Priya's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Priya climbs the worn steps of the weather tower, ice crunching under her boots. The digital display inside flickers with red warnings. A storm front moves across the screen like a wall of static, closing in fast from the northwest. She pulls out her binoculars and scans the north face from the tower window. The jagged cliff rises like broken teeth against the gray sky, ice formations hanging from every ledge. Some of those ledges look ready to snap off in a strong wind. She watches one chunk of ice break free and tumble down, taking a sheet of snow with it. The storm will hit in three hours, maybe four. After that, she'll be stuck here for weeks waiting for the next weather window. She heads back to her cabin and packs her gear anyway, stuffing the inadequate rope into her bag alongside the ice axes. When she reaches the base of the cliff two hours later, wind already whipping at her face, she knows the rope won't hold on the frozen vertical. She clips in anyway, tests the first hold, and starts to climb. Fifteen meters up, the rope stiffens in her hands like frozen wire. A gust slams her against the rock. She looks up at the crumbling ice ledges above, then down at the ground that suddenly seems very far away. The smart move is obvious. She downclimbs, each hold careful and deliberate, until her boots touch solid ground again. The storm breaks overhead as she walks back, and she tastes something unfamiliar and bitter—the feeling of choosing to stop.