Unforgettable journey to other planets

Jean-Pierre lost sight of the doctor and tried to quicken his pace. He could hear Debby crying from the shaking, but he tried to walk faster.

“Faster, come on!” he shouted.

Yulia ran beside the handmade stretcher and held Debby’s hand. She could feel Debby’s hand clenching with each step from the pain running through her body. The wind rumbled so loud and fierce that Yulia didn’t dare look up. The cold seeped under her clothes and burned her body. Little icicles sliced her face and hands.

The fascinating landscape was drowned in fog and blackness. The sun had disappeared, though it was only a few hours after noon. The landmark of the rock was swallowed up by black clouds. Jean-Pierre picked his direction at random, trying to find the doctor.

Yulia felt Debby’s hand weaken and her fingers loosen.

“Stop!” Yulia screamed.

David began to reduce his step, slowing down the procession. Jean-Pierre turned over his shoulder and looked at Debby. Breathing heavily, he shouted desperately into the fog:

“Doc! Doctor!”

Yulia looked ahead and screamed in fright, too:

“Dr Capri, where are you?”

The light was still breaking through the dust and fog, but the hum drowned out their voices. Yulia pointed ahead at eleven o’clock, noticing some sort of movement.

“Hurry up!” Jean-Pierre commanded.

Everyone moved briskly forward.

“Doctor!” Yulia ran out in front of Jean-Pierre. “We are here! Wait for us!”

The light abruptly changed and blackness began to come over them. Jean-Pierre looked up, trying to understand the size of this unknown danger. They took a few more steps, and through the impenetrable swell Jean-Pierre began to make out the shape of a mountain. Yulia was running in front of him ten or fifteen meters away, shouting something in Russian. Suddenly, she stopped abruptly and fell silent. David looked out from behind Jean-Pierre’s shoulder, checking to see what was there. The porters took a few more steps and saw the doctor standing in front and some man beside him. Their figures were not clearly visible, but the doctor’s posture was recognizable.

Dust and fog still hung in the air, but the wind died down. It became quiet and a little lighter. Everyone approached Dr Capri and the stranger who was standing beside him, talking quietly about something. The hum left behind and there was silence.

“Good day, I want to say,” the stranger said in English.

Everyone began to respond to him with repetitive nods without words. Dr Capri rehabilitated the stranger and said:

“This is Bhrigu. He is a hermit. He says there is a cave to take shelter in.”

Jean-Pierre felt that his hands were stiff, and he could hardly feel them. He looked at the strange-looking man, at the doctor, at the bewildered Yulia.

“Where are the soldiers?”

“I lost them out of sight,” the exhausted doctor shook his head.

David said quietly:

“Debby is hushed, what’s happened to her?”

Dr Capri walked over to the stretcher and leaned over it.

“She lost consciousness; her breathing is even.”

The hermit looked behind Jean-Pierre’s back and glanced at the girl.

“For me follow,” said Bhrigu and walked leisurely toward the mountain.

“We must go,” said Dr Capri. “She needs water and warmth. She is very weak. We can’t find the helicopter now.”

Jean-Pierre was hesitant to go, he turned to the doctor:

“If we turn back now, we won’t be able to find the military today.”

“I ran as fast as I could,” the doctor excused himself, “but they just disappeared in that dust. I screamed.”

The doctor shifted his gaze from the hesitant Jean-Pierre to the hermit in front, who was standing half-turned ten meters away, waiting for them to move.

“It’s a calm for a few minutes,” the doctor looked around.

“You think they’ve gone far?” David asked.

Yulia answered:

“In this storm we won’t even see them within fifty meters.”

To prove Yulia’s words, the light went down even more.

“Okay,” agreed Jean-Pierre.

Everyone began to walk forward, getting over the slight incline. The wind howled again somewhere in the distance. After a few hundred meters, they came to a large rock. The top of the cliff was covered with fog. But somewhere at the top was a dark cave. The travelers looked around the steep stone wall. A hermit was climbing the steps carved in the stone. He turned and beckoned again, pointing to the beginning of the stairs.

“A little more,” Yulia whispered in Debby’s ear, “don’t be afraid, everything will be fine soon.”

David lifted the stretcher above his head to keep Debby from rolling down. They slowly began to climb the narrow, winding stairs. David’s hands began to shake from fatigue, and he set the door on his head. The wind died down, and the scalding snow stopped falling. They climbed the last step, and David collapsed to the ground with fatigue.

“We need to walk a few more meters,” said Dr Capri, “let me do it.”

David nodded and relented. Sweat ran down his face.

He wiped his sleeve and looked at the stairs they had just climbed. The makeshift steps were of varying heights and stooped from time. In some places, snow covered the stairs. David tried to see the valley they had come from, but the weather was still bad and nothing was visible. The wind rustled and drove a wad of fog in front of David’s eyes. He looked around, and a peak flashed between the clouds. Majestic and calm. It seemed unaffected by the storm. It was illuminated by the sun, and only the fuzzy top showed that the strong wind had blown thousands of tons of snow off the ridge of the giant.

“David,” Dr Capri’s voice was heard, “you will freeze there. Please go deeper into the cave. You have a lighter, don’t you?”

“Yes,” David answered, still breathing heavily, and wiped his face again with his sleeve.

He rose with great effort, stepped into the gloom of the cave, and saw Jean-Pierre trying to wake Debby up. Dr Capri watched him and looked intently at Debby. Yulia was sitting on the cold floor, breathing tiredly. Out of the darkness came the hermit.

“Cold here, but warm in other place. Deeper to go we need. Please,” he looked at the oblivious Debby and then nodded to himself, “Water there. For her we need it.”

“The important thing now is to make a fire and keep her warm. Let’s go a bit more,” Jean-Pierre said, looking at Debby, and took hold of one edge of the door.