Through the Ice

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.