Embedded in what had once been a wall, the instructor of Selena's expedition group slowly returned to consciousness.
He, along with the rest of the group, had fallen into that crack, and from that moment on, everything had gone dark.
The cold reached him first.
It seeped into his body before his mind had finished waking up, pulling him back into awareness through sheer discomfort. He didn't move immediately. He remained still for a few seconds, letting his senses return one at a time, first the cold, the most immediate thing, then the silence, and finally the awareness that he was in a rather uncomfortable position.
'What happened?' he thought as his slightly blurred vision gradually focused on his surroundings.
The first thing he saw was white. All white.
'This... is it snowing?'
He couldn't understand how that was possible.
It was the middle of summer.
There was no way it should be snowing.
