The Snow People

Memory transcription subject: Toly, Venlil climatologist. Location: Planet/system unknown, science ship Taoal. Date: Unknown. “Okey that should work.“ I said connecting two wires to system hoping for the star above this cursed planet to charge the computer. My hopes did met expectations. The solar panels I placed on top of the ship’s wreckage did work and did charge the computer. Computer worked fine and I pushed some buttons to start recording the video. ”Hello. Who ever watches this recording I am glad you found it but I might, or even should, be dead right now. You must be from a rescue mission or just found the wreckage and ask yourself ‘How did this happened?’. Well, the simple answer is… I don’t know.“ As I said these words my ears lowered on my shoulders. “I am just a simple climatologist and nothing more... The whole crew is…” I closed my eyes with my paws. Images of the dead crew fleshed in my brain and my body suddenly shivered. “Th-th-they a-are… a-all… d-d-d-de…” Words couldn’t come out of my moth, instead tears dropped from my eyes. I tried to calm myself down with deep breaths, tried to forget those pictures. “So, we will never know the answer…” I whispered with weaken voice and woshed away last drops of tears. “All I know Is that we were traveling to the 0R773 system, to the 3d planet in the system. I was preparing my equipment we had half of a pad. And than… I don‘t know what happened. I was thrown in the air and then back to the ground. Then I was thrown in to the shuttle and there… I passed out.” I touched my head and the place that was still covered in dried blood. “When I woke up again… There was nothing unbroken… The hangar looked horrible… everything was broken, thrown cars and shuttles, one shuttle broke the hangar doors and snow was coming through the breach.“ I said it but none of what I said I saw in front of me. I saw bodes, tens of bodes. Broken, ripped in to peaces bodes that lied all over hangar. I was quiet for some time. And then finely said. “I… I am here for… How long..? I don’t really know, the day and night cycles on this planet are messed up.” I looked out in to the window which showed a wight, covered in snow, landscape with a mountain range far-far away. “This planet is a hell-world. Even the coldest days back on Venlil Prime are nothing compared to this. There is literally -122F outside. There are no animal live, no plants, no food… To place this solar panel I had to wrap myself in several jackets. And I‘m not expecting it to work for long time because of regular snowfalls. The snow… It’s a nightmare it is almost my hight!” I made pause. The memories again’t flashed before me. How I was shaking from cold in that shuttle I found myself in. I was laying on the floor and shaking from cold, but I couldn’t walk out because as soon as I saw blood and bodies panic made me hide in the shuttle. I don’t know how much time went by but eventually I made myself go through this nightmare, only because if I wouldn’t I would die from cold. Now after what felt like several paws I could not only look at the bodes but move them. Just befor installing the solar panel I buried in snow every body I could see. Now just outside the breached there were four pipes sticking out of the snow marking improvised cemetery. Snow already covered it hiding those tens, if not hundreds, of bodes. Somehow the bodes become separate from the people they once were. Somehow the bodes become things instead of people. During that tine I had a chance to look at my reflection in one of the windows and what I saw didn’t really surprised me. Lifeless eyes, motionless ears, and dried blood on head, arms and legs. Noice of rising wind hitting my window turned me back in to reality. I looked at the window and noticed coming snowfall, if not a snow storm. I looked back to the screen and took my backpack from the floor. ”That‘s all the food left… “ I dropped the bag on the floor. “I‘m not recording it for people to know what happened. I‘m not recording it to say that I survived and to share my name or story. I’m recording it worn you. Worn you that this planet is inhabited by another sapient life form.” I replayed in my head the events that happened while was installing the solar panel. I was on the top of the ship, or what’s left of it. I was wrapped in three jackets to stay worm. Strong wind was hitting my face and I almost fell from the top a couple of times because of it. I wasn’t thinking about anything back then. I was concentrated on activating the solar panel when I heard this terrifying noise. ”AAWWWOOOOOoooo“ I really believed that the planet was inhabitable and from what I saw on the survived equipment the planet actually was. I didn’t know why oxygen on the planet was in such good proportion that I could easily breath without any other equipment, but still. Yet I heard it… A screem of a living being. It was terrifying back then but now… Now I was interested…. “I don’t know what it was. I only know that the noise was coming from the mountain range. My food shortage is only enough for about 2 or 3 paws so... I don’t try to find this creature. Maybe it was luckier then me and it have much more food or it actually lives here… In any case what do I risk here? I have only to choices. To die here from starving or to go try find my savior, or death… doesn’t really mater now…” I looked at the screen thinking if could add something but didn’t find what. “Taloy out. End recording.” And I pushed the stop button. I turned back at the window. The snow was raining from the sky and hitting the window. I coudn’t see farther then my own tail in this white mess. To go there tight now was a suicide and I am not some mad man… am I? I walked through the room and dropped on my bed. This room was my own. It somehow survived the crash-land and now was the only worm place on the ship. The ship was full of breaches and cold wind got inside and took the snow with it. My room would be as cold as the outside world if I wouldn’t find a portable, emergency lamp (PEL). It didn’t look like a lamp, but it did create warmth and light. In the lamp’s light I saw the mess of the room. My paper books were all over the floor and my clothes were scattered across the room by myself. I covered myself with the blanket and tried to sleep. I didn’t have anything else to do. While the snowfall I couldn’t go out or even in some sections of the ship. So… The only thing I could do is to try and rest till the end of the snowfall. __________________________ I slept through all the snowfall. My sleep cycle was broken long time ago so I saw no dreams or nightmares. I walk up in a bad mood and tried to stay in worm bed as long as possible but my stomach soon reminded me that I didn’t for quite a long time. I stood up from the worm bed and ate ration from my bag that I planned to use on the way to the mountain range. While eating I looked out the window to see the clear sky and sun rising from the horizon. How long was I asleep? Agh, again these cycles! Anyway it should be a good time to begin my journey. I putted on three jackets, the same ones I used before. Those jackets weren’t created to withstand the cold they were just to protect from wind back on Venlil Prime, but here even thous can be helpful. I took my backpack. It was full that I was barely able to close it. There was almost everything I found intact or working — flashlights, accumulators, SPAL, some scanners to scan possible food, all medication I could find (Though I didn’t know how to use half of it), and of course food. Placing the bat on my shoulders I turned of the PEL and with some straggle I opened the doors to the corridor. As soon as I got in to the corridor a weak, cold wind hit my face and eyes. Despite the uncomfortable feelings I got on my way. I walked through lifeless corridor and unlike the first time I didn’t see pictures of the past or good memories all I saw was the corridor itself covered by a very thin lair of snow and frost. I walked through the corridors and thought ‘What is wrong with me?‘ Just a couple claws ago I was so scared I couldn’t walk in this corridor. Every time I saw blood I almost faded away. And now… Now I‘m walking through it like nothing happened... What is wrong with me? And though these thoughts were running around my head I still walked forward. I got down through one of the maintenance ladders, because elevators, obviously, didn’t work. On the 12 floor I went through the same corridor and finely got to the hangar. The hangar still was a mess. If the corridors could be cleaned At least for a little bit, the hangar was lost cause. Cars, shuttles, and satellites were all around it. Some stuck in the walls, like the shuttle that broke the hangar’s doors, others were shuttered across the floor. It was a massacre here. Cars and shuttles killed tens of my friends… and yet… I didn’t feel anything… I am a psychopath. I walked across the hangar to the main doors, which were rammed by a shuttle. One of the doors bent outward and part of it went off the rails it was placed on. Through this created gap the snow was coming inside forming a hill. I walked up this hill, with my legs draining in snow. And with all that I finely walked outside. Four metal tubes were almost fully covered in snow. I walked to each tube and dug up them a little. I didn’t even noticed that I felt nothing standing right next to my dead friends. I felt nothing… With this small clean up finished I began my path away from the ship. __________________________ My legs were sinking in snow. The wind tried to blow me off my course. My fur was slowly getting wet from the melting snow. I walked so a long way. I still could see the ship’s corps laying far away. It was much smaller but I still could see it. Meanwhile the mountain range didn’t come any closer. I was tired and already made four stopes And ate one of the rations. The sun fully showed up from the mountains and blinded me a couple of times. This lair of snow was growing bigger and bigger with each step and already reached from the height of my knees to the height of my thighs. I didn’t like it but what could I do? The way back to the ship was useless, hopeless... As I continued on I realized that the wind become stronger. It was slowly gaining power while I was going and it wasn’t’t good. While my time being on the planet I realized that the stronger wind — the closer snowfall, and snowfall means frozen death if I will not be able to cover somewhere. realizing that I speeded up. I tried to go as fast as I could, even tried to run, but snow was stopping me. Like some real water it took away my powers. But I didn’t surrender, I couldn’t. I had to get to the mountain, I had to get there and screen like the creature that leaves there, get there and survive. The wind was growing bigger and bigger. Soon it become hard to listen around because wind blowed inside my ears and painfully screamed, what felt like, inside my brain. I was so concentrated on getting as far to the mountains as I could, that I didn’t even notice as the sky slowly was covered in black clouds. Only when the snow itself started hitting my back I realized that the storm or snowfall caught me. As I realized it I fell in the snow. I was tired, I was cold, I was thoughtless… And then… And then I suddenly realized that wind doesn’t hit my ears anymore. I opened an eye. By my own weight I made a pit in the snow. Strong wind was blowing outside but the pit was safe, only some snow particles were falling from the ‘entrance’. A plan came in my head and new flow of strength spread through my body. I stood up and took a shovel from my bag. A new feeling filled my head and hands and I started digging in to the ground. Like some non sapient animal I was digging in to the snow throwing the snow out from the quickly forming pit. I dug all the way down until I just couldn’t break the icy snow underneath. The snow peaces were still falling from above but now wind couldn’t get to me and the air on the bottom felt a little wormer. Only now that I finely calmed down and made several big breaths. I placed the SPAL in the center and then I finely relaxed. I was so tired that as soon as I relaxed my muscles I immediately fell asleep. I didn’t even laid down, I just turned off. __________________________ I woke up in a worst condition I ever found myself. My muscles were burning in pain, my ears were stuffed to the point I couldn’t hear the crunching snow. the headache was killing my head. I didn’t want or even couldn’t get up on the way. But when it started becoming colder I took all the strength left in my body and got up. With frozen and barely moving paws I placed everything I had in the bag and got on my way. I was walking much slower this time. My legs barely moved and it seemed like snow was growing higher and higher. I didn’t see where I was going. My eyes couldn’t concentrate. I saw blurry wight pictures in front of me And nothing more. The mountains become gray horizon and the sky just didn’t exist. I was walking somewhere forward and didn’t care if I will get to my destination. I didn’t want to eat, didn’t want to drink, didn’t want to rest, didn’t want to think. And yet I was thinking. My thoughts were somewhere back on the ship. I remembered my past and present, my friends and enemies, myself back then and now. Back then I was a happy and cheerful person, that one friend that can not stop talking, the one friend that was joking even if his jokes weren’t funny. And what am I now? Some mad man that goes somewhere he doesn’t even know where, for some fading hope of finding a creature maybe not even a sapient one. Why am I even doing this?! Why am I going away from safety away from the ship? Maybe I have predatory disease…? I shook my tail in disagreement. NO! It can’t be! I’m just following my instinct need of herd! Yes… That’s right. That’s… My thought’s slowly stopped as I realized that something was wrong with the snow in front of me. I couldn’t understand what it was until I walked closer and actually stepped in the problem. The snow had a dent in it. Like something square-like and relatively big, bigger them me, was placed in the snow and then taken before the snowfall. It wasn’t fragrant of the ship that broke of in the atmosphere. If that would be the case the dent wouldn’t be so sharp. The fragment would hit at an angel, but the dent looked like the object was placed at almost 90 degrees and taken almost the same way. I looked around and found another dent, and another, and another, and another. The dents were going at one direction and followed a zig-zag pattern. One on the left, next on the right, next on the left and so on. realization come to me like the snowstorms on this planet. These things are no dents, but footprints. And not just footprints. Thous were footprints of a transport, not an animal. Worming hope filled my hurt. I was right! There is someone on the planet! The scream I heard was from a sapient being, maybe even an unknown species. They might have a ship, or if not the ship maybe some food at least! I looked back to see how far did I went from the ship. And as fast the hope filled my hurt, as fast did the fear. On the horizon of wight, snowy world I couldn’t see the black corps of the ship. I tried to find It. To see a small maybe, covered in snow hill, but I couldn’t. I lost… lost the way home… That’s it… my hurt sunk. There Is only one way now… I turned back to the footprints. I easily found the direction in which the transport walked And with have hurt I began my way in to the unknown. Without hope to come back but with hope to come to the future, to the unknown.