Survival Of The Fittest

She kept…

...

Jess stopped.

It was white in every direction.

She hadn’t seen another person since she’d left the house.

There was nobody out here.

Nobody at all.

She had to turn back, had to turn back now.

But where was back?

Her body shuffled around, her movements feeling like the churning of a ship as it capsized. She pointed herself back the way she’d come from. Or somewhere… somewhere close to it

And she started walking again.

How long had she been walking for? Felt like… like miles.

No wait, shit. Wrong one. Wrong measurement. It was years. Walking for years. She’d been walking for years. Walking for years. Walking for…

Walking for…

Walking for what?

She felt like the answer was there, lodged in her brain. But her fingers were frozen, turning black and blue. They couldn’t dig it out. They were trembling too bad. She was looking for… something, perhaps? Or somewhere?

And how could she find it?

Walking… Walking for… miles. Walking for miles. Right. Walking for miles. She needed to walk. Keep walking.

She kept walking.

It was so bright out now. So clear. Daylight shone off the snow. The world stretched out, unending, around her.

Why was it so hard to see anything when it was so bright?

Everything was blurred, a lens just out of focus. Every step made her vision wobble and judder.

There was the horizon. And that was it. No landmarks. No buildings or mountains or forests or oceans or…

Or anything at all.

Just blur.

She kept walking.

Strange. The wind had suddenly stopped.

No more chill or biting cold.

Her hands were still shaking but she didn’t know why.

She kept walking.

She stopped again.

She...

Jess stopped moving.

She had a task to do. She knew that much. She thought she knew that much. There was something that she had to do and she couldn’t stop until it was done.

She didn’t… She didn’t know why she knew that. It was locked up tight inside of her, so secure that it would never escape. Who had put it there? How long had it been there?

She didn’t know what she was out here for.

She could barely tell where here was any longer. She was on her knees in the middle of it all, snow surrounding her knees and ankles. She didn’t know how that had happened. It had just… It had just happened.

And now that she was here, she didn’t think she could get back up again.

What was she doing? What had she been out here for? She had to do it. What was it? Single words drifted, slowly, lazily through her head. Walk. Task. Walk. People. Home.

Home?

She needed to…

She had to get back home.

That was right wasn’t it?

It sounded… it could be right.

Maybe.

It felt important. It sounded important in the remnants of her head unfilled with powder snow. Something that she had to do no matter what.

Home. She would make it home.

She could…

She could do it.

She just had to lie down first.

She’d be…

She’d be…

Close your eyes. Just for a moment.

Then she… Then she could.

She’d be home soon.