As he exited the reception, a cold flush of air hugged Elmer. He puffed out, not yet apathetic but growing so, letting his somewhat languid and toasty breath fly out into the air, into a grey, misshaped form. It stayed in the air but not for a terse amount of time for it lingered, a small foggy shape. It floated in the air before eventually fading. He comically shivered, glancing to Eloise on his right who had caught up with him.
He reached a stiff arm and wrapped it around her, only for Kane to walk up next to him. Elmer grew awkward; he was in a relationship, Kane was not. Elmer just smiled politely and tried to push Kane out of the conversation, for his own good, yet it didn't work.
A soft breeze of wind pitter-pattered over the trees, making snow fall off of them. Elmer had gone into some sort of daydream. Kane noticed Elmer was a little off, but he refrained from saying anything as he didn't want to spoil the moment he and Eloise may be sharing.
Rubbing Eloise's shoulder as they held their embrace, Elmer sniffed the refreshingly clean, cold air.
"I'm gonna go talk to Shelly real quick, I'll be back in a sec." Eloise released herself from Elmer as she spoke and Elmer stopped in his tracks. He chuckled to himself as the cold wrapped around him again.
Kane saw the chance and he could speak to Elmer, even if only for a brief moment. He seized the opportunity and casually nudged him on the elbow. However, Elmer gave no reaction so Kane thought he didn't tap him hard enough. With a little more vigour, Kane pushed his elbow against Elmer until he turned around.
"What the fuck?" He started angrily before realising it was Kane. His frown lit up into a fake face fleetingly. "Hi Kane." He smiled as much as he could.
"Hey, I just wanted to talk to you." Kane approached Elmer a little closer, almost touching, so they could whisper easily. "You've been moving around really odd just now." Kane looked at Elmer. "Are you okay?" Kane blinked. Elmer just gazed forward with glassy eyes.
"What do you mean?" He asked, shifting his feet from one to the other, back and forth. He glanced up and saw more wind swirling past trees, pulling the snow down from them.
"You know what I mean." Kane tried to sound jolly but came off as threatening. "Just tell me you're okay." He paused. "Please." He tried to lock eye-contact with Elmer, but Elmer didn't look in his direction.
"I'm fine." Elmer said shortly.
Just then, an abrupt and constant tapping came at Elmer's back. He trounced around on the spot and he realised it was Eloise, back from her chat with Shelly. Kane rolled his eyes, rejected and strolled back to the rest of the group.
"Hey babe." Eloise stood on her tip-toes and Elmer bent down for the two to kiss, only to be interrupted by Becca's voice.
"Okay! Health and safety!" She got a clipboard out and started reading off some of the more obvious safety precautions. She looked up and rolled her eyes as she saw Elmer and Eloise's connection. "You two!" She pointed a rude finger towards them. "One of you get here. Now." She harshly called out.
Elmer stomped his way past his peers until he was standing next to Becca. He was now blanking out everything that she was saying, just turning around every now and again to see the mountain that was on Elk Skiing Resort 180. After eyeing it up for a total of roughly a few minutes, he noticed that a couple of the rocks near the top were falling and breaking away ever so slightly. That worried Elmer. A lot.
Before he knew it, Hayden told the group it was time to go up to the mountain, trying to inject enthusiasm to the exhausted group.
Elmer missed some dialogue between Becca and Shelly, where it was evident that Shelly had asked if she could travel up in the chairlift and Becca gave her permission. He looked on as Shelly gleefully jumped over to the red, metal chairlift that would soon elevate one-hundred feet above the ground, creating a vivid and awe-inspiring scene across the ski resort.
Elmer was trotting up the mountain when Kane strolled up next to him.
"I'm sorry about what happened with Shelly." Elmer told him, somewhat lacking any real empathy.
"Ah, you don't mean that." Kane located the apathy in his voice.
"Look, I'm sorry Kane. Just take it." Elmer laughed.
"Ah, you're never one to apologize, are you?" Kane licked his lips. "So I'll just take that apology." Elmer chuckled in response, rolled his eyes and smiled. He looked straight ahead.
The mountain would get steeper and steeper as the group approached its top.
"Zane, what are you worried about?" Becca tried to comfort an anxious Zane-Nathan at the foot of the mountain.
"Excuse me! My name is Zane-Nathan!" He interrupted, wiping a tear from his face.
"My apologies." Becca sighed. Matija walked over to the pair. "Now just explain to me what-" Becca tried to continue, but Matija cut her off.
"Excuse me, but you two can't be standing around. Becca, you go ahead, I'll talk to this one." Becca nodded reluctantly and raced up the mountain to talk to the individuals near the front of the group, where Hayden was. "Now, just walk with me up the mountain and I can reassure you, everything is fine." Zane-Nathan sighed and forced himself to go up the mountain, following Matija.
"I'm sorry for causing a commotion." Zane-Nathan begrudgingly said.
"Oh no, it's not your fault." Matija sighed as Zane-Nathan looked at her. "Everybody gets scared of an avalanche." On that final word, Elmer turned around and started listening to their conversation, slyly so they wouldn't notice him.
"But I read online that-" An anxiety-ridden Zane-Nathan tried to explain his freak out.
"Ah, don't believe that bullshit." Matija chuckled slightly to herself. "They always want to try and instil some fear in people, but avalanches rarely occur here." Elmer's eye widened a little.
"But doesn't that mean that you're due one?" Zane-Nathan shook as he spoke. Elmer was still listening, panicking now.
"Not necessarily." Matija coolly replied. "Just go with it, okay?" She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Remember our talk?" Zane-Nathan smiled and the pair picked up their pace to catch up with the group.
"But he's been acting all cowardly ever since he heard talk of a fucking avalanche." Eloise grumpily stomped.
"El, he's probably just too worried about his ego to admit he's nervous." Maggie comforted her. Everyone was slightly worried about what had gotten into Elmer.
"But that geek was saying about an avalanche or some shit." Eloise groaned.
"Exactly," Maggie piped up. "He's worried about that stupid avalanche that Mr. Geek-Freak was freaking out about." She explained to Eloise.
"No, you know what; I don't care what you say." Maggie shared a puzzled look with Flavia who had turned around to overhear the conversation. "He's messed up; I'm breaking up with him." Eloise stated. Maggie looked over to Elmer who was evidently acting weird and was fazed by something, listening eagerly to others' conversations.
"Eloise, you don't wanna do that to him." Maggie started.
"Yeah, Elmer's a great guy!" Flavia joined in as she walked over to the pair.
"Bitch, what is this to do with you?" Eloise tapped her on the shoulder.
"Sorry, just trying to help." Flavia took William's hand and left Eloise to seethe.
"He messed up, Maggie!" Eloise whispered. Maggie looked defeated and didn't really want to hear any of it, so she just marched further up the mountain. Eloise finished triumphant.
"So you're saying if I put one foot wrong, nothing bad will happen." Zane-Nathan inquired. Elmer was still eavesdropping on the conversation.
"Exactly. In fact putting one foot wrong can be a good thing!" Matija chuckled again. "It helps you learn and really get to grips with skiing." She nodded to a now stable Zane-Nathan.
"Thanks." Zane-Nathan smiled at her as she walked off to meet Becca and start the lesson.
"Chin up!" Matija shouted back without turning around. Elmer was feeling all fuzzy again. His scarf blew up in his face, but there was no wind to force it to. He squinted and turned to see the trees, still blowing away snow. Elmer saw also the chairlift Shelly had got in, that was going to the top of the ski resort. She rocked her legs back and forth as the chairlift steadily progressed up higher and higher.
"Now everyone, just watch your step!" Hayden shouted out to the group as they approached a rockier path further up. Elmer turned to look back at the foot of the mountain. They were definitely too high up to bail out now. Elmer felt queasy all of a sudden as he saw William trying to start and avalanche by clapping as loud and as fast as possible. Flavia was scolding her boisterous boyfriend and he subsequently refrained from clapping again, to Elmer's relief. Suddenly somebody behind Elmer sneezed, extremely vociferous. Elmer turned to see it was Zane-Nathan who had sneezed.
"Ah, bless you." Kane walked over to Zane-Nathan and patted his shoulder.
"Thanks." He replied, wiping his nose in case of any snot.
"Why do people say bless you?" William asked.
"I don't know," Flavia shrugged her shoulders. "I think it's to piss off some devil or some shit like that." Something about that sentence didn't exactly sit right with Elmer.
"I never knew that." William smiled at his girlfriend, hinting at her superior knowledge, but she just rolled her eyes charmingly at his cheesy remark.
Elmer still didn't feel settled. He began feeling more and more nauseous as the scaled up the mountain, but he repeated to himself that it was just altitude sickness and he was just being silly. Despite all that, a bundle of fear was still trapped inside him, waiting to escape.
After marching up the mountain like toy soldiers, Becca, Hayden and Matija stopped the group. The trio stood mighty and exultant. Elmer nervously picked up his skis, as did Eloise, Maggie, William, Flavia, Kane and Zane-Nathan. Only they were the students of today's class.
"Equality!" Becca shouted to get the group's full attention. "Yes, equality! Today, we may all be of similar ages, races, nationalities, sexual orientation and so on, but remember! We all need to get along regardless. Right?" The group cheered at the somewhat irrelevant miniature but motivating speech. Elmer was the only one who remained silent. Equality. Why did that word cause such a stir? It's a good word, Elmer patiently told himself. But alas, thoughts continued to ring and ring in his head like an angry school-bell endlessly ringing out.
Maybe it means that we are equal no matter what. Maybe it signals to the fact that all of us will end up with the same fate. Dead and buried.
Maybe we are all equal, no matter what experiences we have, no matter what we've done, in something's, or someone's, eyes.
"Now!" Hayden rubbed his hands as he angled to Becca and then Matija respectively. "Who's gonna show the group how to get down the mountain?" Becca smiled and stepped forward.
She stood on her ruby-red skis and started on her way down the mountain, keeping a perfect balance and equal pace. She had no trouble with trees, fences or other various objects that she needed to avoid. She was now approaching the rocky area on the ski-path.
"Now here comes the tricky part!" Eloise giggled to Maggie.
"I hope she falls over." Maggie replied. Elmer span around again. Everything sounded peculiar to him. Like it all alluded to one thing. Without warning a shrill voice came from nearer the top of the mountain.
"There's an avalanche!" She screamed, banshee-like. It was Shelly, from her chairlift. Elmer's mouth dropped open as indeed, there was snow racing toward the whole group, rumbling and causing destruction.
"You can do this. You can do this." Becca whispered repeatedly to herself. There was a sudden commotion behind her which put her off her skiing. She turned her head around to see what it was, but messed her footing up in the process before falling face forward into the snow.
She skidded across the harsh blend of ice and rock and dropped her skis. Bloodied and bruised after bouncing along the painful rocks, she tumbled and flew down the mountain. Crunch after crunch and sickening crushes were heard from her as she neared the foot of the mountain. She eventually slid down the remainder of the mountain and proceeded to lay at the foot of it, lifeless. She was dead.
Elmer turned and starting running down the mountain in a frenzy, throwing his skis behind him. His friends abandoned their skis also and followed his down. Elmer looked to the foot of the mountain to see Becca collapsed in a bloody and broken heap, and he saw her skis protruding out of the snow, midway down.
Calling for them to slow down to assist some of the others who had been left higher up than the others was Hayden. He turned and grabbed Flavia's hand and led her past him, him remaining still. Placing one of his hands on her back, he followed her down before gently removing his hand and running more normally.
Hayden continued at a steady pace, but at a significantly slower speed compared to the remainder of his counterparts. He became distanced from them and ended up becoming a lone soldier nearer the top of the ski-resort. After noticing the length between him and everyone else, Hayden began to coolly pick up his speed. He ended up slipping down within a few steps into a quicker run and his back slammed against the ground.
Sliding down the mountain and panicking whilst it was happening, Hayden tried to turn himself around and stand up, only to fail. He did however end up continuing back-first down the ski-resort. He veered off to the side of the main skiing track and into the trees. Catching up with the majority of the group, Hayden was now almost invisible. Flavia however managed to pinpoint whereabouts he was and saw Hayden's spine slam into a tree, killing the ill-fated skiing instructor.
A small pool of blood collected around him as Flavia just stood, flabbergasted and eyeing up the sorry sight that was Hayden's body. Putting a terribly shaky hand to her mouth she let into the tears and sobbed, unknowing that the avalanche was taking advantage of her stop. It came running down, only for her to turn and see her fate, swallowing her up, only for her to come back out of the thin first layer.
"Fuck!" Flavia started. "It's fucking cold!" She moved around frantically, trying to get people's attention, but didn't even attract William's concentration. Soon enough she was covered by another, much larger and difficult layer. Elmer revolved around just to see the Spanish dancer's final moments. He then looked at William. He hadn't noticed yet, along with the remaining six that were unaware. Shelly on the other hand had noticed from the chairlift and Elmer's eyes connected with hers as grief lay upon her face. Elmer felt guilty all of a sudden, as if the avalanche wasn't going to leave her out.
Shelly was panicking in her chairlift that was still chugging along, painfully slow, and all she could do was watch as one by one her friends and associates perished in brutal and gobsmackingly horrific ways. Traumatised by the things she had seen, she tried to get out of her chairlift to help her friends. She obviously hadn't thought it through as if she were to fall she would indeed die herself. Her movements were causing the already rickety chairlift to pull against the wire holding it up. Shelly trembled, lifting up the safety bar carefully and hesitantly from the chairlift. She subsequently looked at the height she was at and dragged the safety bar back down to hold her in.
Unluckily for Shelly, the bar had locked somehow and wouldn't come back down to secure her in, staying ajar. Wiping a tear from her eye frustrated, Shelly placed both her hands on the safety bar and tried to get it to come down. It still wouldn't budge.
Shelly worriedly looked down at her fellow skiing pupils running down the mountain, the ones nearer the front approaching straight underneath the chairlift. Shelly called down to Eloise and Matija, but her vocal chords wouldn't allow her, paralysed with fear.
From the ground, however, Eloise and Matija had heard her panics and stopped in their tracks to look up, hoping she would get to safety. The wire holding the chairlift groaned and snapped suddenly, throwing Shelly out of the chairlift. Looking up in horror, Matija placed her hands on her head, watching the falling girl tumble.
Shelly smacked against the ground and lay still upon impact, spraying blood around her. Her corpse fell beside Matija, and Matija screamed in fear. She bent down to check if she was still alive, but she wasn't.
"Look out!" Kane and Elmer yelled to Matija. She turned around, confused, brushing a tear off of her face before realising that the chairlift was now falling towards her from a one-hundred-feet drop. Before she could move, Matija was crushed by the unforgiving metal seat and killed.
As one by one the chairlifts fell from the support wires, the wires flapped around in a crazy and jerky motion, long enough to touch the trees. Eloise continued running only to be suddenly and brutally sliced by a stray wire. Her bisected and bloody body flopped to the floor in a single move, only for Elmer, Kane, William, Maggie and Zane-Nathan to look on in sheer horror.
Elmer wasn't fazed by his girlfriend's death. He understood that if she died, he had to get to safety and survive. Time for grieving would be later.
As the five remaining people continued down the mountain, the goings-on caused rocks to fall and slide down the ski-resort, endangering the group further. Crumbling down to the group at a fast speed, some of the rocks broke apart, more and more as they were soiled with snow, losing their danger to the group. However, one enormous rock trundled on strong and remained whole as it approached them. William turned to see what was going on and was crushed by the bouncing boulder, leaving the four remaining skiers in a stunned mind-lapse as they slowed down their descent to the foot of the mountain.
All of a sudden, Zane-Nathan's foot gave way and slipped away from him, scraping along the cold ice. He then collapsed to the floor and plummeted further down. Miraculously avoiding each significant obstacle that was in his way including the rocks and Becca's abandoned ski, Zane-Nathan reached the foot of the mountain. Remaining prominently unharmed by his fall down, Zane-Nathan believed he was safe, as his friends watched on. However the momentum of his journey down, he continued on after he was on level ground. Before he knew it he was flung into the side of the log cabin of the reception and was left lying in an almost identical fashion to Becca.
As Elmer, Maggie and Kane looked at the sorry sight, they realised they had little time to save themselves, as the snow was coming for them. They journeyed down as Zane-Nathan twitched his leg and gave in to the pain, finally dying softly.
The trio were helping each other get down as far as possible and were successful so far, but Maggie looked around to see her colleagues corpses', she lost her balance. She fell straight onto the ski that Becca lost hold of and was impaled by the red plastic. Kane stopped suddenly, grabbing Elmer's arm and turned around to see her body flat against the floor with the ski through her.
"Oh shit." Kane bent down on his knee and tried to shake Maggie to life. Her eyes flickered open and she saw Kane.
"Kane." She moaned, her hands digging into the snow.
"Maggie, we're gonna get you outta there." Elmer sniffed, hurt by his friend's injury.
"Just go." Maggie sighed, remaining still. "The avalanche is coming anyway." Kane and Elmer looked up and she was right. "Go without me."
"No, we can't that's bullshit!" Kane was adamant to stay and help her, but Elmer gripped his arm and dragged him down the ski resort.
"Come on!" Elmer yelled as the duo ran and ran closer and closer to their final destination.
A sickening crack was heard, and without warning, a tall tree gravitated towards the ground, wiping Kane out completely, leaving blood and little more. The leaves gently shook on the conifer tree, and Elmer just stood, dumbfounded.
A more metallic and artificial crack was heard, and Elmer knew it. He turned around and the chairlift pole, holding up all of the flailing, uncontrollable support wires, was coming towards him. He let out a scream and then everything was black.
"Ah, you're never one to apologize, are you?" Kane licked his lips. "So I'll just take that apology."
"What the fuck?" Elmer gasped, startled.
"Hey, are you okay?" Kane lay a hand on Elmer, but he brushed it off, growing defensive. He flicked his head around and around, trying to figure out what happened.
"Shit!" Elmer screamed, worried as to what he had just seen.
"Zane, what are you worried about?" Becca tried to comfort an anxious Zane-Nathan at the foot of the mountain.
"Excuse me! My name is Zane-Nathan!" He interrupted, wiping a tear from his face.
"My apologies." Becca sighed. Matija walked over to the pair. "Now just explain to me what-" Becca tried to continue, but Matija cut her off.
Elmer had already seen the whole conversation. He already knew what was happening. As Matija and Becca exchanged a couple of words, Becca approached the group higher up on the mountain.
As she walked past Elmer, he grabbed her arm, still dazed.
"What the fuck, man?" Becca slapped his arm away from her, angrily.
"No! Don't!" Elmer yelled and Becca span around. Maggie and Eloise stopped their conversation, Hayden turned to see the mania, as did Flavia and William.
"Just chill out." Kane calmly put a hand on Elmer's shoulder.
"No! I can't!" Elmer pushed away his hand in frustration.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" William stomped over to the interesting chaos.
"There's gonna be a fucking avalanche, that's what!" Elmer ran his fingers through his hair in worry.
"Don't bullshit about shit like that!" Zane-Nathan pushed Elmer's body in rage, letting him fall to the snow-covered ground, letting Elmer see Shelly riding on the chairlift.
"Shit!" Elmer fumbled around on the floor and got on his feet. "Shelly! Someone get Shelly!" He pointed frantically at Kane's ex-girlfriend.