Chapter Text
Leonard McKenzie's boots scraped and crunched through the thin layer of snow. The places where the snow had worn away, leaving sharp ice, showed dark and dangerous in the dimming twilight. He stepped around these spots with a practiced ease that was at odds with the determination of his bearing. A freezing wind was coming from the South, but he faced it, pushing into it with only the slightest bow to his head. After a time, he stopped, turning just enough to look back the way he'd come.
Far back, half-obscured by a jutting, ice- and snow-covered hillock, sat a ship. Not large, but no mere tug, her thick hull and stout, heavy stacks stood out even from a distance, giving her the compact but powerful look of a good workhorse. The Oracle had started life as a merchant vessel, but that calling hadn't suited her, and she'd been converted to an icebreaker not long after. She and Leonard had that in common. He'd never felt at home in the shipping trade. They'd been together four years, now, and had gone across the globe, making way for less hardy vessels, and sometimes picking up odd jobs along the way. He'd kept his crew paid, and she'd kept them safe. By Leonard's reckoning, they'd done damn well.
Up until he'd stranded them both in the shifting ice of the Weddell Sea.
They'd been trapped for three weeks, now, in the increasing dark of the Antarctic fall. The days were slowly being consumed by an ever-hungry darkness, and the already-chill summer was giving way to truly freezing winds that howled out from the continent. At first, Leonard had been amused by their setback. The Oracle's heavy bow had made short work of thicker floes, far too often to even be remembered. But now, each time she plowed through, more ice moved to take its place. The glimpses of open water on the horizon became rarer and rarer, until they ceased altogether. When Leonard awoke on the morning of the ninth day, and saw the ice downwind of the ship still stained black and muddy from the strain of the Oracle's stacks the day before, he knew they were truly trapped.
Some time around their fourteenth day, Leonard felt a pull at his skin. A restless desire to go, to do. What, exactly, he was supposed to do wasn't forthcoming, so he ignored it. There were daily matters to take care of, rations to be figured – he didn't have time to give in to anxious whims.
The feeling didn't leave him be. As the week wore on, it nipped at his neck, knocking his concentration away and making even moments of rest a trying process. He was eating dinner in his cabin when he felt it starting to gnaw, again, a weird phantom of a feeling in the back of his skull. He shook it off, opting instead to walk to the ship's small galley and get another cup of (admittedly awful) powdered coffee. He'd just only left his cabin and made to close the door behind him when he heard it – the men were talking in the galley, as they were wont to do in the evenings, huddled around the small stove like the groups of penguins they sometimes saw out on the ice, but this time his own name caught in his ear. After weeks of stressful nothing, curiousity got the better of him. He let the door go, following it with his hand so it would make no noise, then continued down the hallway.
---
There was an unfamiliar sound off to his right. He turned, squinting into the wind and darkness. There was something else, not unlike the Oracle venting steam, and then two round eyes glowed back at him from somewhere on the ice ahead. They stared, unblinking and unmoving, and Leonard felt his already-chilled face grow even colder behind the fur of his hood. Although most of the wildlife he'd seen in Antarctica had been small, harmless things, stumbling penguins and too-curious crabeater pups, there were creatures here that would do a man harm. He pulled the rifle from his shoulder and reached for the bolt, fumbling when his gloved hands slipped at their task. He cursed, looking down at the gun momentarily, just long enough to get a bullet in the chamber. There was a scrape, then a splash, and when Leonard looked back up, the creature was gone.
He walked over to the hole it had left in the ice. Large, man-sized, with nail-marks where it had dragged itself up out of the water. A leopard seal, then.
If he hadn't had a gun...
He stared down at the rifle, primed but now useless. It felt heavy in his hand. Everything felt heavy and awkward, like he was moving through molasses. He'd been standing too long, and the night was only getting colder.
He swung the rifle back over his shoulder, and turned to continue on the way he'd been going.
---
There was the steam-vent sound, again, just behind him. He whirled. Too slow. Something hard and heavy slammed into his middle. He hit the ground badly, rolling in the snow, catching something sharp with his shoulder. The pain was sudden and hot, a strange mixture with the freezing cold the gash in his coat now let in. He came up quickly, driven by instinct more than actual thought, rifle in his good hand, trying to keep the injured one steady enough to reach the trigger.
There were the eyes. Huge and staring, glowing just enough to be seen. And now that they were so close, he could see the rest. Pale, long-limbed but sturdily-built. Human-shaped, but not human. The eyes were huge and black, and the face too long, rimmed by fleshy fans that swayed out from the neck like wet, glistening leaves. It bared its teeth at him, brought its hands out in front like it wanted nothing more than to grab him and tear him to pieces. He kept the gun up, pointed at its midsection. It didn't come any closer.
They stood for a moment in that stalemate. Leonard felt the throb in his shoulder getting worse. He chanced a glance, caught the dim color making its way out of his coat, the slight steam rising from the tear. The pain from the injury and the seeping cold were making their way up his shoulder. It was crawling, hair by hair, down to his chest. He felt the rifle's barrel dip, just the slightest fraction of an inch. That was all the creature needed.
It happened in an instant. It leapt. They were on the ground, together, the rifle between them, rolling and sliding, pushing and clawing and punching. Leonard felt it grab his arms and pull them to the side with more strength than he thought possible. He kept hold of the rifle, but it did him little good, pinned as he was. Now they were face to face. The creature bared its teeth, again, snarling out hissing, guttural sounds punctuated by those great fans about its neck convulsing when it breathed. Leonard writhed in its grip, but all that earned him was a quick lift from the ice, slammed back down again with enough force to knock the breath out of him, and more strange sounds all-but roared in his ear. His shoulder screamed at the movement, and he grit his teeth, urging himself stay focused. The creature lifted him again, seeming intent to bash him against the ice once more.
“Wait!”
Its expression didn't change, but it hesitated just long enough. Leonard looked over at the rifle, still gripped in his hand. The creature followed his gaze, narrowing those great black eyes. He released his hold on the barrel, letting it drop to the ice. He turned his palm up towards the sky, showing he had nothing left. The creature turned back to him again. Its nose screwed up, and Leonard braced to he dashed against the hard ground, maybe for the last time. He felt himself dropped suddenly, instead.
The weight on his arms and chest lifted, and he was staring up at the clear, black sky. He laid there, gasping, pain and adrenaline mixing freely, the rush of both making him lightheaded.
He rolled over, pulling himself into a crouch, preparing to face the strange thing, again.
It was gone.
He turned, searching the through darkness, but was met with only blowing snow and ice.
Out in the distance, the Oracle's lights glowed bright against the night.
---
The order was given the next morning, and the men dutifully went out with picks and heavy hammers, breaking the Oracle from her frozen moorings, intent on freeing enough space to let her bring her own powerful head down to bear on the ice.
Leonard could feel the tension of the previous day still simmering under their forced “aye”s, but the task seemed enough distraction to lay that aside for the moment. It would take the better part of two days to clear room for the Oracle to turn, and likely at least another day to give her the run up needed to make any sort of dent in the thick floes. From there, it was anyone's guess how long it would take them to reach open water.
If they reached open water. Leonard scrubbed at his face, tired from more than just the previous night's excitement. He felt the entirety of the last few weeks pressing down on his shoulders. This was all his fault. And now he was giving his ship false hope. He was adding to the weight of his sins with stubborn pride.
Still, what choice did he have?
If they stayed, they would die. They would meet their end from the Antarctic's cold darkness...
Or from the creatures that lived there.