The land was completely covered in
ice, all except that one tree. I tried
desperately to focus on that tree, just to get to that one tree. My cold,
frozen feeling feet tromped on, one in front of the other, in agonizing
slowness. I raised my head to look at
the tree again. It didn’t look any
closer.
This had been happening lately. It
might have been my brain fooling me that I was moving but I wasn’t; but either
way it had been causing lots of problems. I kept on trying to get to that tree,
though; I wanted to see why it wasn’t covered in ice. But something stopped me.
There was a bear.
There was a bear.
There was a bear.
There was a BEAR!
My thoughts moved slowly through my
freezing head. I realized I needed to
move faster to get away from the bear. I
wasn’t sure I could gather the energy to run, I wasn’t even sure I could keep
trudging at the speed I was, much less move quickly enough to escape the bear.
I wanted to
run and shout and cry for help, but I was sure this ice wasn’t going to stay
frozen enough to run on for very much longer. The ice had never looked safe to
walk on.
But I
realized this was my only chance. It was either to be eaten by the bear, or
risk running across the lake. I decided to go with running and made my feet
move. It took a while, but I was able to run slowly across the iced lake.
The bear
continued to follow me.
I ran with all the energy I had left, glancing over my
shoulder every now and then to see where I was in relation to the bear. I managed to stay in front of the bear, who,
truthfully, didn’t seem that interested in eating me. It continued to lumber along behind me,
still following me, but not with much haste.
I started to wonder why the bear wasn’t hibernating.
It took me
way too long then it should have to realize that the bear was not trying to eat
me. I slapped myself.
Bad idea.
All the
energy I had left drained out of me. I fell down and crumpled up into a ball,
unable to bear the coldness of the ice. I figured that I would get hypothermia
if no one came to save me.
I looked
around. All I saw was ice, ice, ice, and yeah, the tree. The bear was no longer
in sight. It had lumbered away, probably looking for its cave. But I realized
that the tree with no ice was only a few feet away.
Could I get
to it?
I didn’t
think so, but I decided to try. After all, if the tree had no ice on it, maybe
the spot where the tree was was warm…and could save me.
That was
enough to get me up and walking slowly.
As I neared the tree I saw
something that should not be possible.
The tree was not a tree. It had
looked like a tree but as I was close enough to touch it, I realized it was
some sort of door.
It had a handle on it. I didn’t see
why I couldn’t open the door and see what it led to. It didn’t take me long
before the door was open, and I was full of energy as I had been before I had
landed on the ice and seen the tree.
As I opened the door, I saw before
my very own eyes some stairs. Very long, narrow stairs had always scared me and
here I was, seeing some of those types of stairs and wishing to see what they
led to.
I told myself it wasn’t worth it to
go down the stairs and see what was down there. But the temptation was too
much, so I found myself walking down the stairs.
Seeing there was no light, I felt
my way around and winced as I felt something slimy on the walls. I wished there
was light and that I hadn’t wanted to go down here, but I decided that going up
was going to be more dangerous then going down.
It seemed like years had passed
before I got to the end of the stairs, but it was only a couple minutes.
I started exploring my feeling my
way around again, but the walls were too far apart to have one hand on one wall
and the other on the other wall that I gave up and yelled,
“Anyone have any light here?”
Much to my
surprise, a light flickered on and a voice said,
“Took you
long enough.”
“Who are
you?” I felt as if someone was watching me. A chill went down my spine and I
turned around, as if I was going to see someone.
The voice
didn’t answer. I shivered.
“Got any
heat down here?” I asked. After all, it had worked with the lights.
“Glad you
asked,” the voice said. “Shall I turn it on?”
“Yes,
please,” I replied. “Put it on high, will you?”
“Yes,” the
voice seemed to be closer every time it talked.
I felt a blast of heat, and I was able to
relax for once. But soon enough I again felt as if someone was watching me. I
began to feel jumpy and nervous as I had before.
“Will you
please show yourself?” I wanted to know. It wasn’t normal for there to be
stairs in a tree and a voice that can’t show itself.
“If you
wish,” the voice seemed even closer. “Close your eyes, and when you hear me say
‘now’ open them.”
I didn’t
know what to do. If I closed my eyes, would the voice hurt me? If I left them
open, would I never see the voice?
“Can I
trust you?” I asked.
“I would
trust me if I were you,” the voice replied. “But I’m not you, and you’re not
me.”
I took a
deep breath and said,
“I’ll close
my eyes.”
Closing my
eyes, I was even tenser. When the voice suddenly said “now,” I was surprised
about what I saw before me.
