Life on a Mountain

Okay, let's just free write.


Time passed so quickly there.

At approximately 7,000ft, I'd moved rocks back and forth for days on end. Sleeping with a blanket wrapped around myself and a tiny fire by my side, I knew. What I was building would let me live.

On the fourth day or so was when it really took form - a shape borne of necessity and hope. This would be my home. Over a thousand of the loose-fit rocks plucked and placed made my abode, squat and holey, but thickset enough to block the harsh wind that battered my soul. How I miss it -- the rock house.

I mostly ate the berries during that time. I don't think it occurred to me that I'd run out of berries. When I did run out, I tried to start hunting marmots. That's a much harder task than it sounds! Running along a rock outcropping beside a thousand foot drop, after a foot high creature born to these lands and built for them, hastily throwing rocks at it and trying to trap it up? It's nearly impossible. I caught one once. It was gamey - I ate it regardless. Best meal I'd had in months. I tended to eat the grasses, boiled up in a disgusting sort of tea. Gave me enough to keep going - you don't use a lot of energy up there, when you don't have to.

I explored every day I felt up to it. He must've known I was looking for him - but there was nothing that that would change. I knew I'd eventually find a way in, work my way down, and kill him.

When I found the door, it was over a thousand feet above my house and across a particularly unstable feeling glacier. I felt an odd wind on a rock patch - seemed to pull into the ground. I pulled a few large stones aside, and the pull only grew. I knew it then - not having seen it, but feeling the way. Just a few days' work and I'd be in. Nothing compared to the last two years I'd lived on that mountain.

The nights are what I'll remember about life there. What I'll remember the strongest. The howling wind tearing at you. No matter the house you build, the blanket you're in. The fire you huddle beside. That wind will take you up and ruin you. There was -- is -- no respite. I've certainly lost a fair piece of my mind to that wailing, screaming, unending icy blast. I think that helped motivate me, to find the door and get inside.

Once the door was visible, I knew I wasn't going back home. That I'd have to press on and finish, and that I could leave the forsaken place when I was done. I pried it up with thinned fingers and sinewy strength. It came free, exposing the tunnel beneath. Descending to black.

..eh, don't feel like writing more.