Snow Lodge
Chapter 11
Brian struck out blindly, shivering against the cold. He hadn't even stopped to put a coat on, but he was too numb to feel it. The only thought in his mind was to get to a place of safety, away from all the memories of the cabin.
There was a path, which led to the riverbank, before following it upstream to the base of a little waterfall. Brian had loved it there, it had been his calm place, where he went to think about things and get a new perspective.
He needed that now; he needed to find that calm within himself. He had lost it, and it had thrown him off balance. He was reacting to the things, not acting on them like he should be, and it meant that he was unable to step away and see what was needed. He was too close to the situation, and he needed to step back a little way.
So he carried on, ignoring the wind that chilled him to the bone, ignoring the snow that beat against his body, obscuring his view and tried to push him back. He just kept going, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to get to the place his mind felt was safe.
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Some ways behind him, AJ continued on, fighting against the wind and looking for any sign of his friend. He thought he knew where Brian was going, but he could only hope that he was right. Brian had this little cave, near a waterfall. Whenever Brian needed to think, that was where he'd go. AJ had found him there countless times, just sitting in the mouth of the cave, watching the water tumble down from the cliffs and over the rocks before carrying on down the stream.
Brian had always said that watching that little stream run along its course calmed him, and allowed him to clear his mind. AJ knew from last night how confused and upset Brian had been about everything, and that he would latch onto his little cave as the calm in the centre of his storm.
This made AJ sure that he would find Brian there. He headed down the steep path that led to the river, which was barely visible under the blankets of snow. The path looked dangerous and forbidding, and the strong winds whistled through the trees as if trying to blow AJ back. He started down the path, slipping and sliding the whole way. He cursed as he lost his footing and slipped, landing on his backside painfully. He stood up quickly and brushed himself off before continuing.
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In the meantime, Brian reached the waterfall, and headed around the small pool at the base of it to his cave. He pulled back the brush that had covered over the entrance and slipped inside. The cave was dark and damp; nothing like the way Brian remembered it. But he had only ever been here in the winter a few times before, and the weather had always been mild, nothing like it was at that moment.
He sighed deeply and looked around. He had left an oil lamp and some matches here before, and he spotted them in the corner where he had left them. He hurried over and pulled them out of the bag he had stored them in. He checked the oil before setting the lamp down on the ground, and then he pulled out the matches, which where kept in a zip-lock bag, where the dampness of the cave would be unable to get to them.
With hands shaking from the cold, Brian struck the match and managed to light the wick on the third attempt. The light from the flame sent shadows dancing across the cave walls, and Brian sat down close to the lamp with a sigh, feeling the slight heat from the flame caress his skin softly. He pulled his legs close to his body and wrapped his arms around them, as he suddenly realised just how cold he was, before sitting back to watch the shadows dance across the cave walls, his mind deep in thought.
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Back on the path, AJ reached a particularly steep section of the path, one that was tricky even without the terrible weather conditions. He began down it slowly, trying to be careful. He put his right foot down, trying to feel for a foothold in the ground so he didn't slip. He found one and shifted his weight onto it. The ground shifted beneath him as the rock came loose and AJ cried out in shock as he was suddenly pitched forward into the snow.
It was so steep that he found himself falling down the path, completely out of control. He blindly tried to grasp onto something to slow or stop his descent, until his head smacked against a protruding rock, and he succumbed to unconsciousness. His body continued to roll down the hill for another few hundred yards, until a large boulder stopped him, and AJ lay still on the frozen ground, rapidly being covered in a blanket of freshly falling snow.
