Sean Jameson was tired. More than that, he was exhausted. The freezing cold temperatures surrounding him made his bones ache and his teeth chatter, even through his heavy clothing.
While no one had told him that scaling Mount Everest would be easy, he couldn't remember a single person telling him it'd be this excruciating. His friend Jonah, who completed his trip along with his wife only six months ago, had given him pointers and tips that still rang in his head.
"Just keep a solid pace, and never stop unless you're planning to stay wherever you are for the night. Stay positive and remember that you're doing this to have a revelation in your life."
His inspiring words had really stuck with Sean, even months after he heard them. As a 24 year old taking a year off from med school, he felt that something was truly missing from his life. At first he thought it was the love of a woman, but soon realized it was something far deeper.
Sean had a thirst for adventure. Cruising through college and getting up to the med school level was the greatest challenge he'd ever faced, and to a certain extent, it was starting to not even feel like something he was meant to do. As humans we all search for a reason to be, some sort of verification, if you will, to help us achieve our full potential. To achieve that, Sean found Mt. Everest.
Then there was Megan, Jonah's wife. She'd made it all the way to the summit with Jonah the first time they went, but two months ago she decided to try it again on her own. She never came back.
There was an investigation, but no one could find any trace of her. Her face was all over the news for weeks, hovering over the caption "Woman Goes Missing On Everest Climb." Conspiracy theories began to come up, with the boldest one claiming that she hated her husband and used the trip to escape and start a new life. But Sean knew that she wasn't the type of person to do that.
The last time he saw Jonah before setting out, his close friend had told him something else that couldn't escape his thoughts.
"Be wary of the caves, Sean. Whatever you do, do not go near them. Always stay on the path. Don't let her take you."
Sean's ears perked up when he heard his friend mention a "her", but Jonah never bothered to elaborate further. The next day Sean was on a flight to Nepal, ready to begin an adventure that would change his life. It would; just not in the way he expected.
He drifted out of the clouds of his thoughts as he reached a chasm in the path. The only way to continue would be to cross it. As he leaned over the edge to look down, he found that he could not see the bottom. The light towards the bottom dimmed until he could no longer see where it went, blocked by an eternal darkness.
Thankfully, there was already a ladder left across the chasm, working as a bridge. Sean let out a deep sigh as he traced his eyes across it. A fear of heights made for a bad mountain climber, and he was no exception.
Something about not knowing how deep the pit was also terrified him. If he fell, he might not be able to climb back up.
"No," he said out loud, shaking his head to cleanse himself of the bad omens. "You're going to do this, just don't look down."
Wasting no time, he crouched down and mounted the ladder, beginning to climb across. The wind was beginning to pick up around him, making the metal ladder shake ever so slightly. A chill crept up his spine as he kept his eyes focused on the ridge ahead, thinking about how accomplished he'd feel once he made it across.
When he reached the halfway point, however, something changed entirely. The sound of snow crunching behind him made him freeze in place. He slowly turned his head to look back, and what he saw changed his life forever.
A woman stood at the edge of the ridge, watching him intently. Her appearance shocked him, as she looked more like an apparition than a person. She wore a black dress, complete with a long black veil that covered her pale features. Her eyes were wide as she gazed upon him, and she brought a pale, thin finger up to her lips as if to react to something shocking.
Sean blinked several times, wondering if he was hallucinating. Was this meant to be his epiphany? The true answer to his delusion?
The strange woman brought her hands together and pressed her palms into each other, looking down and closing her eyes. As Sean watched her, eyebrows raised, he didn't notice that the ladder began to move. A heavy gust of wind shot from all sides and he suddenly found that he could no longer hold on. With his panicked, wide eyes still watching the woman, he screamed as he slipped from the ladder and plunged into the ravine below, feeling as cold as ever as he sank deeper and deeper until he could no longer see her watching him fall.
******
When Sean awoke, he had no idea how much time had passed. It could have been an hour, a day, or even a week. As his eyes fluttered open, he found himself staring at his deep red backpack. It seemed to have been opened, and its contents were spread out in the snow around him.
A cold chill hit him and he looked down, realizing that his jacket had come clean off in the fall. He looked up and saw it hanging clumsily from a branch overhead, taunting him with its furry warmth. In addition to that, his pants were tattered and his boots were torn open. The cold had reached him, and if he didn't find warmth soon, he'd surely freeze to death.
He expected to feel pain as he tried to move his limbs, but nothing could have prepared him for the world of hurt that came when he tried to stand up. His legs gave out and he fell back to the ground, letting out a defeated and painful groan. Sure enough, his right leg was injured. It didn't seem entirely broken, but as Sean pulled up his pant leg, he soon realized that his knee cap had separated.
"Oh fuck..." he cried, settling back on the ground and leaning against the rock behind him. An injury this high up on the mountain was catastrophic. No one would be along for days, perhaps even weeks, and there's no way anyone would be able to see him in his current location.
Thinking quickly, he reached for his bag and dragged it over, searching for his warmers. He pulled out his ice pick, camping kit, and purified water packs before he found them. He rubbed them until they were active and placed one carefully on his separated knee, sighing with relief as the pain began to dissipate slightly.
"I'm so fucked..." he whispered to himself, watching as his breath materialized and nearly froze in front of him. As he began to make a plan of how to escape, he suddenly realized something.
His rope was missing.
After checking the bag one more time he began to panic, searching the snow for the one thing that could get him out of the ravine.
"Oh god, please..."
He froze mid-sentence as the sound of a flame lighting filled his ears. He looked to the left and shielded his eyes as brilliant light flooded the ravine, contrasting the darkness that had previously surrounded it.
When he pulled his hand away and his eyes adjusted, he found himself looking over at a torch tied to the wall, highlighting a dirt path that led deeper into the ravine. As he looked over the torch, he immediately noticed that it was tied to the wall with his own coil of rope.
"Son of a bitch..." he grumbled, realizing he had to get over there to keep warm. He grabbed his pack with one hand and used the other to drag himself along the snow, stopping just under the torch's spot on the rocks. He leaned back against the rock wall and let the flame warm him, waiting a few moments until his breath caught up with him.
"Okay...okay, time to try," he told himself, before gripping onto a protruding rock and using it to help himself up. With the heat pack he found that he could stand up, but his right leg was barely usable. After testing it out he found that he could limp with his left leg to move, as long as he took a rest every few seconds.
Now it was decision time. He could stay and wait for help, or follow the path.
As a cold chill went up his spine, he decided to start walking. Another minute in that spot and he'd freeze to death. He untied the torch and grabbed it with his left hand, using the other hand to steady himself as he began to limp down the pathway.
After a few moments he rounded a bend and reached a large hole that served as a doorway to what looked like a cave. He waved the torch at it and found that it stooped downward, going deeper into the mountain.
"Be wary of the caves, Sean. Whatever you do, don't go near them," Jonah's voice echoed in his mind. Did Jonah know something he didn't?
This was different. This was about survival.
Sean pushed the voice out of his mind again and continued on down the path, clutching the wall for dear life and taking it as slowly as possible.
******
A few minutes later the path ended at a wooden door, carved directly into a hole in the rock. Sean stopped to catch his breath, breathing into his hands to stay warm. Oddly enough, with every step he'd taken down the path, he'd felt warmer and warmer. A slight tingling of warmth had nearly overtaken him halfway down, spreading across his chest in a flurry of near pleasure. It felt...good.
As he reached for the door handle, he realized that another piece of his rope was tied to it. Someone was definitely toying with him, but who?
He turned the knob, pushing the door open and taking a step inside.
Before him lay a large room, well lit by chandeliers hanging from the rocky ceiling. The room was decorated medieval style, with black drapes hanging from the walls complete with identical rugs on the floor. Towards the back of the room was a large king sized bed, with the same black style as the other furniture in the room. That's when Sean saw her.
The same woman he'd seen at the chasm earlier stood before him, now without the dress but still wearing her signature black veil. On her body she wore a red corset, which highlighted her large chest and put everything on display, seemingly just for him.
Her skin, once pale, was now a vibrant peach color, bouncing off of the overhead lighting with great vibrance. He still couldn't see her face, as she was looking down at the floor with her palms pressed together.
