Memories Buried by Snow part 3

Two-Zero-One groaned, his face pressed against the white ground, “What… happened…?”

The boy’s instinctively touched the back of his head. His vision blurred as the red leaked between his gloved fingers.

Crack.

Something dug into the snow, just a few feet from his face.

His vision cleared up, and he realized what had struck him.

A bullet from the blizzard — hail.

Ice ran across his veins as he shifted his gaze towards the sky. His thoughts lagged for a moment, processing the magnitude of what was yet to come.

The young boy got to his feet, staring at the spiraling vortex above his head. But as he stepped back, the sound of static stopped him.

“—Zero One—”

Barely audible, but caused the earlier conversation to rush back to him.

“All twelve agencies are watching you, Two-Zero-One. They will evaluate everything after the mission. To see what you can do.”

Turning back meant failure. Staying put meant death.

“What should I—?”

“Return—” His handler’s voice crackled.

“Huh?”

“Come back—— before — blizzard——”

Relief washed over him. A small smile formed on his face as he turned around.

But as he took one step forward, he paused. The heiress’s face flashed in his mind — the tears streaming down her horrified face.

Balling his hand into a fist, he marched back to his position.

The cold path forward was lined with scattered bullets, leading back to the half-buried rifle.

The snowstorm tested his resolve, shattering his goggles with a large piece of hail.

A symphony of snow exploded like cannonballs in his ears.

Time began to blur —

A million miniature miseries chipped away at his senses, peeling away sight, sound, touch, and balance.

To the young boy, the icy assault began somewhere between the last thirty seconds and the past thousand years. He didn’t know whether the heiress was even still alive. But if she was, the window of opportunity was shrinking.

But Two-Zero-One continued, pushing past the blizzard and slowly making his way back to his previous position.

Ahead, he saw his rifle. His North Star.

The young assassin grabbed the sling and lifted his firearm out of the snow, wiping the frosted scope with his thumb.

Frustrated, he threw his shattered goggles to the side. His right eye was dark copper, with a small black mole just beneath it. His left was an azure blue, glowing faintly in the monotonous darkness.

“Room… where is…” He rasped, searching for the warm glow in the distance.

In spite of the blizzard, the villa remained standing, barely inconvenienced. Inside, the situation escalated. The CEO bled on the floor, while the butler still had the heiress hostage, feral, shouting, swinging his gun.

Two-Zero-One pulled the trigger, but there was only a hollow click.

“Huh?”

Empty.

Behind him, his white bag was under a white blanket, while the other bullets were buried beneath it.

But a fleeting shaft of sunlight pierced through the dark gray, shining on a single half-buried bullet.

He inched towards the bullet with his elbows. The winds whipped his face with a thousand pale pellets, refusing to be ignored. But as soon as his stiff fingers grabbed it, the snow shifted, causing the firearm to slip.

“No!” His heart nearly escaped his throat, before digging his boots beneath the icy-white blanket, keeping him from sliding down.

A drop of blood slid across his face, down his chin, and fell into the darkness.

Two-Zero-One instinctively pulled himself back up, the last bullet squeezed tightly between his fingers as he hurriedly placed his hand on the solid ground underneath.

The snow slid under him, while his rifle threatened to drag him to the depths.

Nature forced him to make a decision: Drop the gun, or fall with it.