My scarf whips around my face, hurting much more than it should in this biting cold. Beside me, Sadie has the complexion of a ripe tomato, so I know for a fact that my face is just as red, if not more. Even with the countless layers of clothing I’m wearing, it feels like my bones are going to freeze and crack inside my body. 

“Hangin’ in there?” Sadie yells, putting one boot in front of the other, her ice pick buried in the mountainside as she edges forward, up the crudely carved icicle-bordered path before us.  

“Barely!” I shout back, grunting as I bring my own pick down, hearing a solid crack as it catches hold. I look up to the peak of the mountain, using my free hand to shield my eyes from the sun. It looks barely any closer than it did an hour ago. “I still think we should find a cave or something! Wait out the blizzard!” 

“Ah come on! We’ve come this far through it, you wanna stop now?” 

“I mean, my arms kinda hurt!” 

I can hardly hear her laughter through the blustering winds, and we continue on, despite my complaints. It’s a pipe dream anyway; a break, that is. We haven’t seen any places for sanctuary throughout the entire twelve-hour climb. 

“Look up there!” Sadie points up and to the right, and I follow her finger. A flag stands high above us, minuscule to my eye, frantically flapping in the wind. I squint at it, but I can’t make out any details.  

“It must be team twenty-four’s flag!” I shout back, watching the flag flap about, marking the furthest any of the teams had ever reached up the mountain. We had passed flags one through twenty-three on the way, stopping at each one to briefly pay our respects. “They’re so close to the top! I can’t believe they couldn’t make it the rest of the way!” 

“Maybe they could have,” Sadie grunted, and I tore my eyes away, firmly planting my boot further up the mountainside. 

“How?” 

“If they didn’t spend their time and effort building this path,” she grunted, her pick slamming into the ice again, “they might have been able to reach it!” 

“If they didn’t, and they failed, we’d have lost them for no reason!” 

“But if they’d succeeded, we wouldn’t need to have come here in the first place!” 

The climb took another half-hour, but we finally reached the tiny flat surface that the flag was planted on. I sat down beside it, catching my breath, but Sadie remained standing, gazing towards the peak of the mountain. The path ended here – beyond us was an impossibly sheer cliff face, with spikes of ice protruding all over it, leaving practically no gaps.  

“We’re so damn close,” she said, reaching up to one of the spikes and cracking it off, examining it in her hand. “We should just make a break for it. No path-building. We’d die before we even got halfway.” 

“Isn’t that the point? We build the path for the ones who come after. Each of the teams before us knew that they might fail, so they made it easier for the future teams. Like us. We can’t betray them.” 

“Are you so eager to die, Nelson?” She turned to me, taking her pack off and rifling through it. 

“I’m not. We could still make it if we carve a path.” 

She scoffed. “No we won’t.” From her pack, she pulled out a rolled-up flag. She extended the flagpole, and with a grunt, slammed it into the ground next to team twenty-four’s. “Just look. The peak is right there. I could just…” she reached up with an open hand, and closed her fist slowly, drawing it back to her. “You know? We could be the ones to come back as heroes, not to just be remembered as them. I want to see everyone again. You’re a practical guy, you know that there’s no way we’ll survive if we spend the time to carve out a path.” 

I say nothing. I just look up at the two flags, planted side by side. Twenty-four, and twenty-five. 

“Yeah. See? We both made a risk, volunteering for this year’s mission. It’s time to make another.” 

I grit my teeth, silently weighing our options. I look up at her, and see she’s holding out a hand to me, waiting for me to take it. After some time, I sigh, reaching up and grabbing her hand, pulling myself to my feet. “If we fail, I’ll kill you, I hope you know that.” 

“If we fail,” she chuckles, turning back to the cliff. “Time to climb.” 

Sadie and I begin our final ascent, using the icicles jutting from the cliff as footholds. Every single step we make, we test our weight, making sure the icicles are sturdy enough before making the next step. The cold is starting to become unbearable; my hands and feet are already numb, and my body is heading that way too. It becomes harder and harder to swing my pick, even just to raise my foot to the next icicle each time. I turn to see Sadie struggling as well, her pick slipping out of the wall now and again. 

The peak is right above us. I can see it – the glowing ball of energy at the very top, overflowing with power. Each pulse it emits sends a shattering wave of cold through my body and down the mountain, into our village. A surge of hope warms my body ever so slightly – we’re so close. One touch, and the eternal winter would be over. 

Sadie’s just above me, her fingers inches from the orb. I hold my breath as she reaches further and further, standing on her toes, before I hear a loud crack. My eyes widen, an ugly fissure sneaking across the icicle she’s standing on. She’s noticed too, turning from side to side to find somewhere to jump. 

The icicle breaks. 

Sadie screams, plummeting downwards. I take one hand off my ice pick and reach out, catching Sadie’s arm as she falls. She slams against the cliff face and I hold on as tightly as I can, noticing that my arm is bent at a very unnatural angle. At least this numbness is good for one thing. 

“Thanks,” Sadie says, out of breath. 

“Don’t mention it,” I yell through gritted teeth, trying to pull her up. 

I don’t budge. 

I frown, trying again. 

Nothing. 

I can’t lift my arm at all. 

Sadie looks up at my straining face, and gives me a small, sad smile. 

“I guess I did say it was a risk.” 

I shake my head. “I’ll get you back up. I’ll think of something.” 

I hear another crack. Slowly, I look down at my feet. The icicle I’m standing on has begun to fracture. 

“I’m sure you could,” she says, nodding her head. “Just… if you had more time.” 

“I’ve got time!” I shout, thoughts racing around my head faster than ever, trying to think of some way to save her. 

The icicle splinters even more. 

“Nelson. I came on this mission knowing I’d probably die. I was prepared for this.” 

“We’re so fucking close! You can’t just give up now!” 

“I’m not giving up.” Tears glistened in her eyes, and she slowly loosened her grasp on my arm. “I’m trusting the rest of the climb to you.” 

“No!” I scream, feeling her slip from my grasp. I desperately try to keep a hold on her, but it’s no use. Her arm slides out, and she plummets down the cliff, becoming lost in the blizzard below. 

“Sadie!” I scream as loudly as I can, my heart pounding in my chest. I hear another loud crack, and pull my pick from the cliff with my good hand, leaping to another icicle just before the one I was standing on snapped, tumbling into the ice below. 

Gritting my teeth and fighting back tears, I climb, forcing my legs to pick up the slack of my useless arm. I climb to the top of the mountain, planting my pick at the very peak, and slam my hand down onto the orb. 

A pulse of heat strikes my body, making me gasp in surprise. The orb dissolves under my hand, flooding me with warmth, the numbness giving way to an extraordinary pain in all of my limbs. The blizzard around me stutters and dies, and the ice begins to melt underneath my palms. 

I use the last of my strength to pull myself up onto the peak completely, moaning from the pain. I look down the mountain, seeing our flag – twenty-five. I grit my teeth, grab my pick, and begin to carve something into the peak. 

Sadie.