The towering mountains had transcended the boundaries of collecting memories, and had been collecting dust for as long as anyone could remember; people knew about old pathways, but had better things to do than visiting a plain valley and its frozen lake that they had seen a thousand times. Such obscurity in plain sight was what made the site attractive to weary travellers, such as the one who had been methodically clearing their way through the bush throughout the day.

Their habitual refuge was quite far from their place of residence. They'd trekked through valleys carved by swaths of glaciers - the moraines they'd carried and striations they'd carved all that remained of those ice-hearted monuments - and frowned at the slump sites that had emerged: the permafrost in the ground itself was melting, unreliable, unstable. They'd gotten bogged down in the earth just trying to get here. Perhaps someday they wouldn't be able to reach this place at all.

Then again, perhaps their travelling troubles were owed to the sun beating down on their clothing, turning every moment into a battle of stubbornness until they were forced to slough off some layers. The warmth was a strange phenomenon, one which didn't belong in this place, at this time. They knew how to be cold - regardless of the number of layers, the quality of the material, clothing couldn't keep one comfortable forever. At least the chill was consistent and direct. Warmth was different, all sneaky and subtle so that at first you even welcomed it, before it stole you away and swallowed you. They had to get away from it before they were consumed.

 

The shaded and shielded valley was far more comfortable than the mountain peaks. The warm seasons had come too early and lasted too long, but they had hoped some places could remain untouched. Breath hitched in anticipation of what nature had in store, they turned the final corner.

Standing by the shore of the lake, the awesome sight remained unsullied. A sheet of murky glass covered the surface of the water, and more crucially, nobody else was present - unless one counted the birdsong in the distance as companionship. Their sigh of relief sent a wispy cloud of condensation into the air, covering the leaves on the branch ahead with rime. Finally. Was this what it meant to be at peace?

A few scraggly scraps of grass and lichen clung to the boulder they leaned on. The sky grew overcast as they stood there, inhaling the slowly cooling air, the frost they'd formed on the leaves slowly melting into droplets without any rhyme or reason.

No, it was not what they needed. They'd felt the unfixed land withdraw its certainty on their journey, but the surface of the lake was tantalizing with its beauty, its enticing promise of familiarity.

The frozen ice of the lake was far younger than the mountains by which it was surrounded, but it was timeless in its own way. Sliding across the smooth sheet, they relished how slick it felt without their boots, irresistibly cool despite the frigid nip of frost, coated with a shining sheen of liquid. In a snow-blank, washed-out trance, they arrived at the grey centre of the lake.

But the silence was disturbed.

They should have known it wasn't safe, what with the weather having been so nice. These mountains were never meant for all that warmth; when one is accustomed to the chill, when one remains bundled up in so many layers they can barely touch the world, what can a sudden surge of heat ever feel like but a harbinger of doom? And yet they'd yearned for the frozen lake, grasping for tranquility, finally reaching the respite of cold air that bit into their lungs as they gasped - which, of course, was when the insidious sound of cracking began to simmer.

Was this what people meant when they said, out of the frying pan, into the fire?

Scrambling across the ice, a clumsy flail of sprawling and contorted limbs, that persistent, gnawing ache to escape, flee, run failed them when they required it most. They slipped, flattened against the surface, just as their ground fractured with a careless echo.

It didn't do anything so seemingly composed as to split into a neat crevasse. It shattered, and the dispassionate floe took them with it, into the customary cold, the dark water which had melted just enough to make them sink down into such a terribly familiar sensation.