Three hundred miles away in the shadow of Mount St. Elias, the night was bitterly cold, wind tearing with white teeth over the hills and crags, whipping stinging snow into the eyes of any creature foolish enough to wander from its burrow. There was nowhere safe from the bitter cold, and the lone figure which stumbled through the vast and empty white might as well have been wandering the craters of the moon. Avery, face burned by frost and eyes wild, looked up toward the sky, but could see nothing, even the stars obscured by the furious white wind. But it had been clear earlier, and he'd seen trees in the distance. In one pocket, the cold metal of a compass burned and he pulled it out with shaking fingers to ensure he was still going in the right direction. If he could make it to their shelter, he might survive. But first there was an endless void of white to cross, the cold sapping the strength from his limbs. His body longed to stop, to lie down in the snow and sleep. There was a part of him that yearned for that sleep. It would not even be painful at this point. He would just close his eyes and never wake up. But something more primal inside him, the natural urge to survive, to never stop fighting tooth and nail for any chance to keep living, kept his feet moving. One step after the other he walked, pressing forward through the endless void, toward no better reward than a possible barrier between him and the wind.

He couldn't feel his feet. He knew if he lived through this he was probably going to lose a few toes at the very least. He'd been doing everything in his power to keep warmth and blood flowing to his fingers. He might lose his feet and live, but he'd die without his hands. He was rationing his chemical heat packs strictly. He had five disposable hand warmers right now, minus the two currently in each glove, and two reusable ones, already spent, which were useless to him until he could get them in boiling water to reset them. In his bag he still had a lighter and a little fuel, a package of water treatment tablets and a metal thermos, a few granola bars, and some spare clothing. A tightly bundled insulated sleeping bag was strapped to the top of the pack. A second, slightly damaged, he'd tied to the side. He knew his life depended on what he had in that bag and he was as grateful as his survival-numbed brain could manage that he had that much.

He wasn't thinking of much of anything. Thinking was hard when he was so tired, so focused on just continuing to move. When he could think, he worried about Dan. He wondered if the other man had made it back to the base camp and was looking for him now. Or if he was, like Avery, currently fighting for survival somewhere on the mountain. He didn't dare think about the other possibility. It might have drained the last scrap of will from him. It was easier not to think at all.

There were more pressing dangers to focus on. Like the minefield of crevasses he'd already navigated, nearly falling to his death more times than he could count. In this blinding snow you rarely saw the pit in front of you until you'd stepped in it, and Avery was hardly at his best right now. He wasn't sure where he was, but he thought he must be lower on the mountain now. He was encountering less of the gaping cracks in the stone. Instead, he sometimes heard the crack and shift of ice around him and worried he'd wandered onto an ice field. If he had, the danger was even more serious than before. But it wasn't as though he had the luxury of stopping or going around the danger. He pressed forward, and hoped it would hold.

How long had he been walking? How long had it been since the last day of climbing and the storm that had changed everything? He wasn't sure. He couldn't keep track of the days through the storms obscuring the sky and the generally blurred line between day and night this close to the top of the world. Maybe three days? He'd fallen unconscious at least twice for who knew how long so there was no telling. They had to be looking for him by now. Someone was looking for him. As long as someone was looking for him it wasn't over. He could keep going. When he and Dan got home this would become a story to tell their children. They'd never be able to complain about anything. When I was your age I was stranded on the highest vertical relief on the planet and had to walk back to civilization! Barefoot and uphill both ways! And then Dan would make a joke about how he could manage that, but not the hike to the kitchen sink to do the dishes and—

Avery's daydream snapped abruptly back to reality as he felt the ground give under his foot with the crack of splitting ice. He inhaled sharply, just enough time to swear, and threw himself forward, flat on the ice. Fast enough to stop it from giving out entirely under him, but it was already too late for his foot, which had been soaked up to the ankle and already burned with the shocking, painful cold. He dragged himself forward, too afraid to risk standing up, but he could feel the stabbing needles in his feet that were the first warnings of serious frost bite. The longer he stayed wet and exposed to the wind the worse it would get. He was now in a race against time to save his foot and, with it, his life.

He crawled as long as he dared, knowing being so low to the ground was only making him colder but afraid of standing and hearing that crack of the ice giving way again. Next time it might not be just his foot that went through. He shook with fear as he imagined himself sinking into the freezing black water. He wouldn't even be able to fight for long. A few panicked seconds clawing at the ice above him before shock seized him by the throat and he spent the last few minutes of his life insensate and limp, waiting for the end. He couldn't die that way. He wouldn't. His foot had stopped hurting. He could feel nothing below his ankle now. It was not reassuring.

He forced himself to stand up, gritting his teeth against the fear, flinching at every sound of ice creaking or shifting, and he limped onward on his numb feet.

He had to be close, he thought, his heart hammering and his chest aching with the anxiety. The trees had to be somewhere in this direction. They hadn't been that far away. If he could make it there...

He squinted ahead into the white wind that hid the world for him, praying for some sign of shelter. There was nothing but the endless white void. He stumbled and his heart raced with fear at the thought of falling. At this point, if he fell, he didn't think he'd get back up again. His foot was a numb, unresponsive stump, radiating cold up his leg. He was so tired. A few more steps, he told himself. Three more. And if the trees aren't there I'll stop.

Three steps later there was only more snow. Three more, he told himself. Three more and then I'll stop. Over and over he lied to himself, promising he would stop soon and finding the will to keep going, three steps at a time. Then two, then one, until he was dragging himself along so slowly he barely moved at all.

One more step, he told himself. Just one more. You can do one more. You're still alive. Your hands are still warm. You still have one functioning foot. You can keep going. Please, one more.

He picked up his numb foot and slid it forward a few inches, followed it with the other.

There, he thought. One step. And that's it. That's all I've got.

The chemical packs in his gloves were dying. He needed to switch them out. He barely had the strength to stay on his feet. Then he didn't even have that. He tried to pick his foot up again and instead just fell. He landed on his chest, hard enough to knock the wind out of his lungs. He didn't care. He just wanted to rest. That primal part of his brain was still screaming at him to save himself, but he just didn't have the energy left. He wanted to live. He reached out, like he might drag himself forward. But his arms shook with the exertion of moving at all. He didn't have the strength. He let his hand drop. He heard the sound of Gore-Tex against a rough surface, catching on the slick fabric. He opened his eyes and raised his head, squinting through the snow at his hand, which was resting on a tree root.

He made a wordless, animal sound of pure joy, of discovering you will survive when you thought it was over. He found the strength in sheer relief to drag himself forward. Pine needles crunched under the snow instead of ice. As soon as his back was to the tree the wind was lessened and he sobbed with relief. There was far more he needed to do, but for now he just lay against the tree and rested, trembling in gratitude. He let a long time pass, longer than might have been wise. When he moved again, he had to tug his jacket away from the tree where it had frozen to the bark.

When he could move, he stood, slow and stiff. Holding still in this cold wasn’t a great idea. With numb fingers, leaning against the tree, he reached for the torn sleeping bag. Slowly, meticulously, he tore off a strip of red fabric, widening the hole in the bag’s outer nylon cover. He reached up to tie the strip to a low branch and watched it flutter in the wind a moment, before he shuffled a little deeper into the stand of pines, where the trunks blocked more of the wind and snow.

He cleared as much of the snow away from the ground as he could, given his exhaustion, and roughly shaped it into low walls around the little den he was building for himself. He dragged a few loose pine branches over to give him a degree of insulation from the cold ground, their needles softer than the frozen dirt at least. He hung the damaged sleeping bag over an overhanging branch to further block the wind and trap some heat, making a sad excuse for a tent. The other he laid out on the bottom of his little shelter and, gritting his teeth against the cold and unpleasantness to come, pulled off his wet boot and his pants.

The nylon shell he wore over his synthetic climbing pants and insulating pants had dried quickly and could be put back on, but the water had rushed right in through the top of his boot to soak the sock and the inner layers of his pants. He had to take them off too, to be replaced by the one spare set in his bag. He was shaking with the cold, knowing he was risking hypothermia to remove them at all. But the risk was worse to stay soaked.

He peeled off his sock with trepidation wishing he didn't have to, as though if he didn't see the damage it wouldn't exist. His foot was waxy white and swollen from the frostbite, speckled red and white further up his ankle, and his toes were gray-blue and didn't move when he tried to wiggle them. It was not a good sign. If they went black, there would be no saving them. And he wasn't going to survive untreated gangrene out here. He hurriedly changed into the dry set of pants and socks, carefully rolling the new sock over his swollen foot, afraid to make things worse.

He fretted about rewarming it, weighing the possible consequences uneasily. If he rewarmed it and it froze again, there would be no saving it. He would lose the entire foot. But if he left it frozen with no idea how long it would be before he was saved, it might kill him. If he warmed it, he wouldn't be able to walk on it. But to be honest, this stand of trees was his best chance of living for any length of time. He didn't plan to leave it. Deciding the risk was worth it he put on several more socks and wedged a chemical heater in-between the layers, then wrapped his spare shirt around the whole foot and then slipped into the sleeping bag. It wasn't ideal. A lukewarm water bath would have been better, but these were hardly ideal conditions. He knew he was fighting general hypothermia as well. He needed to build a fire. But he was so tired. If he could just lay here for a little while, let the chemical heater do its work and rest, then when he woke he'd be stronger. He'd build a fire then. For now, the siren call of sleep was too sweet to resist.

He slipped into unconsciousness, and dreamed of the darkness beneath the ice. He imagined Dan walking on the ice above him, visible only as a blurry outline. He could hear the other man calling his name, not knowing Avery was just beneath him. Dan was walking toward a crack in the ice and Avery shouted, pounded on the ice to try and warn him, but the water flooded his lungs and stole his words and, cold and helpless, he sank into deeper darkness, swallowed by silence.