AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When Aurora found out about this, I was never going to hear the end of it. She’d probably make things worse for me, like move my room into one of the broom closets or downstairs in the basement under the stairs.
When I was little, she’d lock me inside that room every time she wanted to punish me. I had a love hate relationship with that room. On one hand, I had enjoyed the solitude, but I loathed not being able to get out until she deemed it long enough.
My stomach rolled and I groaned.
Wait…
There wasn’t a tile floor beneath me. It kind of felt like dirt. I might have thought I fell asleep in one of the riding rings, but that didn’t explain the temperature. Itshouldn’tbe this cold outside.
Maybe I was going insane.
I kept my eyes closed for a while, fighting off waves of nausea as I laid there on the cold ground. My head wasn’t pounding anymore at least, so whatever had happened last night might have just been one big, long bad dream.
That’s what I kept telling myself, or at least until I opened my eyes and looked around.
Holy mother fucking shitballs.
Maybe I was still dreaming, and this was just some crazy nightmare induced by a little too much champagne. This didn’t feel like a dream, though. The clean frigid cold air didn’t suggest that, either.
It was like I’d been transported to some frozen fantasy world and left way up in a cave high in the mountains. With a gasp, I surveyed my location without really believing what I was seeing.
Had I had some sort of mental break? Was this some kind of weird dissociation with reality and I was seeing things that weren’t actually there?
There weren’t any caves at Hampton Manor, but as I looked out, I couldn’t even pretend like I was remotely close to Long Island. I didn’t think I was in upstate New York. There weren’t any mountain ranges like these in the United States at all. Maybe in Europe, but definitely not in New York.
I swallowed hard as I pushed myself to my feet and took several tentative steps towards the mouth of the cave, looking out at the frozen landscape that surrounded me.
Where did mountains like this even exist? Were these the Swiss Alps or something?
Everything was covered with snow and ice. There were massive mountains every direction I looked, climbing so high up into the sky that clouds covered their peaks. If anyone had a drone and could get this kind of footage, it would probably make its way into a movie. Did Hollywood know about this place?
With the sun rising, the snow sparkled, like someone had overlaid the shot with a glitter filter in some fancy editing software.
What the actual fuck?
I breathed out, steam rising from the heat as it left my mouth. I curled my arms around my waist, trying to hold my sweatshirt closed so that I could retain literally any bit of heat that I possibly could.
I didn’t see any way down. How had I even gotten up here? My mind whirled with one question after another, so much so that it started to make me dizzy. In all likelihood, the altitude was probably getting to me. Needing to ground myself, I stopped looking out of the mouth of the cave and focused inwards on my immediate surroundings.
I couldn’t see how far back the cave went, but it looked deep. Maybe there was a way out through the back, but I’d probably break an ankle on a stray rock if I tried to stumble around in the dark without any light.
To the right, I noticed a pile of supplies inside the cave. Someone had been here before me and built a shelf, lining it with food, furs, and what appeared to be supplies for a fire. How had they gotten firewood up here? There weren’t any trees around for miles—only icicles, snow, and rock.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows and then up to my feet. I took it slow, struggling against vertigo and nausea for a while until my head and my stomach eventually settled. When I no longer felt like I was swaying on a ship, I staggered over to the shelf and reached out for the furs.
They were extraordinarily thick, maybe a wolf pelt or even a bear. They were a beautifully pure shade of white, and I picked one up, finding it to be a massive, hooded mantle. Immediately, I swung it up around my shoulders and sighed happily at the soft lining. Instantly, the thick pelt made me feel worlds warmer and my toes wriggled in my sneakers.
I almost shrieked out loud with glee when my eyes settled on a pair of fur lined boots as well as a thick pair of woolen socks.
Thank God.
Quickly, I kicked off my sneakers, pulled the wool socks over my much thinner ones, and slid my feet into the comfort of the boots. They were a perfect fit, which was sort of a weird coincidence when I thought about it, but I wasn’t about to kick a gift horse in the mouth.
I found a pair of gloves next, which was a massive relief for my cold fingertips.
There was ample firewood next to the shelf, along with flint, matches, and a bunch of dry tinder. I’d made plenty of campfires in the past, so I got to work right away. I piled the wood into a formation that would burn for a long while and struck a match against the side of the rock. The dry, straw-like tinder took flame in an instant, and I had a roaring fire in no time.
The shape of the cave retained much of the warmth of the fire, making it a cozy little den, and for the first time, I didn’t really feel that cold anymore.
