2025
I.
With my right hand, I hold down the eleventh button, blinking from the end of the large control panel, larger than any I have ever known, and switch over the safety cable (with a special manoeuvre, rather like when a pilot, pushed by the force of the wind, steers an aircraft around the crown of an aspen tree that would tremble just like my foot). If I didn’t calm down, I would surely get goosebumps, and cold sweat would bead upon them. With my breath quickening, my view of the world begins to blur.
If that idiot Lukas from Technical had taken my idea for filtering into account, this wouldn’t have to be happening. The thought flashes through my mind and lingers there, along with how much I wish he could be here. I realize I have to concentrate, just like when, like when we were, we were…
And then, like a snowdrop emerging from the snow, a memory unfolds.
I remember when we came back from the forest community and shook the snow from our wet clothes outside our cabin. He always tried to look as though he’d had enough of the adventure, but I knew perfectly well that he was already planning another expedition to the Echo Caves, or simply There.
He wiped his running nose on his sleeve and flashed that mischievous smile of his, waiting to see what I would say. I simply took off the red knitted hat he had inherited from Grandpa and urged him to go inside.
He tore off his heavy boots, socks and all, and without hesitation ran to put them in front of the stove. He immediately turned around and flopped his small body onto the green sofa, burying his head into the striped pillow. With his bare feet sticking out and trembling from the cold, he called out: “Auntie, I’m, I’m soooo coooold!”
I took the beige blanket from the armchair beside me and wanted to wrap him in it.
“No, what are you doing? It bites!” he cried, startled.
Then he sat up and defended himself with the drool-soaked pillow. So I immediately went to fetch some firewood, which we keep behind the cabin beneath a small shelter.
-ABNORMALITY DETECTED-
Suddenly, this message appears on the secondary display, which I have to operate with my other hand. At that moment, I stop being tossed about by the past.
Smoke begins to billow from the rotating radar, the main display shuts down, and I already know that I have to hold on—and, above all, direct the module toward a suitable surface.
It took several minutes. Luckily, I found a landing platform in an unknown area.
I think of nothing else and try to land by myself. Just as they taught me. Of course, we’ll never have to use manual controls again when we have the technology of the future. Just more bullshit.
The rescue module hit the ground malfunctioning, and I ended up on a mountain called Yandres. Rather than ended up there, I remained there.
We were afraid to reach into the firewood because various “buwgs” live in it. Or something like that, anyway. That’s what he called them.
I fill the entire large wicker basket with wooden logs and then fix my gaze for a moment on a black spider, struggling to pull its legs out from beneath the heavy piece of wood that has crushed them. It almost manages to free itself, but then a deep voice of a natural phenomenon, resembling an approaching violent storm, pulls me away from the sight.
I look up and, disbelievingly, see pieces of snow moving rapidly, rushing toward my feet, where they gather into snowballs.
Avalanche.
