman snapped at the man on the couch. "I doubt he expected to be thrown into weather this foul this soon."
The cigar smoking man blew out a ring of smoke and chuckled "No, but it did make a good test of his will to live, wouldn't you say?"
The woman scowled at the smoking man. She opened her mouth to retort but was soon interrupted.
"Enough." The man at the door spoke, his strangely accented voice seemed to vibrate the room.
The smoking man smirked and took a puff on his cigar, the flaring embers illuminating the shadows on his face. I felt like I had seen him somewhere before.
Neither the man with the cigar or the woman spoke as they both turned their attention to this man in the shadows, the crackling of the fire and the howling winds were the only noise as our silence dragged on.
I may not have been able to see them but I felt the eyes of this second man on me, sizing me up or trying to find something. Occasionally the man on the couch would take another puff and the woman would fret nervously under the silence.
I got tired of it all quickly and decided to bite the bullet.
"Excuse me." I said, my voice still somewhat shaky from the cold. "Would you three be the associates that Columbia mentioned?"
The second man finally stepped into the light, his skin tone being a few shades darker than mine that almost seemed an auburn red in the firelight, and his square face gave off the impression of a man carved from stone. The man's pitch black hair and dark eyes made him seem rather imposing despite being a bit below average height, he was wearing a heavy deerskin coat and kept his hair out of his eyes with a plain bandanna.
The man on the couch spoke first, plucking the cigar from his mouth and raising it up in a mock solute; "Thomas Alva Edison."
The woman next to me cleared her throat; "Clara Barton."
"Goyaałé. Better known as Geronimo" The final man gestured to his fellows in the room "We three are to be your Guides."
I don't know if it was from shock, exhaustion, or both.
But right then and there, I passed out right then and there.