Lisa
The horror of the first day never left her mind as their group continued travelling north. Every time the wind howled, she swore she heard the unholy shrieking of the undead. Every twig that snapped underfoot activated her threat-response, telling her they were near. She wasn't alone; She watched as her companions flinched constantly. Sometimes prompted by what they thought they heard or saw, but sometimes just because. Every time she thought she saw something moving in the forest, she had to remind herself that she was paranoid and anxious. She had to remind herself that she was just feeling fear, and that the rest of her group was feeling it too. There was nothing useful in aggravating the palpable tension amongst them. She resolved herself into feeling the fear and sharing it with no one. Bravery, she reckoned, requires fear.
With plenty of time to think, and adrenaline spurring her thoughts, she took a few opportunities in her mind to realize where she was: North of the Wall. Two years ago, this would have been a dream vacation – seeing an ancient, historical megastructure built by man at a time when it seemed utterly impossible before going north into pristine, untouched wilderness. She imagined she would have rented a cabin with her friends and built a fire in the wood-burning stove for warmth. They would have shared a cup of cocoa and told scary stories. Maybe one of them would even have a story about the White Walkers. They'd feel fear, of course, but it would have been artificial – the type of fear that you play up in your mind in order to suit the mood, like watching a cheesy horror film around Stranger's Eve. The surroundings would have been perfect. The break from the monotony of her job would have been most welcome. Maybe, just maybe, she'd even meet a nice guy somewhere – a Northern boy with a jaw like an anvil and a thick, rugged beard.
Instead, she was living a real-life horror. Though days had gone by and there'd been no signs of the undead, she still took every step – every breath – as if any moment it could all come tumbling down around her. She was a doctor, after all, trained to think rationally. It was only rational that they'd be attacked again. The past year had been constant fear, but coming here and seeking it out took it to an entirely new level. She tried to put the thought out of her mind but was interrupted by the two rangers suddenly halting their march, urging them to hush. She peered ahead to see a dark blur moving through the forest ahead. Her heart skipped several beats.
"Get your pistol out," Martin hissed at her, bringing his rifle up. She fumbled with the zipper on her coat, throwing it open and removing the weapon. They sat in terrified silence for an eternity before Beck slowly stood and walked towards it.
"Hello, brother," she heard him say, faintly through the trees. She leaned around the trunk of the pine and saw the unmistakable figure of another ranger standing before them. Our ghost, she realized. The apparition raised an arm to point to their left, saying something she couldn't quite hear before fading back into the wind. He's guiding us. She put the pistol back and zipped her coat up again as the group stood. Beck walked back towards them and said something to Lance before marching off towards where the ghost had pointed.
"Old Ben wants us to go this way," Lance announced to the group. "He says we're close."
The encounter spurred another thought for her: she'd accepted – without any trepidation – that ghosts were real. In another life, she would have scoffed at the very notion of it, but having witnessed the army of the dead, she no longer questioned anything. The only question in her mind now was: What else is real? Vampires? Werewolves? Giants? She then thought about the medical implications of supernatural beings. She wondered if she could genetically explain said beings. She wondered if the DNA of a giant could be sequenced. She thought intensely about the implication of medical vampirism. She thought about all the unused data on the undead collected by Doctor Blackwater when the crisis began. Could that data discover the permanent solution – if, indeed, it was a natural condition? She thought about Director Thompson, and how he'd been fired unjustly. She wondered if he was still around, somewhere. She wondered if any humans were around anywhere.
As the sun approached the horizon through the gray cloud cover above, and the darkness began to overwhelm them, it was the old maester who suddenly perked up. He began calling to the rangers, giddy with excitement, as he ran to the front of the group. He grasped Lance by his shoulder and pointed to an opening in the trees. The rest of the group moved up to see what had gotten him so animated. He pointed at a relief in the hill beyond them, where a break in the trees offered passage.
"Here," he urged. "I saw this place – I know it!" Lance frowned.
"Are you sure?" he asked, stopping the group. Ebrose nodded enthusiastically.
"Without a doubt," he confirmed. "When I looked into the dragon's eye, this is the first place I saw," he explained. He turned back to the group. "We're here," he announced with a smile, genuinely pleased. Lisa took a sharp breath and held it in unconsciously.
Their group marched through the gap in the trees and through the opening in the hill, climbing the gentle slope to the crest. There, they were greeted by the view of a clearing on the other side, surrounded by rocky hills and, at the furthest end, a massive, white tree covered in deep red-orange leaves. The canopy covered the entire hill it sat upon, with the roots running around the rock and snow around it. The snow piled around it, but the deep roots flowed in and around the drifts, as if challenging the very nature of the forest itself. It was majestic. She allowed herself a hopeful smile.
"Something is wrong," he said instead. The group looked at him curiously as he slowly walked towards the tree. "There's no cave," he realized. "I saw a cave, but I can't see it now," he whined. He turned to the two rangers. "Everything else looks exactly right, but I saw a cave there," he pointed, urging them to investigate. Beck looked at Lance. Lance nodded and made his way across the snow-covered plains. They watched as he trudged through the waist-high snowdrifts near the roots, stopping to examine the structure the best he could. The entire group shared a few panicked moments of silence. Surely, they hadn't come all this way for a false vision, had they?
Lance must have felt the same way, because he moved up to the base of the hill and began pulling snow away from the rocks. He pushed in as he shoveled it away with his hands before he suddenly whooped and shouted, waving them over. As they crossed the clearing together, they could see the ranger attempting to move the snow out of the way and, just beyond, a dark opening. The cave, she realized. It's there. Beck quickly approached his partner and, grabbing the entrenching tool from Lance's backpack, began scooping away large piles of snow from the cave entrance. Lance laughed with joy. Ebrose stood just behind them, his eyes wide and his mouth frozen in a delirious smile.
Soon, they had an opening large enough for them to get through. Lance went first, clicking on the flashlight mounted on the lower rail of his rifle and bringing the weapon up. The rest of the group stood outside, watching the tree line for any movement. Beck continued shoveling the snow away to ease their passage. Finally, Lance called out from inside, informing them that it was safe to enter. Beck ushered them through one by one until Lisa found herself standing inside the cave.
The cave was a narrow passage that lead deeper under the hill, with a few white roots protruding from the walls and ceiling as if to direct them down. Lance was far ahead now, with the group following him single file. She grasped at the maester's coat, apprehensive about going further but unable to stop. He turned to her and gave her a comforting smile, telling her not to worry. He stepped through the passage first. She followed him closely, hearing her own racing heartbeat over her footsteps. Finally, they reached a large room, big enough for all of them to stand in together, with the thick mesh of white roots from the tree above in the center, sprawling down into the floor and across the walls and ceiling, as if the tree itself had created the space and sucked away all of the dirt that once filled the gap. A few small gaps in the ceiling made by the roots let in enough natural light for them to see unaided.
"Look," Lance suddenly pointed his rifle at the center of the root structure, shining the light over it. "That's a skull," he pointed out. Sure enough, the unmistakable shape of a human skull could be seen buried in the roots. There was a thick root running through the eye of the skull, and upon further inspection, they found the rest of the skeleton intact with the roots filling the void between the bones.
"Mother of mercy," one of the southern troops gasped as they examined it.
"Those bones must be ancient," Ebrose observed. "Preserved by the freezing temperatures." Lance swung his rifle around slowly, looking for more evidence but finding nothing. The group fanned out in the room, examining every inch of it in search of anything that would give them a clue as to what came next. What came next was something none of them expected – a soft, female voice came from one of the dark passages off the main chamber.
"Good," it simply stated. "You've made it."