The tunnel wound on for what must have been half a mile before the dim torchlight grew sparser. Looming shadows extended into tendrils that choked out the last bit of light behind me. From my current vantage point, I couldn’t see any more bouncing dots of orange torchlight. It could be that there was a bend or turn up ahead. The alternative that there would be no more lumination down this path was an option I’d rather not consider.

I pulled out my tracking device once more just to make sure this was the right path.

Ding!

The yellow flash confirmed my direction. No, it didn’t make a noise. I just thought it’d be a cool touch.

Though the glow was easy to spot in the darkness of the hallway, it did not provide enough illumination to warrant keeping the device out. I stowed it away once more.

Onward, then. Who knew what creepy crawlies or deadly man-traps awaited me. A chill ran down my spine. I did my best to steel my mind. Those thoughts would only slow me down.

Except after a few more steps, the chill didn’t go away. At first, I thought it had just been a physiological response to fear. No, this felt different. Like somebody kicked on the air conditioning.

“It’s a fluke that I’ve made it this far.”

The words sprang into my mind of their own accord. Sure, I had a point, but in the depths of this tomb, I wasn’t exactly focused on my underdog status.

“I should sit down and rest. At least in here, I’m safe.”

Could it be safe? I had yet to hear the skittering of any more arachnid defenders. Perhaps this was a good place to stop for a while.

A breeze parted the tufts of my flaxen hair. I shivered under the leather pauldrons of my marauder armor. My nose and extremities started to numb, the blood pooling into my torso to maintain a livable temperature.

“Just lay down. I’m all out of tricks. Anything else waiting for me in this place will tear me to bits. I escaped that scorpion by the hair of my neck. Why endure a gruesome fate when I can sleep here?”

I forced myself to keep walking, despite my increased attempts to rationalize a respite. One foot in front of the other. Just one more step. Then another. My legs grew heavier with each passing movement.

Wind now howled in the chamber, barking hounds at my heels forbidding me from taking another step. I felt for the Thurma at my waist. The cold already deprived me of my fine motor skills. Gripping what felt like the handle of the pistol I squeezed off two energy shots down the narrow passage. It lit up the tunnel briefly with an orange-red glow and in that moment I confirmed nothing else lurked in the hallway with me.

A single door awaited me perhaps fifty meters away. The two laser rounds I sent to scout splashed harmlessly against it and vanished from sight. In the darkness, the after-image of two blue splotches stained my vision.

“Sit down! You couldn’t win a game of cards with a half-blind street thug, how would you expect to be a champion now? Accept the mercy offered to you!”

The voice disembodied from my consciousness and rode the thundering gale in the hallway. Malice dripped from every word. It held pure disdain for my continued defiance.

40 meters left

Just keep going. One step at a time.

A gust of wind threw me off my feet. I caught myself on my outstretched hands and bounced back up. They clung to the smooth limestone ground and I feared for a moment my skin would tear off as I pried them away.

The temperature of the room had easily dropped below zero by now. My lips chapped in the dryness of the air. My body wracked involuntarily in a constant stream of spasms. I swore I could see a light blue color creeping into my field of vision. Flecks of cold moisture collided with my face as I moved.

Snow? In an enclosed tomb?

30 meters left

I tried to hasten to a jog, but my body wouldn’t comply. It was all I could do to lean into the blizzard and keep pressing onward.

“This isn’t the coldest you’ve been, is it? No... that’s right. Do you remember that night? Her skin was ice when you found her.”

Despite myself, images of a cramped alleyway flooded my mind. Snow piled six inches high. It covered everything. It was so suffocating - that blanket of white. There she was, staining the canvas with gushing red flowing from her abdomen. A man loomed over her, knife in one hand and a credit chip in the other.

20 meters left

“You should have frozen then. Died with her. But you didn’t stay.”

“Get out of the way punk.” The man had pushed me aside. “Wait a minute. You’re not hers, are you?” He ripped me out of the snowbank by the scruff of my threadbare collar. His beard rubbed against the smoothness of my cheek. It felt like sandpaper. His gray eyes were bloodshot and his breath reeked of alcohol.

The knife gleamed dangerously close to my throat.

“You got any money on you?”

I wordlessly shook my head, tears forming in my eyes. The only thing of value to me was the coin my mother had given me years ago. I wouldn’t let him take that too.

He grunted, weighing his options for a moment before dropping me. “Just a helpless kid. Not worth it.” He muttered, stalking off into the night.

I didn’t know what to do then. He was right; I was just a helpless boy. All my life I lacked the power, the agency, to get what I wanted. Life always seemed to deal me the losing hand.

She was dead by the time I got to her.

If only I had been a man. If only I could have made more money. She wouldn’t have had to be there. To die like that.

“Go to her now. She’s been waiting for you all these years.”

The voice grew softer. It sounded almost comforting. The storm around me settled but the temperature only plunged further. I could feel my heartbeat in my eardrums.

“Lay down and rest.”

This time it was her voice. A voice I didn’t realize just how much I longed to hear. The tears in my eyes froze as soon as they formed.

“Mom…”

I stayed by her body for what felt like an eternity that night. But I couldn’t stay forever.

10 meters left

“You wouldn’t leave your mother again, would you? Would you let her die? Go to her. Save her!”

There was nothing to save. Not in this abandoned hallway, and not all those years ago. I gritted my teeth and plowed forward.

My mother’s killer had found a lost, abandoned child in that alleyway, but that is not what he left behind. That night forced me to move on. To adapt or die. To grow or be squashed under the heartless frost.

I stayed by her side for as long as I could, but it was the coldest winter on Pollux IV in a decade and my survival instincts kicked in. I had dragged myself through the snow, nothing but a bundle of rags on my skeletal frame until I found a flicker of light; the warmth of a trashcan fire some of the homeless had abandoned for the safety of their tent city. I cursed the ill circumstances of my life. I cursed the people of the city who walked by me that night, a sobbing freezing child and did nothing. I cursed the idea of fairness, of life being a game everybody can win at.

Some people won. Some people lost. I wouldn’t be a loser anymore.

5 meters left

“Cease this foolishness! You are the scum of humanity, fit only to feed on scraps from the table! You cannot defy me. You cannot defy fate!”

The voice returned in force, as did the blizzard from before. Hail billowed from an unseen tempest, tearing at my flesh. I closed my eyes and reached out my hands, cuts, and welts forming on my palms and forearms as I felt for the door.

Thud.

I made contact.

With the last bit of strength, I forced myself through the doorway, edging it open just enough to slip my body through the crack.

“You will not leave this place alive! I will add your soul to my well and you will languish in my wrath for eternity!”

I slammed the door shut behind me. The storm ceased, the voice died out, and I fell to my knees.