Page 31 of Run Wild Omega

I reach the narrow ridge that leads to the summit. The view is staggering—a drop-off on either side that falls away into darkness. The wind screams here, a physical force that pushes against my shoulder.

I reach for a handhold—a fixed anchor point we use for training. A metal piton driven deep into the rock face, connected to a weathered rope. It looks solid. It looks safe.

I grab it, wrapping my gloved fingers around the metal, and swing my leg over an icy lip of rock.

The shift happens in a heartbeat.

One second, the wind is a gale. The next, it’s a roar. A flash blizzard, a localized storm cell dropping out of the clouds like a curtain being yanked shut.

Whiteout.

The world vanishes. My headlamp beam is useless, illuminating nothing but a swirling wall of white snow that stings my eyes like needles. I can’t see my hand in front of my face. I can’t see the ground beneath my feet.

“Shit.”

I freeze.

I fucked up.

I need to get lower. I need to get off this exposed ridge before the wind knocks me over.

I turn, intending to retrace my steps. But the path is gone. The snow is burying the trail faster than I can walk.

I take a step, feeling for the edge with my boot. My foot hits nothing but air. Panic spikes, sharp and electric in my throat. I jerk back, throwing my weight toward the rock wall.

I grab for the anchor again. The piton.

The rock around the metal groans.

Time seems to slow down. I hear the crack—the sound of stone shearing, deep and final. I feel the piton pop free of the face, coming loose in my hand.

There’s no time to scream. There’s no time to grab anything else.

Gravity takes me.

I’m airborne for a sickening second, weightless and terrified. Then I hit the scree slope.

It’s violent. I’m a rag doll tumbling down the mountain. Jagged rocks tear at my clothes, bruising my ribs, battering my knees. I flail, clawing at the snow, at the ice, at the air, trying to find purchase, but there is nothing.

The world is a spinning blur of gray and black. I slam into a ledge, flipping over it and continuing down.

I crash through a snowdrift and keep falling.

The ground rushes up to meet me—a shallow crevice, hidden under the fresh powder, invisible until you’re in it.

I slam into the bottom of it, my left leg taking the brunt of the impact.

Snap.

The sound is audible even over the howling wind.

Agony explodes up my shin, radiating through my body like a bolt of lightning. It’s so blinding I taste metal in the back of my throat.

I hit the stone wall of the crevice and stop, crumpled in a heap of pain and snow.

The air is knocked out of my lungs. I lie there, gasping like a fish, unable to draw a breath. The world is spinning violently, nausea rolling in my gut.

Pain. It’s a white-hot spike driving through my tibia, grinding the jagged ends of the bone together.