The Blizzard

Barrel was exhausted. Snow blurred his vision, and the cold pierced his bones, getting in despite his heavy coat. Worst yet, the blizzard wasn't showing any signs of stopping.

       He blundered on anyway, clutching his bag of tea under one wing. He was supposed to be in Archview by now, but the whiteout had confused his directions, and now he felt hopelessly lost on the tundra. He considered hunkering down and making some of the tea to warm himself, but heating water out here would be pointless. He resolved to keep walking until he found a house or shelter of some sort.

       Sure enough, as if summoned by his mind, he was suddenly aware of a big shape looming in the distance. Barrel perked up and rubbed his eyes, checking that it wasn't a trick of the snowfall, but the building remained. He began laughing with joy and bounded towards it, his tail streaming out behind him and snow flying out of his way.

       Barrel slid to a clumsy stop in front of the huge structure. He hoped that dragons would be inside with warmth. He searched frantically for a door, and found it nearly buried in a snowdrift. He dug at the powder until it was heaped behind him then pushed the door open with his shoulder.

       The freezing metal groaned loudly as it reluctantly swung inwards. Barrel fell into the building, followed by a pile of snow. He stood up and shook himself, sending clumps of snow everywhere, then went to close the door only to realize it was now wedged open. He huffed and headed deeper inside - if he found another room, the outdoor freeze wouldn't reach him.

       Barrel hurried from the entryway into a hallway. He slowed down once he realized all the lights inside were off. The hallway he'd just entered faded to pitch-darkness, stretching into an unknown abyss. Apprehension stalled Barrel's talons and he strained his eyes to see the end of the tunnel.

       A thought stuck itself in his head, and he crouched, taking out his side-bag and digging through it. He grinned as he pulled out a matchbox - SandWings didn't sell them, but every store in the Ice Kingdom stocked them, since IceWings were fireless. Barrel thanked his lucky stars that he'd grabbed one. Pulling out a match, he lit it, then began down the hallway, using it as a light.

       Barrel reached the end of the hall and came out into a large room. He could barely see the far wall, and squinted to make out details. The room was stocked with chairs and cots, some of them flipped over and others collapsed in on themselves - Barrel shuddered, not from the cold. Dread creeped its way across his scales and he got the impression this building was abandoned.

       Despite his concern, he decided to forge on. He'd only had frostbite once, on one of his first trips north, and he didn't want to relive the experience by sleeping in a snowdrift. He built up some courage and took a brave step into the room.

       Reassuringly, nothing jumped out to grab him. Barrel's worry eased as he ventured further, scanning the cots and finding nothing scary. It was just an old doctor's room. He figured that it'd been abandoned due to the remote surroundings.

       The room had two openings on the far wall: another hallway, curving somewhere to the right, and a spiral staircase, leading down into the earth. Barrel felt a chilly draft across his tail and chose the staircase.

       The stairs creaked under his claws, but held strong, and he continued downwards. He couldn't see the bottom very well but supposed it couldn't go too deep - frozen ground was bad for digging.

       Halfway down the staircase, his match suddenly flickered out, and Barrel briefly panicked as he was plunged into darkness. The tunnel felt claustrophobic and he swore something was touching his back foot as he lit another match. He turned around twice, but he was still alone on the stairs, so he took a deep breath and headed on.

       Barrel felt more at ease when he reached the bottom. The stairs led to a short hallway that ended in a door. He went down the hall quickly, and paused to read the writing on the door. It struck him with panic when he saw what the fading letters said - BURIED.

       He jumped a foot in the air when something creaked behind him. He whipped around, blowing a puff of fire at the stairs, but it dissipated on the cold metal and he found he was alone. His heart hammered in his chest and he clutched the match close to him. To avoid it burning out, he lit another and held them both in one talon.

       Barrel had two options. He could go back up the stairs and explore that hall, or he could open the mysterious door and see what lay beyond. Both instilled him with fear, but the alternative - freeze off his scales in the blizzard outside - was still scarier.

       He turned slowly to eye the door again.

       He reached with one wing towards its nob, using the claw to turn it. He leaned back as it opened, but nothing emerged, and he warily stuck his head inside.

        Barrel gaped. The room was huge, even bigger than the room upstairs, maybe  bigger than the building itself. It was completely square, and the floor was cold, hard dirt. It was covered in nothing other than rocks arranged in neat rows.

       They were tombstones.

       Barrel shivered with caution, but edged into the room. He curled his tail to defend himself should anything be alive. It didn't look like he needed it, however, since the tombs remained still, the light of his matches glinting off the arranged rock.

       He didn't see any names on the stones, on either side. Instead, there were numbers, ranging from 1 to 7 - he recognized them as the IceWing ranking system. But he couldn't fathom what calamity would force doctors to bury patients with nothing but their rank on the graves. What had happened here?

       To his dawning horror, one of the tombstones a few rows up looked... fresh. The cold dirt had been recently tilled, as though someone had come down here and dug at it. Barrel froze and his heartbeat quickened. What if they hadn't left?

       As if on cue, the door behind him slammed. Barrel shrieked and ran madly from the graves back to it. He hammered his fists on the door, but it refused to budge, and he was reduced to a whimpering mess on the floor. He breathed in short bursts and scanned the room anxiously.

       There's something over there, his brain whispered.

       Barrel followed the prompt and focused his eyes on a far corner. Slowly, so slowly that he could've mistaken it as a trick of the light, something was beginning to glow. He gulped and backed up against the door, praying it might break and open again.

       The mysterious light seemed to be getting bigger. It was coming to him. He broke into tears, begging softly that it would go away: "Please, no, leave me alone, I can't help you, please..."

       The light stopped a few feet away. It hummed and changed in shape, becoming the fuzzy outline of an IceWing. As it grew, it dimmed, now barely visible against the room's opressive darkness.

       "Please, I can't help you," Barrel pleaded.

        "Yes you can."

       The light rushed forward, and Barrel blacked out.