Skip slipped, fell flat on his back, and still continued to slide away on the ice.

     He heard his name called.

     He opened his eyes, but all he could see was snow.

     He couldn't see his family or the algren or anything else. 

     Cold slammed into him like a force that attacked from all sides. The clothes he wore were meant for a climate a thousand miles south. It didn't even occur to him to try to get to his feet, he was in such shock. His skin felt assaulted by pins and needles for, tops, fifteen seconds before his sense of touch broke down and Skip felt nothing. 

     That scared the shit out of him. 

​     He screamed, but it got lost in the roaring winds.

     Oh fuck, he thought. I'm going to fucking die.

     Terror rose in him to become his only emotion, but even that got tamped down as frigidity embraced and overcame it.

     He saw only whiteness. He couldn't be sure, at that moment, if even his ​eyes weren't frozen. 

CONTINUE