Arlo's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Arlo couldn't sleep after the rescue. His body was exhausted, but his mind kept replaying the moment he'd seen the woman's leg wedged between the ice sheets. He pulled on his coat as dawn broke and walked back to the sinkhole. The morning light made everything look different—clearer, sharper. He circled the collapsed area, studying the way the snow had given way. Something bothered him about the edges. They were too clean, too uniform. Natural sinkholes formed gradually, with uneven stress patterns. This looked deliberate. He followed a set of boot prints leading away from the hole, tracks partially filled with fresh snow. They led him to a stone bunker he'd walked past a dozen times without noticing, its entrance camouflaged by packed snow drifts. Inside, he found a workbench covered in ice-cutting tools and a diagram showing stress points in the snow crust. His hands started shaking again, but not from fear this time. Someone had built this trap. Someone had known exactly where people walked between the weather tower and the northern cabins. He photographed everything with trembling fingers, then backed out of the bunker. Proving his courage meant more than rappelling into sinkholes now. It meant showing everyone what was really happening here, even if it put a target on his back.