Burning Water
Chapter 3: I Was Wandering Aimlessly
By: KalipsoNoin
For a second, he seemed to hang suspended in the air, but the feeling quickly
diminished. In less than a moment, he landed on a thick patch of ice with a
force that knocked the wind out of him. He slid a few feet on the ice, sending
his long hair cascading over the glassy surface.
He laid still for a few
moments, gazing across the cold lake and staring at the snowy trees that
scattered the shoreline before he cautiously sat up and gasped in pain. Hugging
his hand, which was twisted in a most sickening position, to his chest, he
looked up in the air as the plane, now passenger- less, advanced toward the
looming mountain.
The impact of the crash sent him flying backwards, and
he ended up sprawling on the ice as the explosion rocked the mountainside and
sent chunks of metal flying through the air. A small bolt rolled across the ice
and Zechs watched it skid to a stop next to his jacket.
He suddenly
remembered that he hadn’t been the only one who had jumped carelessly out of
that plane.
Frantically scanning the lake, his eyes sought whatever
indication they could find of the seemingly calm girl who had fallen to the ice
only seconds before him.
There was a small blue duffel bag a few hundred
feet behind him, and he slowly started to pull himself over the ice towards it,
stretching one arm over the next and digging his fingernails into the ice. In
reality, it only took him a few minutes to reach the hole, even though it seemed
like hours.
Pulling himself the last few feet, he inched forward to push
away the duffel bag and noticed the hairline cracks in the surface at his
fingertips. He shuddered and leaned forward. There was a hole in the
ice.
Little ripples stopped abruptly at the edge where ice and water met.
And what was making those ripples was softly bobbing up and down in a huddled
lump in an effort to keep warm.
She looked up into his eyes and pleaded
for help. The only thing that held her afloat was the feeble lifejacket that she
had strapped on, and it hadn’t helped prevent the blue color that was taking
over her features.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as he stretched his
hand out and grasped her arm, pulling her through the water. He slowly and
cautiously leaned further forward and pulled harder.
The ice was cracked
and thin, and hardly holding him up as it was. Under his weight and effort, it
shattered, sending him into the lake along with the girl.
Panicking, he
let go of her and tried to pull himself onto the ice before he realized that he
would never make it up in the bulky lifejacket that hugged his chest. Tearing it
off and ignoring the stabs of pain the movement sent through his hand and wrist,
he gasped as the water fully took over him, and grabbed Noin again. Smiling at
her as reassuringly as he could, he swam to the edge of the hole and took quite
a nice amount of time trying to lift himself out of the ice, which wouldn’t
cooperate with him.
It gave way under his arms, and he pushed his way
further, and, being sure to drag the bag along with him, he started breaking a
pathway to the shore. Noin, still curled together in effort to conserve heat,
did not say a word as she was pulled through the large chunks of floating ice by
the gasping young man in front of her.
Instead, she trembled, and
fingered his hair absently. She twisted it and braided it, not the slightest bit
aware of doing so. Zechs was not having any luck getting atop of the ice, but he
was having much with his pathway, and he took a second to catch his breath
before he continued on the last few yards to the shore.
