Enduring Winter on Another World

It began around a hundred days or so after I ended up in this world. I was observing the landscape when I noticed a little snowflake fall right beside me. It landed on the ground and quickly turned into a tiny droplet of water. At first, I gave it little thought; after all, one snowflake didn’t mean much. However, the snowfall quickly grew more and more intense. Eventually, I could see a thin white blanket of snow below me, which only grew thicker and thicker as the minutes went by.

For most people, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. But because of how tiny I was, even a few centimeters of snow could be blinding. Occasionally over the past couple months, falling leaves would temporarily obstruct my field of view. But thankfully, an oncoming breeze would blow it away each time. But this snowfall was different—very different.

Over the next few hours, the layers of snow continued to rise, blocking more and more of my vision, until eventually the snow buried me completely. I quickly noticed that, in addition to my loss of sight, the snow severely impaired my hearing and made any outside sounds seem faint and muffled. Previously, I had sight and hearing to perceive the world around me. But because of this snowfall, I had nothing. All I could do was hope the snow would melt quickly. But unfortunately for me, the snow cover would persist for many more months to come.

The one thing that had remained the same during this endless winter was the darkness of night, though it wasn’t much better during the day, where everything was just a lighter shade of gray as opposed to the pitch black of the night. There were some days in which I was met with some tiny glimmers of hope. Once in a while, I was able to see a faint speck of light coming from above. But each and every time, it was quickly snuffed out by even more snowfall.

But the most unnerving thing about all this was the silence. It was already pretty quiet normally, aside from the natural ambience of the lake or the faint gusts of wind. But now I couldn’t even hear that. I also couldn’t even tell whether anyone came to the lake during the winter, but I assumed otherwise. Even under the snow, I probably would’ve heard footsteps, but that never occurred.

I recalled the fisherman who had come every day to fish. Maybe he had a family—a wife and a couple of kids. I could imagine them sitting in a little hut, the fisherman’s wife taking care of a baby girl while her husband went out to fish, and the son making silly faces at his new baby sister. I thought about the family’s dinner time—of them eating a large fish for dinner—and the parents, of course, getting the largest share. But then I began to think of what they could be doing right now. I saw the family huddling together as the house was covered in snow and the winds were extinguishing the fire from a nearby fireplace. I imagined the young boy telling his father that he was hungry and that his father was unable to respond, fearing for his family’s final fate. Maybe it was better to imagine him living alone. At least he would have more food to eat in that situation.

I wondered if he would be able to survive the winter. But given that he came here so many times, there could have been nothing to eat where he was. It was possible that he simply didn’t know how to farm. Or maybe there simply wasn’t any food to eat. I hoped that he had found enough food to survive the winter, but I wouldn’t have an answer to this for a long time.

I thought back to the winter months, back with my own family. We would sit down in front of a fireplace, playing board games, eating marshmallows, and just laughing and having a good time. I could recall when we went out for the New Year’s Festival. My mother prayed for good fortune for our family, while my father prayed for a new car. As for me, well, I have long since forgotten. I doubt it was anything important, to be honest.

But many years later, I got a job in the city. My mother and father tearfully bid me farewell, and I promised to keep in touch with them. But as I got more and more occupied with work, I began to call my parents less and less. I was always either too busy working or just too exhausted from finishing a long day of work, and I just never got the chance to speak to them. I could always do it another time, I would think. Now submerged underneath the snow, I began to wonder if Mom and Dad missed me or if they even knew that I was gone.

With nothing outside to look at, all I had were my own memories, and as the months went by, my mind was consumed with regrets about what could have been. I thought about the friends I was too busy to make, of all the things I was too busy to do, of all the experiences I was too busy to have, and of all the time that I wasted at work and at home. There were so many choices that I could have made but didn’t. And now in this place, I couldn't even make a choice, that ability having been stripped from me.

I realized how little I took advantage of the previous life that I had, how much of it I had taken for granted, and how much of my life I had wasted. I knew that if I could go back, I would do things very differently. And normally in movies, this is the point where the main character gets the chance to set things right and live happily ever after. But that wasn’t the case here. The winter continued for many more weeks.

But then one day, I saw a little bright spot above me. At first, I gave it no mind. It would go away, just like all the other times. But, to my surprise, this bright spot grew larger and larger.

This couldn’t be, I thought. After all this time, it just couldn’t be!

And then, I saw the sky. For the first time in many months, I was able to see the sky.

Rain poured down around me, and the layers of snow quickly receded until, soon enough, they were completely gone. In my old life, I never gave snowmelt much thought. To me, it just meant that my feet would get wet and nothing more. But now I felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

After all that time under the snow, I could finally see again. And when I looked at the lake—which had been obscured by the snow for months—I couldn't help but think it was... beautiful, oddly enough. It was as if it had come right out of a painting. And even more strange was that, for the first time since I ended up in this world, I could see a sun shining brightly in the sky.