that I even thought about wearing it this morning. Checking my phone for connection from time to time and
taking small sips of water, and I stayed like that, days melding into the nights, the storm raging on, listening to
the wind mock me and feeling it tease me, tickling my face and robbing me of moisture.
The second day was the worst. The snow beat into the shade, the snow freezing my body, making me
stiff as a board. My lips were gradually turning blue, and I was sure that my toes had already fallen off from the
cold. Profanities escaped my lips, turning into nothing as the wind stole them away. My breath came out in
smoky puffs, and I forced myself to collect the snow in a bottle, keeping it as a water source. Even though it
wasn’t the best, it would still quench my thirst. Outside, the whirlwind of snow covered the sky in flurries and
the storm raged on. I was left alone in the shade, with only the wind as my companion.
The storm was still battling for dominance, the sky ablaze and painted with a dull grey. Looking up, I
couldn’t help but let a tear leak from my eyes. This was the second day of my hypothermia, and I knew the
chances of being found soon was slim, as the storm still was going strong. The cold was so threatening that I
was practically sitting on snow, and it didn’t help my hypothermia. Even my skin was turning blue and my
movements were un-coordinated. And I spilt all my water. Stupid… It was the end. I could feel it. And I slipped
into un-conscious. My brain shut down, and my heart rate slowed.
Bum…bum…bum….bum….bum…..bum…….bum………bum…………bum………………Silence.
Almost a week later, the storm ended. The sun shone brightly down on the snow jubilant in its victory
of the long fought war. The snow had collected up to at least a few meters high, and at a distance, two yellow
dots smattered the blinding snow. On closer inspection, the two splatters of beige were actually snow removal
vehicles. And looking even closer, there were two other figures, dressed up in orange-yellow sprinkling rock salt
on the road. The smaller one, who was called Linda, then abruptly tripped on something solid. The two were
puzzled, and sprinkled more salt on the said area. After a short period of time, two short gasps rang out into the
cold wintery scene, and cold puffs of breath followed the exclamations.
Meanwhile, a middle aged man with a somewhat receding hair line with fat that clung stubbornly to
his stomach and his stick-thin, grey-haired, but still very healthy, wife were hiking in the woods. They were
mainlanders, and they usually hiked on this path. The chirping of birds could be heard, and it was just like a
usual hike, apart from one obvious difference; usually, the nature trail here was very neat and tidy, but today, an
assortment of foliage littered the dirt path. Through the cracks of where trees once stood, the Great Wall of
China peeked through, the grey contrasting greatly with the olive green of the trees that appeared dull because of
the lack of sun. The woman who was lost in reverie and didn’t notice that her husband had stopped in front of
her almost ploughed into the crouching figure of her partner, but stopped immediately and wobbled slightly,
almost toppling. Peering down, at the ground, she saw her companion picking at a laminated sheet of paper that
was half covered by dirt. Flipping it over, it was slightly wet, but because the plastic surrounding the paper, the
sheet was still intact. Seeing the a route marked on a map of their national treasure, the pair were able to deduce
that it had flown off a foreigner’s hands before or during the storm, as the wind was quite strong even before the
storm.