It was freezing like hell. My toes were numb. My teeth were shaking. My body was aching. It felt like the world was ending for me and everything was falling apart. It felt like I was already dead. And yet, here I am still fighting for my one and only life. Not for me, but mainly for those who I hold warmly in my now ice-cold hands.
Mount Everest was the mountain with the highest death rate, I was well aware of that but there it was. That gut feeling that convinced me to take the chance and risk my life. It was mostly quiet, only the sound of swirling wind trying to push me down. Then, I heard a noise.
No, not a noise. A scream. And it was coming from around the corner of a jagged hill, echoing. Curious, I rushed to the site but only to see nothing. Nothing but a blizzard of snow storming raging before me. Though wait. There it was. It was bloodied, it was stone cold dead. It was a god-damn corpse.
And all this time I thought I was having the worst time on this hellish mountain but boy, was I wrong. This woman had just died and I could tell by placing my still-cold palms on her pale neck. It was still warm, even after being buried beneath all of that snow. I was horrified by what I saw before me.
Of course I knew the risks of climbing this mountain, but honestly, I am the type that usually does something and thinks about it afterwards. I know it isn’t my best quality but-It was certainly not something I could change about myself instantly. The more I continued to pursue my death-wish-like journey, I felt less air for me to breathe in. Suddenly, I saw-My family?
They were all standing a few feet in front of me, all with warm smiles, offering a hot cup of cocoa and a thick blanket for me to cover myself with. With all of the strength I had left, I rushed towards them as if the possibilities of falling and dying had not existed. But as I put my arms around them, I realized-They weren’t there. I was hallucinating. Beep.
I couldn’t tell what was real and what was not anymore. But I could tell that the rumbling beneath my feet was real. Oh no. An avalanche. Though it was not long before I reached the top, a vast mass of snow willingly tumbles in my direction. No, I can’t stop now. And like a hopeless fool, I ran to the top. Beep.
I didn’t know how I reached it but I did. I reached the top of the highest mountain known to mankind. I have climbed the unclimbable. I have made the impossible possible. The only thing on my mind now was the faces of my husband and my daughters’ faces when I knock on the front door.
But everything ached. So I shut my eyes for a moment, but once it fluttered open my surroundings felt-warmer. And what I saw wasn’t a sky. It was plain white, with many bright circles glowing. It was a-a ceiling. Beep.
“She still has pulse, there’s still chance,” said the blurry figure standing before me. Then came more figures surrounding me in white coats, “She almost reached it.” They were all talking about… Me. But who are these people? Where am I? Beep.
Once my eyes adjusted, I was able to connect the dots. People with white coats. Using medical terms. The clean environment. The beeping machine beside me. I was lying in the hospital. She almost reached it… I didn’t reach the top? That wasn’t real? That was just a-a drea-Beep…..