Followed

    As my eyes adjust, nothing but white comes into focus. No colour, as if everything has been bathed in bleach, stripping it all bare. My body, stuff. My legs, numb. My head? Throbbing. Intense pain or nothing at all, that is all I feel. Every step feels as if I'm running a marathon, up hill; I'm left weak and breathless.

My chest feels tight, as if a mammoth weight has been placed on my rib cage, restricting the breaths I take to be short and dissatisfying.  My throat feels as if it has been squeezed down to a quarter of its original size. Like I am suffocating. The list of things I wouldn't do for a rich hot chocolate to soothe my sore, dry throat right now is short. I conjure up what energy I have left, and I take a step. My victory is short lived. As my foot techies no more than a mere two inches off of the ground, my body gives and I tumble forward. I am still numb, but I can feel the moisture seeping through my many, once warm, layers. Any attempted to remain dry has failed.

The fall was less painful than expected. I cannot tell you if it is due to the snow cushioning the fall, or the fact that my nerve endings are about to surrender to frost bite, either way I am grateful for the lack of pain. The ground crunches and squeaks beneath me as I roll into my back. Snowflakes litter the sky above me, eventually falling to rest on my face, in my eyes and stuffing my nose. The harsh Ray's from the sun seem to concentrate on my eyes, even when I squeeze them shut, the light is determined to find its way in.

  My ears can no longer pick up the sounds of the birding singing, or the cars driving off in the distance. A constant ringing, as annoying as your alarm clock at 6am on a Monday morning. My lips are cold. Cold to the point where they're trembling, almost frozen shit. I lick my lips, in an attempt to provide them with some warmth but fail to do so. My lips are sticky and it becomes a near impossible task to rip them apart and gasp for air.

  It takes a desperate few minutes to catch my breath and I struggle to take my wet gloves off. With a lot of frantic fidgeting, my right glove finally gives, revealing a bright blue hand. My almost frost bitten hands aside, I pull myself up off of the snow bank and stagger forward. My heart beats rapidly as my legs gain speed. They're numb, and it feels as if I'm simply floating over. Field blanketed in snow. I regain my vision, and although the almost everything is still white, I spot a small blob of darkness out of the corner of my eye. With a 90 degree turn, I head straight for the house.

  My legs struggle but I manage to climb the small set of stairs leading to the front porch. When I reach the last step, my legs give way and I fall once again. The wooden edge of the rails punch my sides and I land headfirst into the frozen porch. Footsteps can be heard behind me and my heart beats faster than it had ever done in my life. A cold hand grasps my leg. The hand is much colder than anything I've experienced today, mal most as if it was made of dry ice, it burn my leg and I feel blisters forming. Another tug of my leg and my body slides down the steps, knocking my head on the hard wood until I can no longer hear, see, or feel anything.