I always figured death would come with judgment. Pearly gates, fire and brimstone, at least some kind of explanation. Not this. Not ending up in a cave made of ice hearing nothing but the howl of wind and the chattering of my teeth. Is this some messed up version of hell?
I'm startled awake by a sharp pain in my lungs. Every breath feels like I'm inhaling glass. My fingers are numb, my toes are numb, and every bone in my body feels brittle and sore.
I attempt to open my eyes but they feel welded shut. After putting my hands up to my face and trying to rub away the top layer, it feels like I am trying to defrost a windshield. After a minute of heating up and blinking profusely, the frost seemed to melt away and when my vision clears, I immediately wish it hadn't.
Ice. I'm surrounded by ice.
I look down at myself. I'm wearing my hoodie: the black one I bought at the gaming convention 2 months ago. I also have on jeans and my work sneakers, the ones with the hole in the left sole I meant to replace this weekend. These aren't my winter clothes, this is a normal work outfit.
Where the hell am I?
I force myself to sit up and every movement is like forcing my body through electric molasses. My muscles are stiff, reluctant, like they've been in a freezer for hours. I manage to prop myself up on my elbows, and that's when it all comes rushing back to me.
I was on my way home from a late night at the office. It was the end of a long project and the team went out to celebrate the final push to production without me. The product had been sold to some big corporate buyers and they rushed the date we had to complete it. I was so happy to get the first weekend off in months, there was a new Gundam set out that I had saved up for and was delivered earlier that night.
Around 11pm I was walking from my favorite convenience store with some soju and microwave dinner when I heard somebody running out of the store behind me. I turned to look, I saw a face, I know I did, but the details are fuzzy. Like my mind is still trying to render the details.
The bag of alcahol hits the pavement first. Then I did. I remember lying there, staring up at the moon, feeling weirdly calm. My hand found one of the drinks that had rolled out of the bag. I cracked it open, muscle memory I guess, and took a sip. The last thing i tasted was cheap soju and copper.
I died.
Holy shit, I died.
I died outside of a convenience store 50 meters away from my apartment for nothing. And now I'm here. Wherever here is exactly.
The realization hit my like a truck. I'm not at a hospital, this doesn't seem to be exactly the pearly gates, and I assume hell hasn't frozen over quite yet. This is somewhere else entirely and somewhere cold enough that I can see my breath actively crystallizing in the air. It doesn't seem like I am dead, maybe reincarnated? That would be pretty cool, I've read enough light novels to any divine library to shame, but I wouldn't be that lucky.
This is so insane I almost laugh, except every exhale hurts more than chewing on a cactus. I've read this situation before: Truk-kun hits you, or your save a kid from a bus, or piss off a god, and BOOM! New world, cheat skills, a system, maybe even a goddess who could explain the rules or some divine quest. Wait, maybe I do have a system!
"System!"
"..."
"Status?"
"..."
"...Info? Inventory? Anything?"
"..."
Great. I got the budget isekai huh? No goddess, no harem, no cheat skills. Just frostbite and the chill of jack frost for company.
My teeth are chattering now. The cold is getting worse, or maybe I'm just noticing it more now that the adrenaline is wearing down. I need to move, find some shelter, or maybe a blanket or two. I need to figure out where I am and what I'm supposed to do here.
I force myself to stand and while my legs shake trying to give out, I lock my knees and lean against the wall for support.
What do I have?
- The clothes on my back
- My half-frozen body
- My brain, which remembers everything. My name is Ethan Kang, 24, single, loves to take long walks on the beach, and I was a Jr DevOps engineer at SungSoft. I live alone in a studio apartment, living off of cup noodles and instant coffee.
What do I not have?
- My phone, keys, or wallet
- Any winter gear whatsoever
- Any idea where the hell I am
What do I need?
- Warmth. Immediately.
- Information. Shortly after.
- A plan, because I don't see any chance of me surviving at this point.
The sulfur smell is stronger now that I'm standing. It's coming from deeper inside the cave. I can see melted Ice and actually some rock back there. I can see a faint shimmer in the air back there, like heat waves over asphalt in the summer.
I can only hope that this is some sort of geothermal vent keeping some area warm in the slightest.
I stumble toward it, with my legs giving way a couple of times but after catching myself I finally feel the heat from a 30cm hole in the ground outputting enough heat the thaw my frozen limbs.
I crouch over the vent, extending my hands toward the warmth. The relief is immediate and overwhelming. My fingers start to ache as blood flow returns, the pins-and-needles situation means they were closer to frostbite than I want to think about.
I close my eyes and just breathe for a moment. In and out. Slowly, as the warm air feels like heaven on my face. I open my eyes after a large sigh of relief when I see something in the back of the cave, hidden in a shadow.
Is that... a person?
There's a dark figure on the ground on the other side of the vent, partially hidden. I'd missed it at first because I was so focused on the heat, but now that I'm looking, it's impossible to miss.
There's a corpse.
I scramble backward, heart hammering. For a second I think it's going to get up, and that this is some zombie horror scenario on top of everything else. But it doesn't move. It's frozen solid, half buried in ice.
I force myself to look closer. To really look.
Male, probably middle-aged, though it's hard to tell with the frost covering his face. He's wearing what used to be a cold-weather outfit: heavy jacket, insulated pants, and thick boots. The jacket is shredded on one side, torn open like something with very large claws went to town on it. his lower half is just gone. Not cut off cleanly but torn away, leaving ragged edges of frozen flesh and fabric.
He died horrifically. And something ate him.
My stomach lurches. I turn away, fighting the urge to throw up. There's nothing in my stomach anyway, which is probably for the best, but the dry heaving hurts.
Get it together, Ethan. This guy's dead, you're not. Lets try to keep it that way.
After taking a few deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down, I realize that this is information. Horrible information, but important nonetheless.
Someone was here before me. Someone with actual winter gear, unlike my hoodie and jeans. They still somehow died though, meaning that his place has larger dangers than just the cold.
I need that gear, this guy doesn't. Simple math.
I edge around the vent, keeping as much distance from the corpse as possible while still getting close enough to assess what I can salvage. The jacket is shredded on one side but mostly intact on the other. There's a thermal poncho underneath, also damaged but usable. Gloves, one of which is missing the fingers but its better than nothing. Boots that are definitely too big for me but better than my sneakers with a hole in the sole.
There's also an ID. A badge clipped to his jacket, partially covered in frost. I can make out a logo: A Hexagonal symbol and below it, text nearly frosted over displaying "PARALLAX INDUSTRIES". In the jacket pocket, I can see the corner of something rectangular. Electronic. A tablet? Datapad? Did they never shrink think to shrink smartphones?
I'm about to reach for the person to drag them towards the vent and a gut wrenching feeling washes over me: I am going to have to touch him, thaw him out, and strip him to take his stuff. A shudder ripples up from the base of my spine and I can't help but feel like I am loosing a bit of my dignity by looting this man like a loot goblin.
But the alternative is freezing to death in an ice cave on an alien plant, soooooooo I don't really have a choice do I?
I grab the corpse by the shoulders and drag it closer to the vent. He's stiff and heavy, frozen solid. It takes all my strength to move him even a few feet. Once he's positioned over the heat, I step back and wait.
The ice on his face starts to melt first. Water drips down his cheeks, collecting in his beard. His expression is one of absolute terror, eyes wide, mouth open in a perpetual scream.
I can't help but turn away. I have to look around while this happens and try to find clues to try and help figure out where I am.
Looking around, I notice claw marks on cave walls, deep gouges in the ice. They're big, like the claw mark is wider than my forearm. Whatever did this was strong and large.
And then I see tracks.
They lead from deeper in the cave toward the entrance, paw prints that seem a little too shallow. They look four-toed, with each toe ending in what must have been a massive claw,. The prints are easily forty centimeters across.
Its weird because of how shallow they are, barely any depression in the snow and ice. Like whatever made them weighs almost nothing, despite being large enough to leave prints that big.
Now, I'm not a zoologist, but unless the thing can fly, levitate, or is a weird centipede, there's no way that a beast that large makes shallow prints. I just hope that whatever it is, it finds the cold more comfortable long enough for me to get the hell out of here.
I look back to the corpse, and the jacket has been thawed out enough for me to work with. I cant look at his face as I start wrenching the jacket off of the body. The fabric is stiff and resists, but after working with the heat a bit, it comes off. Underneath is the thermal poncho, a ripped shirt and an undershirt. I take the poncho and leave the shirts and they are too ripped or thin to really be usable.
The boots are harder. They still have the ankles in them and have been putting off a smell, since they were probably the first to thaw out. I have to use a sharp piece of ice to pry the ankles out of the boots. After dumping out some water from the boots, they feel heavy and insulated. Putting them on they feel like 3 sizes too big. I'll have to stuff them with fabric to make them fit better. After cutting away the shirt and undershirt the shoes fit alright. The gloves are next, one is shredded and basically useless. The other is intact. I take both anyway and maybe I can use the ruined one for something.
The ID badge comes off easily once I clear the frost. I can read it now:
"Dr. Marcus Vey
Dimensional Physics
PARALLAX INDUSTRIES"
Dimensional physics. Of course. Because why couldn't this be a fun fantasy world of might and magic?
The datapad is in an inner pocket, protected from the worst of the cold. It's a flat rectangle, about the size of an old tablet with a cracked screen. I look at the power button, praying for it to work and after the pressing it hard enough to shatter the the ice on top of it.
And it posts!
The screen lights up with a line tracing a hexagram in white and the words PARALLAX INDUSTRIES showing up below before booting to a login screen prompting for either biometric or badge authentication.
"How the hell does this thing even have battery?"
The top of the screen shows "PARALLAX INDUSTRIES - ZMKV-1877 FACILITY ACCESS"
I look at the badge in my other hand. Worth a shot.
I press the badge against the datapad's sensor. It beeps. and the screen changes and I hear a feminine voice chime, "Dr. Vey authenticated. Welcome back, Marcus."
I'm in.
The main screen is cluttered with files and logs, way too much to process right now, but one file catches my eye: "FINAL_MESSAGE.txt"
I tap it.
The message is short:
"If anyone finds this, the experiment failed. DEMIURGE breached containment. The facility is lost. Do NOT enter sub-levels. I'm heading to the surface entrance. If I make it, I'll trigger the distress beacon. If you're reading this and I'm not there, I didn't make it. God help anyone who comes here. -Marcus Vey"
The timestamp is seventy years, three months, and seventeen days ago.
I stare at the message for a long moment. Then I look at Marcus's frozen corpse, half-eaten and terrified.
He didn't make it.
Whatever DEMIURGE is, it's still here.
And I'm about to go looking for that facility.