game over // dreamwastaken

THREE

December 16th, 2019, 7:59 AM

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It was early in the morning, the sun had barely risen, and I was going to ski with an amateur.

On the way up the mountain, Clay and I debated whether cats made better pets than dogs. We were so lost in conversation that we both completely ignored the landing platform! He stumbled forward but luckily caught himself before he fell. A sparkling layer of fresh snow glossed over everything we could see, so it would be hard to navigate the slopes. But it was fine, all we had to do was stay on tra-

Clay started going downhill before I could tell him to stop. "CLAY!" I shouted, trying to grab onto his pole. This was bad. He didn't shout for help, nor did he fall. "FALL, CLAY, FALL!" I yelled, clicking my skis into place and racing after him. He just went down an advanced course. Why wasn't he falling?! He was going to be severely injured if he didn't!

"Gah!" I suddenly lost my balance and I instinctively threw myself forward. This was what I got for rushing, very fun. I boosted myself off the rock I just fell onto using my poles and flew past the thick, blinding crowd of trees beside me. Soon, I could finally spot an amateur skier with a green ski jacket tumbling down a steep hill: Clay. He still had his skis and poles, thankfully.

"CLAY!" I shouted as loud as I could. I picked up more speed but was starting to lose control again. "FALL! FALL!!" I hollered. "FALL, CLAY!" Finally, after I almost lost my voice, he fell. He coughed violently as he fell onto the comfortable, snowy ground. I, on the other hand, got distracted and didn't notice the mobiles in front of me. I cartwheeled down a good twenty meters... and finally fell into a spruce tree.

"Oww," I groaned as I shakily tried to retrieve my ski. Thankfully, I wasn't hurt too badly and I wasn't missing any equipment, so I would be on my way down in a bit. I probably just scraped my knee on the rock beneath me. Clay was probably doing fine, perhaps another stranger would give him a ride down. There was no way anyone could find me, however, so I was going to do my best to ski back to the resort. To my surprise, I saw Clay trudging over to me with his skis over his shoulder. "Hi," I breathed, taking off my goggles and neck gaiter. "That was not very graceful, was it?" I asked, laughing. "Dude, you just went down an advanced trail. Are you okay?"

He chuckled. "I think I'm the one who's supposed to be asking that question," he furrowed his brows. "But you look fine... surprisingly. How the hell did you even survive?"

I laughed. "What, did you want me to die?"

"No-no-no-no-no-no-no of course not!" He chuckled.

"Well, I'm pretty sure what we accidentally went down was a double-black. It couldn't have been a blue, and it had fucking moguls, so there's no way it was just a black diamond. I think I also went off-trail at some point," I giggled. This had been a disaster so far. "So... there's no signal up here, nor are there any skiers," he told me. As if I didn't know that! But we had to get down somehow, didn't we? We awkwardly stared at one another.

What? What was he looking at? I suddenly didn't feel as confident as before. "Pffft," he grinned. "What's so funny?" I laughed, watching Clay burst into laughter.

*: mogul, a ski obstacle built solely for professionals

**: you tend to pick up lots of speed if you have your skis parallel (french fry)

This part was getting long, so I just decided to stop :D