Chapter 5

I don't know how long I've just been lying here, gradually losing more and more body heat. It must be hours by now because I am woken by the morning light peeking through the trees and shining through my eyelids.

I slowly open my eyes a crack to see that Helen and I are buried to our waists in snow and an entire half of the shed is caved in. How we slept through this I will never know.

I snap my eyes the rest of the way open and dig the bottom half of my body out of the snow and begin to dig out Helen.

"Helen!" I shout, shaking her shoulder with one hand and continuing to dig with the other. "Helen wake up! Ve have to get out of here!" she does not so much as stir. "Helen! Helen ve have to get home before ve freeze!" nothing….at this point, I have finished digging her out and. I am shaking her violently, desperate to get a response to let me know she is alive.

I don't even care how I look or what anyone would think, I am crying. No, not so much crying as I am a heaving, sobbing mess. I repeat "Helen, wake up!" more times than I can count. I eventually give up and break down. My best friend in the whole world is either dead or very near death. We have to get out of here. All Helen ever wanted was to be brought home, and I have to get her there. I will get her home.

I have been sobbing for a time I lost track of, sitting on my knees with my face to the ground. I slowly lift my head and notice the sun is a little higher in the sky. With great effort and difficulty, I press my hands against the ground and push, my body up off the floor. I slowly lift myself to my feet, my body weight now being supported by my exhausted, freezing legs.

I almost pass out as my heart nearly jumps out of my chest when I hear a soft shifting noise barely sound above the now much softer but still audible wind.

"Wh-what's…hap-happening?" I hear and I am once again blinded by tears, though this time they are from joy.

"Helen!" I shout. She does not move, nor does she respond to my voice. "Helen, don't get up. I am going to get us out of here." I am as gentle as I can possibly be as I bend down stiffly, feeling colder and colder by the second, and lift her bridal style. I walk towards the edge of the clubhouse and kick down what is left of the door then emerge from the pile of frozen debris that was once our hideout.

I begin to run as fast as my icy legs can take me, my teeth chattering like mad and the tears streaming down my pale, icy cheeks freezing my face as they travel. God, I wish we weren't so deep in the woods, I fear I am closer to losing Helen with every second passing.

"Who…..who is carrying me…?" I barely hear from the once assumed unconscious person I am carrying. "B-big Brother? Is that you?" I choke back the tears but they still seem to find their way back. She really believes that they came for us. After all this, she still had faith that our families would come. I let out an almost inaudible whimper that I am certain she did not notice in her semi-conscious, delirious state.

"J-" I stop for a second. "Da, it is." I correct myself. She lets out a small gasp that I would not have noticed if she was not pressed to my chest to conserve the little body heat that we still possess.

"I… I knew you would come." more tears spill out of my eyes. I know she will not remember this if she survives, which is looking pretty unlikely as I am now on the verge of collapsing, myself. And, if she dies, at least she would have died content.

I feel I am nearing the edge of the woods which, thankfully, are incredibly close to Helen's house. At this thought, I immediately take off full speed, though now my energy is draining like I pulled some invisible plug.

I stumble as I trip on a root protruding form the ground and a searing pain shoots through the block of ice that is my left leg, making me feel as though I am an ice sculpture about to shatter. But still I run, though I feel the pain nearly double with every step I take. I begin to see more light through the trees that are now becoming more sparsely clustered in the distance, which can only mean that we are nearing the end of the woods. My lungs feel like they are on fire as I gasp desperately for the frozen air, completely out of breath, but too determined to stop running.

I gasp audibly as my knees buckle and my legs give way from exhaustion, propelling me onto my back in the snow after dropping Helen's unconscious body onto the soft ground. I am again gasping for breath as I realize that I have failed. I want to turn my head towards Helen, but I am too tired and frozen to move.

All I can do is lay freezing, my hair stuck to my face and a continuous flow of tears falling from the corners of my eyes and cascading down the sides of my face as I stare into the blurry vision of the clouds and sky being blended together by my tears. I cannot tell how loud I am sobbing, but it does not seem to matter. Nobody knows we are here.

I am now incapable of holding my eyes open any longer and slowly lower my eyelids to eliminate the black dots growing in the corners of my vision. I guess this is it. I never thought I would go like this. I always thought I would die in war, in battle. I imagined I would die like a soldier alongside my allies and bruders…my family.

Instead I am freezing to death alongside my best friend who is now expecting the same fate if she has not already succumbed to it, and our families have no idea. If only things could have been different.

I feel it is time for me to go to sleep now. I am finding it more and more difficult to even form thought and I assume my heart is moving slower and slower with each beat.

The last thing I remember is the loud and obviously approaching crunch of snow boots, snapping twigs and crushing snow with every step, and the sensation of weightlessness that can only be brought on by the act of being lifted before I am no longer able to hold my consciousness and I sink into the dark and eerily inviting blackness that is a hopefully everlasting sleep.