-1Chapter 12
Jorelo had woken up from what seemed like an ageless sleep. The dazed fudgehog eventually found he was in a room made entirely of snow. Unbelievably, the snow wasn't cold in the least and the bed he was laying on was made of the snow as with all the other furniture that surrounded him.
However the lamp that was illumining the room was in fact a real lamp. The light gave Jorelo that warm feeling as he gazed at the sight for awhile, reminding him of sitting in front of the fireplace when he was younger.
Jorelo broke the stare and rolled onto his other side, almost colliding into Pandora's back in the process. The startled fudgehog let out a sigh of relief knowing she was still alive. But then it occurred to him: Where were they exactly? Realizing he wasn't dreaming anymore, Jorelo tapped Pandora on the shoulder a few times, she squirmed slightly in place and let out a small groan.
"Pandora," Jorelo whispered softly. Seems the shoe was on the other foot this time, Jorelo was waking her up now and he felt slgithly smug knowing that. Realizing that a simple tap couldn't wake her up, Jorelo rocked her back and forth softly. "Come on, wake up."
"Uunnhh…" Pandora groaned again as she opened her eyes slowly, "what is it?" She took time to focus the image she was seeing in front of her. "Wait… Where… Are we?" The stunned pretztail turned around and faced Jorelo.
"…I don't really know, I sorta got knocked out when I fell into the snow," the fudgehog shrugged, "either we're alive or this is the afterlife," the first option had sound more realistic. Jorelo sat himself up and yawned, "…I wonder if there's anyone here besides us right now." He scanned around the room in one sweep.
"There has to be," Pandora replied, "I mean we don't just wind up alone in a place like this," The pretztail pointed out as a soft female voice soon cut into the conversation.
"I see you're both awake!" The two turned their sights on the far corner where their eyes met with a completely white, female arctic pretztail with white hair past her elbows to match.
"…So you're the one who saved us?" Jorelo assumed, admiring the pretty pretztail in the process as he had never seen a pretztail of this variant before.
The white pretztail nodded, "of course!" she walked over to them as Jorelo and Pandora climbed out of bed. "It's been awhile since I've had visitors," she smiled at the duo sweetly, "so what are your names?"
"I'm Jorelo," Jorelo announced and then tilted his head at Pandora, "and that's-" he got cut off by the pink pretztail, "Pandora!" She exclaimed, "…And yours?" She asked the arctic pretztail.
"Melony, it's nice to meet you both," she took a polite bow before the two.
"So how long have you been here?" Pandora shot another question at her. Her query really made Melony think it over.
" Um… That's a good question!" Melony answered as she smiled nervously as a bead of sweat trailed down her forehead. Both Jorelo and Pandora had exchanged looks of confusion.
"…Do you even know?" Pandora wondered, tilting her head to the side.
"…Sadly, I can only recall being here by myself for who knows how long it's been, and it seems like that would be as far as I can remember…" Melony scratched the back of her head and sighed. Jorelo decided to jump back into the discussion.
"So you don't even remember your family even?" He asked with sympathy written all over his face. Melony only shook her head.
"How awful…" Pandora sighed, feeling Melony's pain, "not being able to remember your family…"
"It's okay, it's feels like I never had one to be honest," Melony admitted, "…Like I grew up without one. It's sorta strange, knowing what I know now and never recalling how I got the knowledge in the first place…"
Pandora's cell phone started to ring, interrupting their depressive discussion. Realizing it could be someone important calling her, she opened up the phone and answered it.
"…Falkor?" Pandora spoke into it, though not a voice replied back. Pulling the phone back so she could gaze at the screen, Pandora found out her phone already died. "D-Dammit!" Pandora shouted at her phone and glared at Jorelo, "…Your phone still work by any chance?" She asked hopefully.
Jorelo took his phone off the holder on his belt and glanced at it for a few moments, it was dead as well. The fudgehog faced Pandora and shook his head with a sigh, "Well isn't that just great?" Pandora complained, letting out an irritable growl.
"Um, what the matter?" Melony's curiosity got the better of her, wondering what was so important about the objects they held in their paws as she never imagined such a thing before.
"Our phones died," Jorelo showed Melony the powerless phone. The sight had instantly filled the arctic pretztail with an enticed perplexity.
"What are… phones?" Melony questioned, hoping they would explain it in a way she could easily understand.
Pandora spoke up this time, "it's a communicator, it lets us talk to people who're far away," She summed up. "Wow… She really must live away from society… Or Prisca in this case," The pink pretztail kept her thoughts to herself.
"Oh, that sounds amazing!" Melony smiled from cheek to cheek, knowing that the capabilities of a phone were possible. "I wouldn't mind having one, except… I wouldn't have anyone to talk to," she groaned slightly, thinking of how neat it would be to use one.
"You can have mine," Jorelo offered, placing the dead cell phone in her paw.
"Jorelo!" Pandora interjected, but the fudgehog quickly cut her off, "Pandora, I can get another," Jorelo countered, remembering the matter materializing technology that Falkor operated.
"Alright then…" Pandora gave in.
"Anyways…" Jorelo started while Melony played around with the phone, "is there any way we can get back er.. Home?"
Melony snapped the phone shut in alarm. "Oh! Um, well there's quite a bit of digging to do to get out of here first, this snowstorm shows no signs of stopping," she informed the two, "I'll show you," the arctic pretztail led them through the hallway and soon into the living room where the entrance was.
Their exit was flooded with snow, "there's still one way out though," Melony reassured them as she faced the ceiling and pointed at the tunneled chimney so her friends could find it as well. The duo saw it was just large enough for them to climb up inside it one by one. Though thin rays of light were piercing through the top, letting the group know that there wasn't that much time left before they were officially trapped inside.
"We'll have to act fast," Jorelo got busy as he began to push the couch to the middle of the room, where their escape hung above. The others followed suit, pushing and piling random objects onto each other.
"Boy, am I gonna have quite a mess to clean up when I get back," Melony thought to herself as she kept stacking The group had finished in a few minutes with the effort they put into their survival.
"I'll test it out," Jorelo offered, not wanting the girls to hurt themselves if they had happened to fall from their makeshift ladder being too faulty. The cautious fudgehog scaled the mess slowly with the other two following behind him when it was safe. The tunnel above was about fifteen feet high from the floor, making it quite a climb for the trio.
Jorelo happened to reach the tunnel with some ease, he placed his paws as far as the would go into the tunnel and then put them on opposite sides and jabbed them into the snow forcefully so he could lift up his legs, soon placing them on opposite sides so he could do the ascending movement all over again.
Pandora was the next one to make it to the tunnel with Melony right behind her. Jorelo pulled himself up to what was now ground level with the snow still piling on. The dark fudgehog aided Pandora up and soon they both worked on getting Melony out from the hole. The three stood up and gazed at the billiard filled wasteland. Pandora was facing in the direction of where the snow was blowing, she cover her eyes from the blast of cold flakes.
"I can't see a damned thing," Jorelo grumbled as he kicked the snow below him, and right then and there the snow had abruptly stopped, "…Whoa."
"That was cool!" Melony was amazed how Jorelo made the snow stop falling, "do it again!"
"But I didn't do anything." Jorelo scratched the back of his head "Maybe…."
"Falkor!" Both Jorelo and Pandora shouted simultaneously. Melony gazed beyond the distance, she could make out a faint golden outline and a few glowing dots in the distance.
"Guys! I see something up ahead!" The artic pretztail alerted them as she pointed out her discovery with much enthusiasm. The duo gazed out to where her finger was directing them, and of course they saw the same thing.
"What are we waiting for?" Pandora shouted while charging towards the faint glowing formation, "come on!" The three had hauled tail to their destination, but as they were appearing to be closing the distance, the light ahead seemed to be getting more dim with every step. Their fast sprinting soon regressed into a slowly paced limp as they grew fatigued from traversing through the deep snow.
Pandora was the first one to pass out. However Jorelo didn't take notice, it was Melony who pointed it out, since she was the anchor of the group. Jorelo barely heard Melony speak up through the crunches of the snow and the bitterness of the cold started to eat at Jorelo's senses as well.
He went back for Pandora and started carrying her like Malak carried him so long ago, but Jorelo himself soon fell to the crippling chill of the snow and fainted as well. Melony took notice that they were all a few feet away from the door of the house they have been chasing.
The snow didn't really affect Melony efforts much seeing as she was an arctic pretztail. Though before running for the door, the keen pretztail took notice of the glowing marks, shimmering softly on the two piñatas. Was she just outside too long and had started hallucinating, or was it something else? She shook off the thought and bolted for the door, pounding on it hoping someone would answer it.