It had disappeared in the snow.
I was lost.
I tried to retrace my steps, thinking if I could get back to the jutting rock, I could find the path again, but my footprints were already snowed over. I couldn’t even find the way back to where I had come. Panic was starting to seize my throat, and the cold was settling over me like a block of ice. I was wet from snow and from the several times I had fallen in it trying to get back up the hill. The more I thought about my situation, the more I panicked. The more I panicked, the harder it was to envision myself surviving. The irony of me running away from home to stay alive, only to die in a blizzard because I was so dumb as to go hiking in it was not lost on me, and I was so angry with myself that I was loudly cursing as I searched for any sign of life.
Stumbling through the woods, I tried to stay on level ground without going up or down the mountain. I figured if I was roughly at the height or above the trail, maybe I would run into it again. I didn’t mean to get lost, and if I let myself panic too much, I would end up worse off. I needed to try to think clearly. The sun was rising from the east and had already risen considerably. I had been walking toward it on the path, so I must have been parked west. That meant I needed to keep going west and stay as level as possible on my way there.
Glad to have a plan, even if it was a bad one, I kept moving. I knew I had to keep moving because if I stopped, I might freeze to death. The sun was barely visible above the trees through the storm, and I tried to keep it at my back.
Fear gripped my heart. I could just see the headlines about me being found out in the woods. I could hear Sammi screaming at my corpse about how I should have stayed with her family. Terrible thoughts galloped through my mind at breakneck speed, so much so that I almost didn’t see the smoke rising in the distance.
I was about to turn to keep the sun at my back better when I caught sight of the chimney, grey wisps floating out of the top, straight ahead. My heart lifted, and I nearly cried out when I saw it. I wanted to run through the snow, but I was already so tired I couldn’t. My legs and feet were numb and exhausted from not only the hike but trudging through the snow too. It was already packed several inches up, and as I neared the house, I could see it was almost level with the bottom step of the porch.
Climbing the steps of the porch, I tried to make as much noise as possible to announce my arrival. I didn’t want to surprise someone so they went for their gun or anything. No one seemed alerted to my presence, so I banged on the door with the side of my fist. Knocking wasn’t an option with how much my hands hurt under the woefully inept gloves I wore. Cotton, when wet, didn’t really protect much.
I was shivering so violently that I couldn’t even get the words out of my mouth when the door opened. I had planned on explaining myself in one quick sentence, hoping they would let me in, but the words stuck on my teeth as they rattled. It didn’t help that the man who answered the door was gorgeous. Tall, with chin-length blonde hair hanging down the sides of his face, piercing green eyes, and a full, well-kept beard, he was like a model for a winter gear magazine. A manly-man who manly-manned his cabin in the manly blizzard. With an axe. And probably a bow and arrow or something.
“Am I dead?” I finally muttered. It was supposed to be a thought. Something that stayed inside my head as I looked at this hot man, opening the door to what I could feel was a warm, roaring fire in his living room.
“Not yet,” he said in a voice that sounded like chocolate. “Come in.”
I nodded as best I could with a neck that felt frozen in place and followed him inside.
The cabin was roomy, though smaller than my house. It looked like there was only a couple of rooms in it. There were sleeping bags and blankets piled up by the fire, stacked up so neatly it was like they were designed that way. Everything in the cabin was like that, all neat as a pin.
“Thank you,” I forced myself to say.
“Come over here, sit on the dining room chair. It’s close to the fire,” he said.