splash

Chapter Eleven: Freezing Point

'Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in..... Breathe out.... Breathe in... Breathe out.'

I raised both of me hands to the air and I took me last breath before I smashed me hands into the center of the North Pole.

Ice began to form like never before. A hill - No, a mountain of ice was forming under me as my surroundings froze as well. The sound of ice cracking and breaking under the new ice that was forming is a real ear-killer. Above me, the wind was blowing like a cyclone, created by the massive waves of heat and cold I was producing from the inhuman friction my hands took upon them and ice. The empty sea and ice began to be covered by a powerful wave of stormy ice plates and bergs that were popping from the sea and ice that I created ceaselessly and endlessly. 'I have never created such a quantity with such intensity' I thought. All I could see were me arms, from the elbow up. I was starting to lose strength but I didn't allow meself to give up for even a moment. Thoughts started running through me head, 'This day will make the first and significant step back to the previous, warmer era... I could visit New York. The real New York.'
The shattering and the joined forces of the old and new ice filled me ears. I could hardly think or even hear me own thoughts, but a different cracking noise caught me attention in all this astronomical mess and chaos and it came from me hands. During all the chaos and intense feelings of pride and success the adrenaline prevented me from feeling the inconceivable burning pain me hands felt from the heat of friction between the ice and me hands. I could feel me muscles cracking and melting simultaneously from the burning heat and the freezing cold. 'A little funny that while freezing the sea I actually warm meself up.' I thought to meself with a childish grin, but I began to get worried. I knew that even though I did not feel the pain from the adrenaline rush, by the end of it all me hands would get ripped apart. But it's worth it. I would not hear the 'splash' anymore... I could go back to living in Iceland.

The ice stormed around me, the hot and cold wind connected to powerful currents and the whole experience felt as if nature itself awoke from a long slumber. Unstable ice pillars began to collapse around me and create cracks that filled instantly in new waves of ice. The noise around me was ear shattering, but I had to keep going. I have yet to return a tenth of what the pole once had, but at the height of it all... Euphoria.

Crack!

No matter how much adrenaline you will pump into your body, no amount will help in the face of the unimaginable pain of your right hand shattering into thousands of shards of ice. Me heat waves came back from the friction and I felt weakened. The uncontrollable pain took me by surprise and ruined me concentration. Now all the unstable ice was starting to collapse around me because it stopped being pushed by the new layers I created. The ice began to crack and open up and if I thought the moments before were complete chaos, the moments following it took it up a notch. I used my other hand to try to stabilize the situation but the ice I created from just one hand was simply not enough to push the ice back to its proper places and away from me. In all this chaos I suddenly thought of Stir. I hoped he Managed to escape from that piece of floating ice and I somewhat hoped that he could see what I was doing here from where he was. Could the world see?

I did not intend to give up. I worked for it for two years. For that, I abandoned Stir in the middle of the sea. I concentrated me strength and covered all me body with ice down to the last tendon and bone, down to the last string of hair on me white beard and I sent ice from every possible part of me body towards every direction. I felt the might, the power, I felt like a superhero in the last act and that I was going to make it a happy ending. The ice erupted everywhere, Ice broke and connected on all sides in utterly frozen mayhem. During all of that I was aware I heard polar bear screams muffled under all the other noise but I chose to ignore that. Ice columns around me fell in me direction and froze in the air with spectacular ice structures from the streams of stagnation that came out of every possible place in me, but no matter how much I wanted I could not escape the imminent collapse of me body.

I fell to the floor when I stopped feeling me legs. Me eyes struggled to work from the wind and the effort. As I tried to focus while crashing on the floor I saw a huge ice pillar on its way to fall right on me head. I could not stand up. Its huge shadow reminded me of the first time I used me powers but this ice pillar was not the same block of ice that the younger and unbroken Jokul managed to stop. Me legs did not respond, I lost me right hand and I could barely look up from the shaky ice floor and I think that despite all that, the pole wouldn't even feel the slightest change. I guess after all I'm still human. The shadow of the ice pillar covered the horizon and I closed me eyes "Too bad I still didn't get that glass of whiskey after all that happened. It would have been perfect for me right now."

Splash!!