It was all
white, as far as the eye could see; Ice under his feet, clouds over his head.
He started
moving though the ice, the skates cutting into it and propelling him forward. The
going was hard, the ice was riddled with holes, big enough for his whole body
to go through them. Reflecting pools of freezing water.
After a few meters, he
fell through one of them and found himself suddenly surrounded by darkness, the
brightness from the world disappeared, seemingly incapable to penetrate the
water under the ice. He struggled to get out, to get back to the surface, the
icy water clinging to his clothes, to his skin, like hundreds of hands pulling
him down, away from the light.
He climbed
out and kept going, only to fall again, and again, and again. Each time he was
sure he would drown, each time he thought he wouldn’t be able to climb out, each
time he was even tempted to surrender to the darkness and stop struggling
against the black water pulling him down. But he kept climbing out, he kept
moving forward.
He wasn’t
sure where he was going but he knew he had to keep moving. As he advanced
though, he found the holes in the ice were further and further apart, climbing
out proved less difficult and the water didn’t seem as cold as before, the light
seeping more and more into the darkness.
He
continued on, the holes were rare now, and less terrible to face. He glanced
back from time to time as he still had no idea where he was heading but, at the
same time, he knew he was moving towards the only way that made sense, the only
way he could go.
Forward.
