Day 12

I dreamt that night, of something new. I feel the cold wind blowing and open my eyes, I'm standing in the middle of an icy tundra, and ahead of me is a pillar of white, piercing the heavens and breaking the clouds. I know what I must do and start walking forward, slowly moving faster, the pillar unchanging in the distance. I start to run, careful not to slip, as pillars of ice shoot up from all around, making me take turns and jumps, my long coat flaring behind me all the while, never catching, but they can icy spike can never blot out my goal. Slipping and sliding, the pounding of my feet can be heard forever, across the seemingly endless expanse.

There is no other sound at first, just the reverb of running, then there's a crack, so loud, it sounds like the report of gunfire, I slide to a stop to look around, and the icicles stop growing, I catch my breath, and I see it, behind me, the ice breaking, the cracks appearing. with that I turn to my goal, only to see it has gotten wider than imaginable, and taller than I ever dared to hope, and still I am nowhere near it. I start to run again, this time pulling myself forward with the icicles as they appear and using them to launch myself further and faster than I thought possible, it becomes a cycle: Land on the ice, run several steps, leap on a growing spike and push off of it at the peak of its growth and repeat.

I am flying through the air now, feeling the cold wind pushing at my back, moving me ever further to this fortress of the element. suddenly the icicles stop growing. I stumble when I try to grab at that which is no longer there. I look back, and there it is, the spikes and pillars of ice, making a perfectly straight barrier, and then, it too shatters, I run. my goal is so close I feel it, as I feel the cracks coming faster, I throw off my long coat, and I feel the lack of resistance, and it feels faster. I throw off my jackets, speed building, the resistance lowering.

I'm going so fast, I won't be able to stop, I charge ahead, getting ready to try and break through the pillar, impossible and foolhardy sure, but I feel it's the only thing to do. Faster, and faster, everything's blurry, except the pillar piercing the heavens. Inches away I close my eyes, and crash, an explosion of noise, and I bolt up in my alcove and slam my head against the ceiling.

“fuck, shit, fuck, ow, god damn it.” I curse, my head now hurting, the dream replaying in bits and pieces in my head. I laid there, thinking about what it, not quite understanding what it all meant. After a bit, I got up and crawled out of the alcove, packed up, and walked towards the pile of rocks blocking my way.

I stared at that pile for a good 5 minutes before shrugging, light barely shining through the hole at the top, “top to bottom I guess,” I stated plainly, and climbed up again, quickly reaching the top the second time around, and started to pick at the frozen rock with my chipping hammer. At times it would take a while to clear away an inch, others would pull away after a single hit. It took a while, but I cleared out a large three-foot-wide gap, six inches tall, and I started to work my way down towards the thicker portions.

It took a fair amount of time, and my chest getting colder and colder, but I was able to clear away about a foot-foot and a half gap, more than enough to crawl through. I slid down to grab my things and take a rest, knowing that I was gonna be freezing cold in the mountain. I bundled up tightly, and held the Manaphage to my chest, thinking warm thoughts. It seemed to help, as it slowly warmed up, and the light in it slowly dimmed. I stopped it once I had warmed up enough, and started the climb.

The third time up was the easiest, my bag and bat not getting to in the way. I reached the hole quickly and climbed through with little difficulty, looking back one last time, and planted one of the sharp legs of the giant rattipede in the stone. Marking it for myself, if I ever came back for my car, not knowing how I'd take it back. Turning back to the scene ahead of me as I carefully slid down, I looked out at the short plain before me, and beyond that, the forest in the distance, green and white, lightly dusted by snow. Reflexively, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to take a picture, forgetting about the whole corrupted screen. Looking at it I noticed it had changed, the weird symbols having moved to the background, but the lock screen appeared, though it was now sporting smaller symbols. Confused, I tried putting in my normal combination, and it worked, opening up to a new home screen, with new pictograms, rather than symbols. There was a home one, a heart, a lightning bolt, a star, a speech bubble, and a diamond, confused I pressed the heart one, not knowing what to expect.

A stabbing pain shot through my head like someone had driven spikes through my eyes, it felt like when I had drained myself of mana, I dropped my phone and quickly pulled off my safety mask and shoved some jerky in my mouth. I shut my eyes and reached around with my right hand grabbing my phone and shoving it in my bag. Slowly the pain disappeared as I ate, and I slowly opened my eyes, and I saw it, a little display the top right of my vision, “WHAT THE FUCK!?” I shouted, noticing the display change a little, a bpm appearing rising from 90, climbing up as I freaked out more. Realizing what was happening I started taking deep breaths and trying to calm down.

'Okay, video game health monitoring, seriously, did selecting the heart symbol mean I chose an upgrade? What the heck, what would the other symbols do then,' I thought to myself, and pulled out my phone. The heart symbol was still there, but now it was glowing green, instead of white, and the rest of the symbols were grayed out. I tried pressing the speech bubble to see what would happen, and the screen flashed red. Turning it off, I put it back in my bag, shaking my head, I had no clue what just happened, but I knew I needed to get off this mountain, and started walking forward to the edge of the plateau.

As I walked, I started gathering snow off the ground, absorbing some, and shoving some into my bottles, mug, and bags, I was out of water and needed more. I observed the little display as I walked, and drank and ate, it changing slightly as I did, a little stomach appearing as I ate and drank, filling up from halfway, to ¾ full. My heart rate slowly rising to 105 as I walked in the cold, and my body temp showing up, slowly dropping as I got colder. I shoved the Mp into my jacket and used it to warm up a bit, raising my numbers a little bit.

Eventually, it started to get dark, and I was more than halfway to the edge. The beautiful sunset lighting my new task. I stopped and started clearing away a spot about four feet around. After digging through about 6 inches of snow, I reached the rock, and started pounding it with the Manaphage, shattering it and creating a shallow hole. I alternated between clearing and breaking and eventually dug down about a foot, the hard part being the clearing, my skill at shattering stone having greatly improved form constant use. I unrolled my sleeping bag and curled up in it, using the rocks to secure the blanket above me, to act as some sort of ceiling, and went to bed.