The sky didn’t look so good. I took a deep breath and stared at my broken compass, willing it to spring back to life and guide me home. No luck, the damn thing was cracked right down the middle, stupid ice made me slip and drop it. It wasn’t surprising that Allison had left at the first sign of danger, that Jake and Marie hadn’t come at all. Now here I was, alone in this foreign wilderness with no stars and no magnets, nothing but my wile and bruised ego and the knawing in my stomach to drive me forward.
I readjusted my pack, pocketed my dead compass and started walking, humming to keep my teeth from chattering and my morale from taking a fatal dive. I was tromping through the frozen foliage concentrating on my feet when I noticed a break in the leaves just ahead revealing a gigantic clearing beyond, a serene white cathedral of ice and snow. “If this is it, if this is the end of the line, well there are worse places to take your final breath,” I thought as I gazed around in suspended, breathless reverence.