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Mark needed to get out of the house. After the unexpected blizzard, everything had shut down, grocery stores, shops, the power. He needed to do something. Luckily for him, so did Chica and Henry! He asked Amy if she wanted to join him, but she had some work to do. He put on his boots, coat, hat, and gloves because it was below freezing out and he knew better than to risk getting frostbite. He even put some winter gear on the dogs!
When he left the house, everything was white. The whole entire world was covered by a blanket. No plows had come to clean the roads and none of his neighbors had dared to go outside yet, so there were no imperfections in the snow yet. Even the sky was white, completely covered in white clouds. There was almost no distinction between the ground and the sky, if not for the shadows the trees had cast.
Because they were only visiting for the winter, Mark didn’t have a clear walk that was good for them yet. He had explored the area, but he wasn’t familiar enough to go out by memory. Unfortunately, he still thought it would be a good idea. The walk wasn’t too bad, in fact the snow was fun to play in. The dogs seemed to be having a good time.
Henry was having a pretty good time jumping around in the high snow. Chica loved running around and clearing paths. Mark was enjoying the scenery, but he turned for a second and Chica ran into the forest. He didn’t want to let her get too far out of sight because it would be extremely hard finding her and making sure she didn’t get hurt from the cold. He lightly jogged to go after her, but he forgot about Henry who also made a dash for the forest. When he caught up to the two of them, his heart dropped.
They were licking a bloody body in the snow.
The air was heavy, the first thing he noticed. He also noticed that his body was burning. Also his neck hurt a lot.
The first two things could be explained by the warm blanket that was on him. Because of the hypothermia, his body was extremely weak, so even the blanket seemed heavy. He was also suffering from the numbness receding and feeling coming back into his body. This meant that he would actually feel how cold he was.
The third thing was a different reason. We’ll get to that later.
Everything was very dark, but then he realized his eyes were closed. He tried to open them, but it felt like they were glued shut. He tried to call for help, but his throat burned and no sound came out. He tried to struggle, but his body wouldn’t move. He was about to give up, but that’s when he heard a door open and a woman say, “Hey buddy! Don’t worry, you’re safe, we’re gonna take care of you.”
He didn’t know if he should believe her, but he didn’t really have a choice, so he drifted off to sleep.
He woke up a couple times, but only to hear words and phrases.
“What should I have done? Leave him there to…”
“…doctors take a look at him and see…”
“Hypothermia?”
“…severe and has a high probability of getting worse without surgery…”
“What can we do?”
“Will he wake up?”
His body wasn’t burning anymore, but he still felt incredibly weak when he woke up. He could also open his eyes!
There was a man and a woman sitting in the corner of the room. The room seemed to be a room in a hospital? What was he doing in a hospital? He was about to say something when a nurse came in.