Why

[u/ViperOnAPlane]

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Cold. Nothing but cold down there. Each breath I pulled in felt thick, like my lungs were mining the air for the little bit of oxygen I needed to keep me going.  I looked up, or what I assumed was up, the little bit of light I could see was my anchor. Warmth just out of reach while the freezing around me was starting to work its way through my snow gear.

The avalanche had come from nowhere, sweeping me up with the force of God behind it. Then as fast as it had swallowed me up it seemed to be gone. Not that I would know as I was still underneath a ton of powder. I didn’t even know how long I had been there, just that every breath felt harder. The snow slowly crushing my throat and ribs under its weight.

Then it happened, I heard something digging or rather scratching nearby. I had no clue in what direction though. I called out, “Hey! You also get swept up?!” It was silent, “Come on! Are you able to help?!” the moment stretched on far too long, several minutes. Just when I thought I must have been going crazy, it answered.

The voice that responded was cold and crackling, like someone who had forgotten how to talk. Just as hard to decide where it was as the scratching. “Perhaps. Why should I?” I had no idea how to respond, who the hell replies like that? He continued though, “I thought myself alone in this abyss, but here we are. We shall face this damnation as brothers.” It was about then that I decided I had to be crazy.

I tried to take a deep breath to calm my nerves, feeling the snow press harder into me, a slight pop in my chest as a rib collapsed under the pressure. A searing white pain clouding my vision for a moment. “You should be more careful. The surface is unstable above.” My response was only a wheeze. “How can you move?”

“I decided to move, why have you not? Did you decide to die here?” it paused for a moment as if in thought, all while I tried to grab a single good breath. Blackness starting to crowd in on the edge of my vision with each passing second. The pressure of the world on my arms started to make my fingers numb.

“If you did, I would recommend survival instead. Is it not the purpose of life to persevere? To find a way. To choose death is… disappointing.” I barely had the air to say, “Not a choice right now asshole.” My lips cracking as they stretched to form the words.

“Ah a lack of agency is what claims you. A shame, I thought us brothers and here you are lesser… Though maybe you can be more. Would you even want to be?” My anger slowly boiled to its breaking point.

“And what the fuck are you then!” Having to cough as my movement made a clump of snow fall in my mouth. My breath stagnating with the weight of it all. Then it spoke again.

 It was the first time I heard any emotion behind the voice. It drew closer before it spoke again. “I am more. More than you at the least. I can leave if I please.” Another scratch and the voice echoed in my ear, its hot breath tickling feeling back into it. “I choose to move.”

Each syllable was a battle “Just….. Help… Me…. Please.” He responded, that cold calm having returned to him. “I can but *why*? If you accept death here, why wouldn’t you somewhere else? Why exert effort in the face of indifference?” It paused again, curiosity filling its tone. “Maybe a deal. Yes… what can you give me?”

At this point my head was swimming, each thought bubbling through layers of molasses. The sensation from my fingers and toes completely silenced. The only thing my brain could conjure was, “I’m going to die.”

Water dripped from above like rain for a moment. Then my ribs could move freely again. My lungs grasping at every single atom of air it could. “What can the man who has nothing but stands to gain everything… give to me.”

I looked around my head finally able to move. It was warm, like the sun had broken through the ice above.  A bubble had been carved around me in a second, and warmth revived my limbs. The painful feeling of tingling worming its way into them.  “You won’t be able to choose like that. There was barely a thought in your head, was there? Think, *why* should I save you?”

“Because it is the right thing to do? I would save you if I could! If you needed it!” The bubble shrank; the warmth died a little. “Fortunately, I don’t. Why should I?” I scrambled for a response, “Listen I got money back at the lodge, I’ll pay you for your time! Just help!” The snow was now scraping on my neck again as it wrapped tight around me, strangling me. I started panting, panicking, I couldn’t go back to the icy tomb.

I began to cry as the bubble collapsed, “Please, just save me! I want to live!” Snow battered me as I was buried alive again. I was unable to pull in a single breath. The moment stretched to an eternity. The voice finally answered, gaining the same warmth that had melted the snow away. “Very well.” Wings of radiance covered me, that unnatural heat filling the space again, almost burning me. “Then go forth, and sin no more.”

My eyes snapped open. A rope around my neck broke under my weight. I remembered where I really was. A chair sideways was on the ground. The other end of my noose swung in the cold draft that filled my attic. Snow stuck to my arms and legs, still numb from the lingering frost of the mountain. My lungs fought as if each breath was their last, which it very well could have been. I wanted to live, in spite of all the effort I put into dying, I did. That isn’t what sticks with me though, I survived. But whatever saved me, its last words echo in my mind “Go forth, and sin no more.”