Shivering from the cold, Dane slowly opens his eyes. It was dark, almost completely devoid of light but for the glow of his cell phone somewhere beside him. Shaking his head in an attempt to push away the fog of sleep, Dane stretches his arm out to retrieve his phone. How long had he slept? Did he oversleep again?
Straining against what must be his blanket wrapped around him, he is unable to reach the phone on the bedside table. Maybe if he kicked off the covers and sat up first… It was at that moment, that Dane realized he
was sitting up. In fact, not only was he in a sitting position, but he also could not seem to move more than his right arm. In a panic, he struggles against whatever is restraining him until his flailing arm hits something directly in front of him. In the near dark, slowly feeling around the obstruction, Dane realizes that what he found is a steering wheel. The fog of his unconsciousness quickly clears when Dane puts the pieces together to understand that he is not in the assumed comfort of his own warm bed back at home, but in fact somehow strapped into the driver’s seat of his ’04 Kia. Memories begin to flicker into Dane’s mind like bright flashes from a camera…
Reading an invitation from his closest friends for a ski trip in the mountains of Colorado, thinking how nice it would be to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city for a weekend. Already imagining the fresh cold mountain air, the stress of everyday life dissipating like frozen breath in the air, and especially the possibility of sharing a steaming cup of coffee with Maggie’s hot new friend Alisha in front of a roaring fire…
Packing up his car for the trip, talking with Brad on the phone about the amazing ski resort and how amazingly hot Maggie’s single friend looked that morning, and weather reports promising clear skies and perfect driving conditions.
An unexpected snowstorm making the lonely drive take much longer than he expected, slowly ascending the steep winding roads up into the mountains. Very quickly becoming the only other car on the road as the snow fall becomes a flash blizzard, reducing the visibility to naught but five feet ahead of the car; the glare from the headlights blindingly reflecting in the falling snow.
Barely visible signs announcing the Eisenhower Tunnel a few miles ahead, hitting a hidden patch of ice, overcompensating the turn of the steering wheel, brakes doing nothing to stop the skidding…the feeling of weightlessness after the car careens through the flimsy guardrails and plunges over the edge…seemingly hours later, while in reality likely only seconds, the impact of the car hitting the ravine’s snow drifts and Dane’s head cracking against the window.
The car sinking into the deep powdery snow while he sinks into unconsciousness…
And now, darkness is pierced only by the faded glow of his overturned cell phone, just out of reach somewhere on the passenger side of the car. Trying his hardest to push away the grip of panic, Dane uses his only free arm to try to determine why he cannot move. While it appears his seatbelt prevented him from further injury, the steering wheel seems to be what is pinning him to his seat, pushed hard up against his chest. Unable to see further into the dark, Dane is not aware that the steering column is as twisted and broken as his legs tangled around it. Numb fingers find his left arm swallowed by the crumpled metal of what was once his driver’s side door. The muted light of the cell phone screen allows him to pick out the dark snow pressing against the spider webbed outline of the shattered windshield, as well as darkening the other windows.
Closing his eyes and able to only force shallow gasps of icy air into his lungs, Dane can only assume that his car is somewhere off the side of the mountain a mile or so before the tunnel. Before the blizzard hid anything outside of a few feet from the car from his view, he remembers seeing elevation signs reporting he was passing 11,000 feet up the mountain. There is no telling how far down his little car tumbled before coming to a rest under the snow. Determined to make a call for help, Dane strains as hard as he can muster against the constricting confines of his interior Kia prison; reaching out again to the far side of the passenger seat for his cell, his fingertips just barely brushing the edge of his possible salvation…before the strain becomes too much for his battered body to endure and he slips once again into the soft cushion of unconsciousness.
Dreams of a blissful wintery ski resort retreat snuggling intimately under a heavy warm blanket with Alisha are shattered by the sounds of sharp cracking noises that jostle Dane from his catatonic state. Unsure of how long he was dead to the world, he calculated it must have been hours as the precarious comfort of the “always on” glowing cell phone screen has been extinguished as the battery, much like his failing hope for rescue, had given out. Plunged again into the cold wintery darkness, the sharp cracking noise again makes his heart skip a beat. Could this be someone above digging through the snow and ice to rescue him from his cold snow-covered tomb? Feeling hope blossom once again in his constricted chest, Dane takes as deep a breath as the steering wheel allows and screams for help.
His screams for help dying on his lips, coughing and gasping for breath, Dane tries to listen for some answer from his presumed rescuers, hoping for some indication that
someone is up there digging down to him. Only silence answers his cries for help, broken only by his sobbing, not a sliver of light or hope to be found in the bitter darkness. His mind races at imagined terrors in the pitch black interior of his crushed car, the smallest of noises making him flinch as the car continues to settle under the weight of tons of ice and snow. Did he only imagine the cracking sounds from before? How long has he been trapped here in this maddening cell devoid of light? Is his shivering more from the deepening cold or his fear of the dark? Another popping snap from somewhere on the passenger side causes Dane to whip his in that direction with bile rising in his throat. Screams escape his lips once more, only now shaped more from terror than for hope of salvation.
This time his impotent screams are answered immediately by one last cracking sound and a familiar noise that reminds Dane of early mornings back in his old apartment; waking up with the sun, stumbling into the kitchen, and shoving a fresh filter into the coffee maker. Grabbing a new unopened bag of coffee, and pulling open the vacuum sealed top. The is exactly what this new curiosity sounded like; except instead of the fresh smell of roasted Arabica coffee beans, he is greeted with a cold rush of air as the weight of tons of snow and ice from above have finally pushed through the broken windshield and are quickly filling the empty space of the car’s interior. With the frigid rush of powdery hell engulfing Dane in his twisted metal coffin, all he could think of was the smell of that first freshly brewed coffee of the day as he choked in his last frozen breath.
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Credits to: lordcarnage
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