Cold

It begins, invariably, in your toes. The very extremes of your body, the ones most vulnerable in their separation from the central trunk. Trudging through the vast expanse of snow, your toes begin to feel not-so-snug within the confines of heavy wool socks and thick rubber boots. The material surrounding your feet becomes saturated with sweat, conducting the heat from your body externally. Soon enough the socks begin to feel cold themselves, uncomfortably so.

Your fingers, too, despite being locked in thick winter mittens, begin to feel the sting of the cold. Dexterity suffers, of course, the joints little by little becoming stiffer. The snow crunches beneath your rapidly cooling feet as you continue onward. The cold becomes a minor sting, then pain sets in. The movements you make with each step forward strain on the arches of your feet, making you wince from time to time.

But the pain wouldn't last long. The toes are the first to lose feeling before the rest of the foot slowly goes numb. Your feet were soon like bricks; you were able to balance on them, but you weren't entirely sure exactly where they were as you haul yourself forward. Your hands, too, were losing feeling, though much more slowly. The loss of movement now hinders your ability to flex your fingers - would you feel them even if they could curl into a fist? The cold travels up your legs, up your arms, inexorably marching toward the core of your body.

As your feet before them, your legs become stiffer as you march over a snowy hill, peering down from its peak to find nothing but another endless white field. Forcing onward, the hill seems steeper than before, forcing you to break into a bouncing run. Your knees won't bend. You fall and splash into the hard snow, wincing as it permeates the space between your thick down coat and snow pants. It would take a few moments to drag yourself back up, working the joint of your knee until you were certain the same thing wouldn't happen again.

The bottom of the hill on this side looked the same as the one before it. Trees dotted the horizon, and you used the occasional one you pass to sturdy yourself to rest for a moment. Sweat drenches the linings of your jacket, the long underwear you wore. It is the enemy, siphoning precious body heat from your skin, robbing you of warmth. Onward you move, as the sun begins to set to your right, stars slowly becoming visible like pinpricks in a tarp.

Your mind was slowing now, as if afflicted by the same condition your body was suffering from. You are on the ground again, now, laying in the snow, unaware of how you got there. Your legs will not answer your commands, numb and stiff from the effects of the cold. Your body has abandoned them, and to a lesser extent your arms. The warm blood that still flows through you is devoted to keeping your trunk and brain active, though even this emergency procedure has begun to fail.

And just ahead is a cabin, suddenly. You hadn't seen it before but you are grateful for its presence here. Finding your legs unreliable you drag yourself toward it, tugging with both arms in the snow, taking your time. Before you know it you're in front of a warm fire, curled on the wooden floor of this miracle cabin. Content for a moment, you realize that the warmth was slowly increasing. You would have been thankful for it, but soon your skin felt as if it were aflame. Shedding your jacket grants you temporary reprieve from this, but the problem grew worse and worse. Your clothing is removed, one piece at a time, though you still felt you were on fire wearing the bare essentials.

Your capillaries flare in a last desperate attempt to save you, heating your skin rapidly as they flush your flesh with the last of the warm blood pumping through you. The process was faster now that you had no insulation, the cold quickly quelling the nerves in your skin, numbing and deadening. Hallucinations were constant, though grew no more or less realistic as the higher functions of the brain were already gone. The eyes grow heavy, the head grows weary. Sleep is all you know.