Warren wondered how he managed to get so far from the road. When his car had broken down, and he couldn't get cell phone reception, he had remembered that there had been a service station only a few kilometres back the way he had come. He put on his parka and heavy mitts, and set out on foot along the highway, but he hadn't factored in how complete the blizzard was. If he stretched out his arms in front of him, he couldn't see his fingertips. There were no streetlights out this far, and the snow had swallowed the moon. Warren believed that had it been day, the storm would've even swallowed the sun. By the time he was one hundred steps from his car, the highway had vanished under the white.

He turned back, deciding that seeking shelter in his car would at least keep him from hypothermia while he waited for the snow to pass -- plow trucks would be by in the morning, certainly, and he would be saved -- but he couldn't find his footprints; already they had been hidden by the relentless storm. Without a trail, he wandered blindly, and the first solid object he encountered with his groping hands was a tree.

The tree was an ancient conifer that had surely weathered storms like this before, and it filled Warren's vision. Already the snow was piled up around its base, but Warren knew that if he could dig down, and get under the lowest branches, he would be protected from the worst of the storm. Though he was already cold and fatigued, he managed a brief smile that he had remembered that much of his outdoor survival class, at least.

The digging was hard, as Warren's mitts where fur-lined buckskin, and they afforded little purchase against the slippery snow. As he worked, he could feel the cold creeping into his clothes. Under his hood, snow blew against his eyes, and he had to blink to keep the surface moisture from freezing. The wind crept in under the hem of his coat and his sweater, and he could feel the fingers of cold brush against his skin. His boots were cold-weather-rated, but they were not designed for trekking through knee-deep snow; they were filling up, and the snow was melting. Already Warren's toes felt like they were on fire. Warren had suffered frostbite before, and he knew that soon enough, the burning would move up his foot as the numbness set into his toes.

Finally, fighting against the falling snow, Warren managed to dig a hole large enough to squeeze his parka-padded form into the space under the tree. It was small and tight, the white powder having drifted under the branches. Warren had never been claustrophobic, but when he lay as flat as he could, his back on the snow, his body as close to the tree's trunk as he could manage, the needles brushed his face, and he could feel the snow already piling up and burying his left arm, the one outside. He rolled onto his side, his back to the howling winds, facing the bole of the tree, and huddled himself into a foetal position.

"Oh god," he thought, his mind remarkably calm. "I'm going to be snowed in and buried alive. Hypothermia's not going to get a chance to get me; I'm going to suffocate. I'm going to drown in open air, and nobody will ever find me and I'm going to be picked clean by coyotes and beetles and who the fuck knows what else." The coldness slowed down his thoughts, kept his mind from racing. Everything seemed crisp and clear, painfully so, and every thought was precise and calm.