Disclaimer: I still don't own Sailor Moon...
Chapter 2
Maybe she was wrong after all. The lethally cold temperatures in the Artic were not quite bearable as she had assumed. Berra looked around the white, desolate environment. The sun shone without the trappings of clouds, but it did little to penetrate the ever present chill of the Northern Artic.
"Man, we're making great progress on this project!" She heard one of her colleagues shout as he jumped out of the other pickup truck. A young, loud American, Berra never thought to prepare herself for overly optimistic people like these people. She could stand people like him in short periods of time, but after that the ever present positivity would begin to wear away at her. She was secretly grateful that she was mainly on the other team, though it did have its fair share of positive thinkers.
"You know it!" Laughed someone nearby whose name she couldn't remember, "After all that work today, we've earned dinner tonight!"
Someone else added themselves into the conversation. "I don't know about you, Warner, but after two freezing hours out there, I want to earn a nice award from this project."
"Don't know about you, Henson, but I don't eat awards for dinner!"
'Will they ever shut up? If they could just not be so happy for a few hours, I may just survive until this project is over.'
At the back of the group, she followed everyone into the camp base. At the start, she had tried to be as positive and enthusiastic as all of them, in order to blend in. But from the initiation in Toronto until now, the little excitement she had for it gradually declined.
At least the food was good enough, she was sure of that. That evening, she feasted on a tasty chicken curry, creamy, spicy and so very hot. As she relished the meal, Berra gazed out the window of the building. It was still light out, despite it being late enough in the day. That was another thing about the Artic that she liked, the nights were far shorter in late spring, early summer. Though she never told anyone, Berra disliked the night. Perhaps it was a leftover from a childhood fear of the dark, but Berra could not recall ever having the same wonder of the stars, or the moon.
'Bad things come out at night.' She mused as she cleaned up her plate, along with everyone else's, 'Monsters, beasts, criminals, and those who mean no good to women…'
She sighed mentally, while pretending to participate in the group conversation about tomorrow's plan. Internally, she chided herself on thinking about the supernatural. Berra closed her eyes, and tried to get into a comfortable position on the battered couch.
'That's too childish, Berra-'
"…so guys, we're going to be travelling to different regions tomorrow…
'You're a grown woman. No need to think about monsters and stuff. You'll give yourself that nightmare again.'
"…and, uh…yeah, there is a small possibility of a storm in the afternoon. Relax guys, you'll on be there in the morning and anyway…"
That nightmare didn't reoccur as much these day, it had to be said. On the other hand, when it did come, it felt ever more threatening. The voices became louder, though still unclear. Berra still woke up just when she was about to understand their message of those terrifyingly ethereal voices. Confused as she was when it occurred, she did remember images of warfare and feelings of anger and heartbreak.
"…and after Team B is done at Point D, we'll finish up a little earlier…"
'I really should see someone about that. Maybe I've some mental health issues in my mind. That or I need more sleep.'
The idea of sleep on her mind, she opened her heavy eyes, aware that napping at the moment would not be professional. She then noticed everyone moving up from their seats. Berra sighed and made a note to pay more attention at these meetings in the future. Thoughts of her all too frequent dream slipped away as she looked over the data from the past few experiments and tried to make sense of it.
"Urgh."
She could feel the lack of sleep attacking her muscles. Despite the four cups of coffee she had since the morning, Berra only felt worse by the time her team had reached the D point. The ride over there in the jeep didn't help. The unchanging white, barren landscape did little to settle her mind and the members on her team were far too concerned with the planned events for the day to notice anything wrong with Berra. Although that was fine with her. Berra got the feeling that they weren't interested in becoming too friendly with her, for whatever reason.
'Maybe because you don't inspire conversation with your cold personality. Too reserved and standoffish to be friendly with.' She though with a quiet sigh. 'Or more likely, you're too foreign for them. With the heavily accented (but otherwise perfect) English and different background, I really don't have much in common with these young Americans and Canadians.'
Her eyes moved slowly forward northwards. It wouldn't be long now before the mission was over and done with. Berra wasn't too optimistic that the institute carrying out these experiments was overly interested in keeping her on for any other major projects. Despite what she hoped for, it seemed like she'd be returning back home with little change in her work prospects.
'And so, despite everything, nothing has changed.'
Much to her surprise, the jeep came to a halt. Opening the car door and jumping out along with the rest of the crew, she got to work. At this point in the mission, Berra was used to grabbing the equipment she needed to carry out the work. But just as she opened the boot of the jeep, her head looked up to the horizon where something caught her attention.
In the middle of the flat solitary wasteland of snow was a single hill that shouldn't have been there at all. Even from where they were located, it was plainly obvious that it was large and probably wide too. It was almost like it had sprang up out of the ground as a welcome to them.
"Huh. Do you guys see something out there? Is it me or did that just appear?" Berra's attention snapped back into the present. One of the guys, John, had noticed it too, leaning on the car door. "I didn't see that when I was driving. And no one else mentioned that…hill in the briefing."
"Hill?" One woman, Nora, exclaimed. Her face twisted in confusion. "It's more like a mound, I guess. But things like that shouldn't appear out of nowhere. Especially in an environment like this." She stepped back a bit, as if repelled by it.
"Do you think I should call the team?" Said John, pulling out a GPS phone out of his parka coat. "Maybe we're in the wrong place. Better check."
"There's no need." Said Berra quietly, getting a few looks her way, "I can check it out, you guys can set up the equipment. I won't be long."
Eyes stared uneasily at her. She didn't usually say this much.
"Yeah...but this shouldn't be here." Said Nora. "I think we should turn back. Or call the others, at least."
"If I don't look at it, we won't know how it was formed." replied Berra, "It's only a hill. It's not going to harm me."
The other three reflected on that for a moment.
"I suppose you can go look." Offered John, placing the phone back in his pocket. "It is odd that it's here in an otherwise flat landscape. Perhaps you could discover something interesting?"
"Yeah." Agreed Gemma, the other member of the group. "It's not going to stop our experiment. Just come back quickly, ok Berra?"
Almost at once, Berra jogged up to the mound, only a hundred feet away. Nora observed her team mate for a moment before going back to her responsibilities. Settling up quickly, she was well aware of the threat of the storm.
Once Berra arrived up to the mound, it was made clear to her of how big it actually was. The mound was surprisingly smooth. But by applying some pressure with her hand, Berra doubted that its structure was really made up of just snow or ice.
'It can't be an igloo, can it?' She wondered to herself, walking along to the other side, 'I'm not certain if any Intuit tribes lived or even came this far north…'
Berra's thoughts trailed away as soon as she saw it. Ever more mysterious, an opening in the mound came into her view. Inside was dark, naturally, and it was difficult to make out if or what was in there. Was it just an innocent small hole or was there some larger conspiracy at work? At that point she stopped. Her mind told Berra to go back. Return to the team and get away from there. Something like this could not bode well for her. But on the other hand, her curiosity demanded to be humoured.
Muting the shrieking alarms bells of more reasonable part of her mind, Berra stepped inside and found herself walking downwards. Like a moth to a candle, she let her feet bring her further down the steps of ice.
