THE CARING UNKNOWN
A NDY C OOMBS S ARAH S CHO
ISBN 978-91-47-15596-5
© 2024 Coombs Andy, Scho Sarah och Liber AB
Title of the original Work
The Caring Unknown © Andrew Coombs & Sarah Scho, 2021
REDAKTION Anna Karlberg
FORMGIVARE Ingela Jönsson
ILLUSTRATION OCH OMSLAG Sarah Scho
PROJEKTLEDARE Emilie Szakàl
Första upplagan
1 REPRO Repro 8 AB, Stockholm
TRYCK People Printing, Kina 2024
KOPIERINGSFÖRBUD
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1. The moment 5 2. Lost on a mountain 7 3. Shelter from the storm 13 4. What’s next? 19 5. Icemen 23 6. Memories of the future 27 7. The fall 35 8. Tigers 45 9. The full moon 51
Rescue 55
1
The moment
A moment. Just one in a million. A billion.
Eight students, a teacher and a guide climbing down a mountain. They climbed the mountain at dawn and now the guide wants to get them back to camp. He stops and squints into the sky. He doesn’t need to radio camp to know a storm is coming. A big one. He checks his watch. It’s eleven a.m. If they are quick, he can have them at camp by three.
The snow has started falling. The students are split into two groups. Four with the teacher and four with the guide. The guide’s group is three hundred feet or so further down. And then the moment. A sound. A crack.
Sophia looks back up the mountain. The snow is moving. Like water it flows. Small stones bounce over her head.
“Avalanche.” She says the word quietly. And then shouts it out.
“Avalanche!” She almost laughs. The word is ridiculous. It achieves nothing.
Leon, in front of her, turns to look. His eyes widen. He takes the word. Repeats it.
Sophia sees two of the other students and the teacher, Frau Meier, turn as well.
The teacher yells something. It could have been ‘run’ or ‘get down’. It doesn’t make a difference.
Sophia looks at the moving snow. She sees a tree – uprooted –sliding towards her on its side. Below her, the other group has not yet noticed; has not even turned around.
She spins back to the wall of snow rushing towards her. Her body wants to run. To fight. But there is nowhere to run to and nothing to fight. Her mind knows this.
And, in that moment – that one in a billion – there is nothing she can do. And the knowledge slows her breathing and slows the time around her. Her eyes see every rock bouncing. Every puff of snow as its powder explodes into the air.
The sound hits her first. The sound of continents moving. Of moons exploding. She gets to her knees and puts her arms over her head. And then nature strikes her, and she is falling. Twisting. Sounds and thunder. Her legs over her. Under her. Sophia rolls. She is pushed and beaten, twisted and pulled.
2Lost on a mountain
There was a wind in Sophia’s ears. A sucking in and a blowing out.
She opened her eyes. She was under snow. It was dark. Her mind remembered. The avalanche. The mountain moving.
She opened her mouth and snow fell in. She coughed. The wind stopped. The wind was her breathing. And it wasn’t dark. Not totally. Above her the snow was glowing. It must be the sun.
Sophia tried to move her arms and legs. She couldn’t. The snow was too heavy. Slowly she worked the thumb on her right hand and then the fingers – trying to loosen the snow. Gradually she felt the space open. She pulled and pushed until her arm could move. She used it to free the other arm and then dug and tore and clawed at the snow around her until at last her face was breathing air with no snow falling into her mouth. She gasped in. Pinpricks fill her lungs.
Sophia pulled herself up and out of the snow. She checked herself. Nothing was broken. She was bruised – no more. But what about the others? She looked down the mountain.
The whole landscape was changed. Trees and rocks were lying broken and cracked. The entire side of the mountain had been ripped through. She was on a different planet.
Then she heard a voice.
“Is there anyone there?”
She ran to the voice. “Keep talking. I can hear you.”
“I’m trapped. Under the snow.”
She found the voice and dug. It was Leon.
“Are you ok?” she asked as she pulled him up.
“Yeah. I think so.” His voice was quiet.
A voice called from behind them. “Hey! Are you ok?”
Sophia turned and saw two of the other students, Min and Victor, walking towards them, feet sinking into snow.
“Yes! We’re fine.” she answered. “Have you seen anyone else?”
“No. No one.” Min shook her head.
The four stood together and looked down the mountain. There was no other movement.
“We were lucky to be higher up,” said Vic. “It was only the start of the avalanche that hit us. The others… I don’t think they could have survived.”
“What about Frau Meier?” asked Sophia. “She was with us.”
“I don’t know,” said Leon, his head in his hands. “I got down.
She pushed me down. She was saying something to me. I just remember a rock – it hit her hard. She fell backwards. I saw her swept away. It was like something from a movie. I don’t think she could have made it.”
“She had my cell,” said Sophia.
“She had all of them,” said Vic. “Keeping them safe in her backpack.”
“Huh. So, it’s just us.” Min frowned.
Sophia shook her head. “But we have to check.”
They looked. They walked down a couple of hundred feet or so calling. Shouting. But there was nobody else.
And then the snows started again. The winds blew in.
“I think a storm’s coming,” Vic said looking up at the clouds covering the midday sun. “We have to find shelter. Without the guide we don’t know where we are going. We’ll just have to wait for rescue.”
Sophia nodded. “We passed a hole in the rocks earlier. Maybe we can shelter in there.”
On the way, Vic started to collect some broken pieces of wood. “We’ll need to make a fire,” he said, “to keep warm. All of you should carry what you can.”
The hole in the rocks was a cave. It extended into a small hollow.
“There’s enough room in there for us all,” Sophia went in first and looked around. “We can sit and wait this out.”