Stinging and biting at my cheeks, the frigid cold is unwavering in its strength. A quick glance ahead reveals nothing but a whirling wall of white, a shivering embrace that leaves me too tired to panic. Too tired to do anything but trudge unthinkingly, robotically, forward. Snow crunches beneath my naked feet, a cold burn with each step. The clawing, trapped sensation that should be boiling in my gut is strangely absent; replaced with a passive curiosity instead. The blizzard’s power is felt in whole but it doesn’t touch me, it flows past each side and around. I am the rock between parted waters. Small, brittle shards of ice pepper the dripping bushes of my beard. They cling to the last vestige of warmth in this blinding land.
Shielding my eyes, another step forward. A sharp cracking snap sounds from my footstep, and lifting my foot finds the shattered ribcage of some ancient beast, the skeletal remains of it and its kin long abandoned and strewn throughout the blackened valley. Its as if I’d passed through some unnoticed wormhole as peering over my shoulder reveals no trace of the icy land before and so I press on, stumbling over mountains of indecipherable moving bone, tripping over fields of gazing skulls, a persistent light in their empty eye sockets following my every movement. Finally I emerge from the charred wasteland at the base of a titan so tremendous that I’m forced to my knees without struggle.
It looms for what could only be hundreds of miles into the sky, surely piercing the empty belly of space above, its peak without a doubt grazing the sun. Words provide only a feeble description for such a stupendously grand creation. Simply calling it a mountain would not suffice. It is a mountain upon mountains, a spire reaching to the very feet of the gods. The valley and everything else around begins to melt and curl away, peeling and fading into nothingness, leaving only the butte’s imposing might and my cowering, awe-stricken form; insignificant in the face of such immensity.
I was powerless to do anything when a low rumbling commenced from the depths of the behemoth and the sides began to vibrate with steadily increasing intensity. I could only watch in horror as several chunks of debris dislodged from the summit and plummeted down towards me. A deafening clap of thunder suddenly spilled from the mountain, knocking me to the ground as it shook furiously.
I felt my soul rattle in its flesh and bone cage while far above me, great seams formed around the summit until they were wrenched apart, spewing forth wondrous plumes of fire and lava. Colossal boulders cratered into the ground all around me as I knelt transfixed on the river of fire bathed in beautiful swirling reds, oranges, and yellows pouring down the mountain. The cascading tide surged closer and my skin began to rapidly darken and flake off, the crippling heat oppressively holding me down, defenseless against such lethal majesty. I did not protest my imminent incineration, the fires determination was comforting. Inevitable. Unchanging. There was no fighting it, nowhere to run and a calm acceptance began to wash over my body as my chest heaved and eyes watered.
Then, in what felt like a divine punch to the nether regions, I was launched off the ground with all the force of the cosmos and flung away from the desolation of ice, bone, and fire. Cast instead into the unforgiving oblivion of reality.
A Printed Mind 