This is kind of a long story, but I beg you to hear me out, because I don’t know who else I can trust.

It all started as a simple hike up to the summit of one of the largest mountains in the world. Our group originally consisted of Nilsy, Manny, Neffy (or Freckles, as he has very noticeable freckles that we all liked to make jokes about), Kenny and Joey.

After a spending a night at a convieniently placed cabin (the six of us were extremely thankful for it), we packed up our gear and exited the cabin at around 9:00am (we wanted to get going early, so that we could utilise as much daylight as possible).

We walked for a while, mostly just chatting about mundane things, such as what we had been up to since the last time we saw each other. Apparently, Nilsy and Manny recently had an awkward encounter with Nilsy’s biological mother, Emelia (she had... Mental problems which made her incapable of looking after children). Naturally, she was thrilled to see him, but Manny told Emelia to ‘mind her own business and stay away from Nilsy’. In addition, I had also overheard Kenny muttering something about his workplace being ‘in the red’, but I didn’t pay too much mind to it.

After a little while of this, Nilsy started tugging on Manny’s trouser legs, with a look of worry on his little pale face.

“Goodness... I-it’s starting to get very foggy up here... P-please stay close...” He whimpered, fear evident in his nasally voice.

At first, Manny looked kind of annoyed at Nilsy and looked like he was about to tell Nilsy to get a grip on himself... But then he looked up and appeared to notice something...

“Hey, there’s a hell of a lot of clouds...” He groaned.

“An obvious sign that there’s a hell of a lot of snow on our way.” Joey pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

“Nah, it’s too cold for snow.” I responded, hoping to relieve our group of some of this tension that appeared to had made itself present.

“It’s the PERFECT temperature for snow! What are you babbling about?!” Joey hissed at me.

The wind started to pick up, signalling to us that there was definitely a storm approaching. The many clouds that surrounded the mountain started to darken, the fog thickened and there was a drastic drop in temperature. Even with our heavy, layered winter clothing, I was beginning to feel the chill in the air and I could tell that the others could feel it too.

The mood amongst our group became increasingly grim, as our conversations gradually got quieter and quieter. Within about an hour, the group was completely silent. Nobody dared to say a word, not even Nilsy. As much as I wanted to try and elevate the mood a little (even with a fart joke or a freckles joke at Neffy’s expense), I knew that there was no point. If anything, it probably would’ve worsened the tension in the air...

For a painfully long time, all one could’ve heard was the sound of hushed breathing and the whistling of the freezing north wind. The sharp chill in the air felt like a knife cutting up the inside of my lungs. I wanted to say something to relieve this awkward silence, but what was there to say?

There wasn’t much to say... Until I looked behind me... I noticed that our group seemed to be two short. Kenny and Joey, to be exact...

“Hey... Guys... W-where’s Kenny and Joey...?” I shivered as I asked the remaining group members.

“N-nyah? E-er...” Nilsy babbled until he looked behind himself and Manny. “O-oh! Indeed, they ARE gone! Oh my goodness, where could they have went?”

“Eh, I’m sure they’re fine... Probably just took a breather for a moment... I’m sure they’ll catch up eventually...” Manny responded, seemingly apathetic to our current situation.

“Who’s Kenny and Joey?” Neffy asked, a look of confusion plastered across his frostbitten face.

“Come on, Freckles! They were with us a minute ago!” I replied, somewhat irritated at Neffy’s response.

“Hm? I thought that it was just you, me, Manny and Nilsy...” Neffy retorted, somehow looking even more confused than before.

There was nowhere for the duo to have hidden themselves. This area was completely barren and devoid of anything except for snow and howling winds...

Unable to do much else, we pressed on...