Inside a small cave, three figures lay huddled together, listening as the harrowing screams of winter wind grated against the rocks and ice outside. From the small hole they had left open to the air, they caught a glimpse of what went on around them. The trees, the sky and the ground were indistinguishable: all white, all devoid of warmth. Even so, each of them took turns peering through the small window, hoping to see some sign of life stir. It was just something to pass the time at this point. They knew they wouldn’t find anything.

Something crackled, and no one could be sure if it was the cave giving in or the small fire that they had somehow manage to start up. No one bothered to check. What fueled the fire was the last woolen hat and some embers that had refused to burn earlier. Considering that everything in the cave was either frozen or soaked by constant drip of the stalagmites, it was a miracle in itself that the fire had lit in the first place. Perhaps it was the sweat and grime coating the band of the hat that helped it ignite. Twenty six days worth of human oil should do it. Disgusting, yes, but as Clara often said: “Whatever works.” After this, they would need to start burning their more essential clothing, starting with the scarfs.

Eric, a young boy with a rugged expression unbefitting of his age and sharp brown eyes, silently twisted a large slab of meat onto a sharpened stick that was soaked in water. He held it over the fire and the putrid odor of burnt flesh began to fill the room causing each of their noses to twitch in refusal. A string of smoke rose to cover the ceiling in a coat of black, and aside from the occasional crackle and the wind, the cave had grown quite quiet.

“I read somewhere that you can make smellier meats taste normal if you mask the smell with the right spices. They do it with bear meat,” he said. It was another one of the unusual bits of trivia he knew. It helped them keep their mind off things.

“We don’t have anything of that sort though, so we just have to work with what we have,” Clara responded. “There’s no way in hell I’m eating that, though. That smoke is pitch black. Might be poisonous.”

“I’m with Clara on this one. It stinks something awful,” the other boy sighed.

He turned his eyes away from the meat to stare at them both. Clara and Theo were their names. They had been nothing more than faces he passed in the hallway before this. It was funny how well people started to get along when they were together 24/7 for 26 days straight. Rather, they had to get along. That’s just how things worked.

Now, he knew pretty much everything about them. He knew Clara had 3 brothers: 1 younger, 2 older (twins, but one was an inch taller than the other. Apparently they bickered about that quite often). She also had a deaf husky puppy named Loki. He knew that she loved insects (including cockroaches) and that she was vegan. Before this trip, at least. She didn’t really have a choice now. The confident smile that she always wore caused his heart to race, but he knew she’d never return his affection. There’s no way she would and if she did, she’d never say or show it. Her empty grey eyes said all he needed to know.

Theo was the oldest one of the bunch. Tough, muscular (or he was muscular) and had no siblings. He had two doting parents and a small gerbil that he hoped they were still taking care of. He was one of the artsy folk, so he had already covered the walls of the cave with his charcoal murals. His hands were constantly covered in soot, so they never let him grab the snow they melted for their daily water supply. They had learned that the hard way. Theo was the first one to go after him when it had gotten bad, or at least Clara said so. Theo would never admit it himself. Never.

Eric stared silently into the flame, watching as it flickered and dwindled. He turned the meat over, hoping to cook the other side before it went out.

“There’s no other choice but to eat this stuff. The walnuts ran out three weeks ago.”

“The walnuts ran out,” Clara echoed. “There’s no other food but this. We need to secure a source of food, but it might be poisonous. I won’t eat it.”

“It stinks. Bad. My breath would smell,” Theo said while wrinkling his nose.

“We need to eat to live,” Eric replied. His voice cracked. His mouth salivated despite the sickening odor. He already knew he would eat: even if they couldn’t.

“Might be poisonous,” repeated Clara.

“Stinks,” reaffirmed Theo.

Eric glanced away from them and back to the meat. It was charcoaled on the surface, but he knew it was undercooked. The blackened liquid that trickled down the stick and onto his hands was proof enough of that. He glanced back at them. They were staring at him sharply. He couldn’t tell if they were daring him to eat, or begging him not to. No one spoke. There was only howling outside and the crackle of fire. Slowly, he lifted the slab of charcoaled meat and bit in. There was no taste, no odor, only his stomach being filled.

It should have ended after he had stumbled off course. It should have ended when white became black, and the storm engulfed his figure. Yet the two of them had clawed him from his grave, and he had awoken to the sensation of her cold lips and his own broken ribs. Each bite left him as empty as it filled him. He shouldn’t be the only one gorging himself. He shouldn’t be the one feeling the disgusting sensation of of blackening blood trickling down his hands and dying the hems of his coat.

Soon enough, the stick was bare.

“Sorry.”

He knew he shouldn’t apologize. It only made the guilt worse.

“It’s fine,” she said. “You need to survive.”

“Yeah,” the other boy said. “It stinks, but you need to eat.”

He drew a lot, and it was decided that Clara’s scarf would go first. The flame creeped across the edges slowly before consuming the entire cloth. He cooked another slab, and the wind stopped howling when he was done. Eric peered through the hole. The snow had stopped. There was nothing but silence.

He stood up abruptly.

“We’re getting out of here,”

This was the first time these words didn’t seem empty.

He grabbed a scarf and a pair of gloves and he clawed his way out of the cave. They aimlessly walked some distance before staring upwards. There was a break in the sky that revealed the sun floating up slowly over the horizon, painting streaks of warmth across the barren canvas of white. Specks of red and yellow bounced off their coats, and covered the snow until it too glowed. He paused to stare at the myriad of color that sprang around them: the proof that some goodness remained in this bleak world of white. He looked back at the empty cave before moving forward again, ignoring the single pair of footsteps in the snow that trailed behind him.