Hey guys! The updates will slowly start to pour in as all of the slow writing I did in July rears it's head. Don't expect updates until Friday the earliest because a ton of life things just popped up and I don't know when things will get done. Until then, enjoy!

~Blaze

Icebreaker

He dug his pick desperately into the ice, gasping as he heard another loud crack from the mountain's thick layer beneath him. He willed his glove to stay stuck to the chilled metal, mind working furiously in attempt to change this horrible situation.

He and his friends had planned months in advance to go mountain climbing, to experience something new. Over the course of those months, however, they all found reasons to cancel and on the last day there was no one but him who was willing to participate. Of course there was no time to get a refund, so he decided to not let the money be wasted and go by himself.

He hadn't known that the weather that day was going to change so drastically. He also would never had predicted that his guide was a spacey but good-hearted young woman who had almost no teaching experience.

Had he known, he would have cancelled just like the rest of his friends.

The climb had started off well. They had made it about halfway up the mountain, encumbered with safety gear and the necessary equipment on the off chance that they got stuck where they were climbing. He thought it was going splendidly, and never noticed the look on the guides face that became increasingly worried.

"I thought this was a popular place to climb. Why is it so empty today? Is it usually like this?" He asked casually. He should have noticed her initial hesitation, the way her mouth suddenly dropped open before snapping shut while her hands tightened on the straps of her backpack. As it was he only saw the snow in front of him and the ground that he was carefully eyeing for obstacles.

"I'm sure we'll see someone soon. On a day as nice as this, someone must be up here!" She said cheerfully before changing the subject. That should have been his second clue. Of course he wasn't paying attention, wrapped up in how enthusiastic the climber was about her passion and how pretty she looked as she gestured towards the nature around them.

"Does the sky look too gray to you?" He asked a while later as they were taking a small break. She glanced upwards, and this time he saw her eyes dilate with fear and her hands tremble.

"It is a little off. Maybe we should start heading back down." He agreed, body filled with a newfound tension. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to get as far away from this as he could.

The climb down had only just started when he noticed a little puff of snow falling gently in front of his face. He looked up from the ground, watching as fat snowflakes drifted gently to the ground.

"I thought you said it was a great climbing day!" He said, restraining himself from leaping at her to cause her physical harm. He didn't know much about climbing, but he was aware that some physical sports were dangerous when combined with snow, and this was definitely one of them.

"It was supposed to be a good day! I checked the weather yesterday before I-" He threw out a hand, cutting her off.

"Yesterday? Not TODAY, when we were actually climbing? Don't you know how weathermen change their minds every minute of the day? It didn't occur to you that maybe there is no one up here because they all knew it was going to snow?"

The snow started falling harder and the wind picked up, blowing it into their faces. He spat out a sudden mouthful of snow, feeling his temper rise once more.

"Are you stupid? You're supposed to be a guide? Do you even know anything about what you are doing?" He felt disgusted with himself that he didn't put any efforts in to check something that now in retrospect was a very important part of climbing anything. His mind filled with self pity and he berated himself internally. Then he looked at her again, and his lip curled as she cowered away from his stare.

"Well?" He bit out. She took on a deer-in-the-headlights look and took a step away from him.

"I'm sorry." She offered. He had to bite down on his tongue to stop a loud angry rant. Yelling could happen later. Right now they needed to get off of this ridge.

"I need you to stop being sorry and to start fixing your mistake." He turned, vision clouded in red, and took a step away from her.

"Wait don't go there! It's not safe! It's too icey." She cried out, but it was too late. His large boots and angry stomps caused the ice beneath his soles to break, and he tripped falling flat on the snow.

He froze for a brief moment as a loud crack echoed from beneath him. The snow beneath him shifted, moving backwards at an alarmingly fast rate, and he found himself falling off of the side of the mountain. He jumped to action as he felt the open air beneath his body. In one smooth movement he pulled out the pickaxe from his belt and swung it forward, hoping desperately to get it in something to prevent his fall.

To his abject relief it latched onto something, dragging a little bit through the snow before hooking onto a stone. He pulled out the other icepick from his bag with his other hand, planning to use it to get a better grip.

It was not a moment too soon, because just as quickly as it had caught on, the first pick loosened and he slipped more. He fell over the side of the mountain and for a moment it was just a free-fall with nothing supporting his body but air as he fell off into space. The wind kicked in a moment later and flung him down onto a frozen mound of ice that he began sliding down. Before he could continue falling he swung his pick to latch onto something. It stuck firmly in the ice he was sliding down and slowed his descent just enough to jam another pick into it, halting his fall altogether.

CRACK!

His mind whirled quickly through different thoughts. He pushed back any panic over falling off of the mountain, focusing instead on the lonely but emotionless thought of how grateful he was that he had worked ceaselessly to get the upper body strength that he was now using to hang from the ice mound.

CREEAAAK!

The noise that the ice was making as he slipped caused his pulse to jump and his hands to get sweaty. He cast his eyes around, trying to see how far down he had actually fallen.

"Oh my God you made it! Hang in there!" He heard from above. Right, the woman he had come with was still there. Maybe she could help him get down? But he quickly realized as his picks skidded further down that there would be no one coming down to rescue him.

"You fell a really long way down. You're actually rather close to the bottom of the mountain. Do you think that you could use your pick axes to climb your way down the ice?" She called from above. He almost couldn't hear her voice from how it was being tossed about in the wind.

He moved ever so slightly, tilting his head to look at the ground beneath them. He let out a little grunt as he slipped again. but his hopes lifted immensely as he saw how close the ground was. They apparently hadn't gone as high up as he originally thought.

Carefully he tried to move one pick from where it was jammed into the ice. As he tugged it, he shifted his weight and the pick popped free. At the same time the weight on the other pick doubled and he slipped down further.

He found himself cursing as his fall became uncontrolled and he fell a few feet down the ice. He thrust his other pick back into the snow and gasped when he jolted to a stop, ice spraying around him. He chanced another look down, noticing how far away the bottom of the mountain really was.

"Try that again! It was working!" The guide called from above. Her voice was barely audible, but he watched as she continued slowly down the mountain behind him. He didn't want to experience another uncontrolled fall like that again but was hesitant to hang there for any longer.

The ice made his decision for him as it cracked beneath him just enough for both picks to slip loose and send him spiralling down into the abyss.

The last thing he remembered was hitting a thick layer of frozen snow and ice.