Entro and Agri shivered endlessly as they trekked through unforgiving snow.
Cold nipped at their essence, trying to drain them of their life.
Agri's position was decent with his thick layers of fur, large frame, and powerful body.
Entro, however, was put through a deadlier hell than even the ocean.
They had weeks of this ahead of them, alone, stomping on the edge of death.
His boots were already damp; gloves stiff with ice.
A parka he'd bought from a shady merchant in Ushuaia was proving to be fake.
He didn't mind, money only went so far.
It crackled when he moved, as the wind pierced through every seam whispering certain death.
No roads. No footprints.
Only a horizon that never got closer.
The sun hadn't set, it wasn't going to.
A constant light that provided no warmth or reprieve from the onslaught of ice.
Entro's lips had cracked open, his nose freezing solid.
His eyebrows were frosted over.
They kept walking, time passing relentlessly.
Every day the wind seemed to scream louder.Entro had to lean his entire body against Agri during rests, to keep the wind from rolling him away like trash.
He kept his sanity by counting his steps.
"Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine—"
A slip, there was solid ice where he stepped, causing him to fall down.
Face planted into snow.
Not powder, crystal-sharp ice dust, carving into his cheeks.
He struggled to his feet, resuming the monotonous walking that never ceased.
He started talking to himself, not for any other reason but to keep his throat warm and working; to fill his ears with something other than screeching wind.
"I left the ship. They didn't see me."
Step.
"Benji is probably working"
Step.
"I killed that thing for a map."
Step.
"Wonder if I can eat snow leopard."
Agri was built for survival, but even he was rendered near helpless by these conditions.
His breath came out in long, foggy blasts, ribs moved differently, tighter
They hadn't eaten in two days, they needed to conserve their food over a longer period of time.
Entro tried to scrape snow from ice and melt it in his hands.
It took forever, ice burning his palms.
The water he got was cold and bitter, but it kept his lips from peeling off completely.
Agri licked at the same pile of snow.
A blizzard rolled in, seemingly from out of nowhere.
They didn't see it, smell it, nor hear it.
It just appeared all at once.
One moment they had limited vision, the next, there was nothing.
Wind howled as snow flew sideways, pelting their small forms.Entro couldn't see more than a few feet.
He dropped to his knees, crawling forward.
He grabbed onto Agri's tail and held.
The wolf dragged him, step by step, toward a half-formed ridge they had spotted earlier.
They crouched under it, curling into each other.
White walls of snow blurred everything outside into chaos.
Entro couldn't feel his toes,any attempt at moving them came back with, nothing.
They waited for hours, maybe longer.
Even when the blizzard cleared, they didn't rise easily.
They were alive, but only barely.
Neither of them said anything, just kept walking.
His legs kept moving.
He was walking on autopilot, leaning into the snow and fighting the roaring wind as Agri paced beside him.
Keep going, that was all they could do.
They were past bonding. Past even survival.
They were enduring. Because that's what you did when you couldn't do anything else.
Entro stopped talking, his voice gave out somewhere.
The sun never left, never shifted, just loomed in the sky like an eye.
He missed night and darkness.
The snow dunes became uneven, sharper.
There were places where he had to crawl.
They crossed a frozen river, or what he thought was one.
Just a flat sheet of ice that cracked with every step, forcing them to spread their weight wide, crawling till the end.
They moved on.
The snow changed around day nine, with more powder, and less ice.
Entro barely noticed.
His thoughts were coming in shorter bursts now, simple fragments, no longer full sentences.
Keep walking.
Don't stop.
Left foot.
Right.
Cold.
Alive?
Yes.
Agri.
He hadn't seen any signs of life in days. No birds. No seals. No tracks.
Push onward.