The Alps rose in the harsh winter like a vast white cemetery, where frozen peaks towered like monuments marking human failure against nature, and the wind shrieked through vertical cliffs like the screams of thousands of souls buried beneath eternal snow for centuries.
Marc looked at his hands.
Trembling.
Scarred.
His palms still harbored the haunting sensation of the rope slipping, leaving a trail of scorched flesh before Leo vanished into the mist.
For two years, Marc hadn’t lived.
He existed as a soulless ghost in a filthy shack on the edge of town, gnawing on the humiliation from locals who hailed Leo as a hero and branded Marc a coward who cut the rope to save his own skin.
Every day, a new slur was thrown at his door.
Murderer.
Coward.
Death is too easy for you.
That was what Julian—Elena’s billionaire fiancé, who was always jealous of the bond between Leo and Marc—insured that every person in Chamonix believed. Julian wanted to erase Marc’s reputation permanently, to occupy the mountaineering legend status Leo left behind.
Elena walked in.
Her eyes were as cold as the ice on Mont Blanc.
She didn’t come to ask for help. She came to collect a debt.
“Here is my medical file.” She threw the folder on the stone table. “Terminal cancer. The doctors say I have a maximum of three weeks before my body completely shuts down. I want to see where my brother died before I close my eyes. And you will be the one to take me there.”
Marc looked at the file.
Looked at the woman who hated him most in the world.
“I can’t. I swore never to…” he whispered, his voice hoarse from alcohol and fear.
“You must.” Elena stepped closer, her breath carrying the salt of hatred. “You owe me a life. If I die on the mountain, consider the debt paid. But if you refuse…”
She produced a small handgun.
“I will kill you right here, and no one in this town will weep for you.”
Marc looked at the muzzle.
Then looked at her eyes—eyes exactly like Leo’s.
An escape.
“Fine.” He stood up. “But you must know… that route is not for the sick.”
They began the climb in a terrifying silence, where only the crunch of crampons biting into ice and the heavy, ragged breathing of a man who had lost his will and a woman who was losing her life could be heard.
Higher.
The air thinned.
Marc’s heart hammered as if it wanted to burst from his chest.
The journey to the site where Leo vanished was a form of torture. With every step, Marc saw his friend’s shadow in the mist, beckoning him toward death.
After six hours of continuous climbing, Elena collapsed.
She began to cough. Bright red blood splattered against the pristine white snow. The cancer was ravaging her faster than they predicted.
“Keep going…” she gasped, clinging to her ice axe.
Marc looked at her ghostly pale face.
“We have to descend. You’re in shock from altitude combining with…”
“I SAID KEEP GOING!” she shrieked, but her weak voice was barely a whisper in the wind.
They reached the Eiger area. Marc checked the carabiners he had rented from a local shop—a shop that, unknown to him, Julian had bought out yesterday.
As Marc hooked the safety rope into a key piton on the rock face to prepare for a steep pitch, he froze.
The carabiner was cracked.
A microscopic fissure, cleverly concealed beneath a fresh coat of paint. It could not hold the weight of two people.
“Stop!” Marc screamed, but Elena had already taken a step.
“Snap.”
The sound of the carabiner disintegrating echoed in the deathly silence.
They slid.
Marc grabbed a protruding rock. Elena dangled ten meters below him. The safety rope yanked violently against Marc’s previously injured left shoulder.
The carabiner failure was just the prelude.
The vibration from their screams and impact had awakened a beast that had been slumbering above them.
A low, thundering boom echoed from the peaks far above them.
Avalanche.
A massive wall of snow, fifty stories high, was slamming down with the speed of a race car.
Marc looked at Elena below.
Looked at the avalanche above.
“CUT THE ROPE, MARC!” Elena screamed.
Memories flooded back.
Two years ago. Leo had said the same thing.
“NO!”
Marc roared. He didn’t cut the rope. He couldn’t make the mistake again.
Using the last of his fading strength, he shoved Elena into a narrow rock alcove he spotted just before the wall of white snow swallowed everything.
“BOOM!”
Marc was thrown against the cliff. The world went dark.
When Marc woke up, his world was pitch black.
The siren wail of the blizzard still echoed above. He was buried beneath a heavy layer of snow, but fortunately, a broken rock had created a small pocket just large enough for him to breathe.
Agony.
Everywhere in his body.
He tried to move his legs. No sensation. They were frozen.
He traced the safety rope. It was still connected to Elena.
He began to dig through the snow with his bare hands.
Nails snapped. Flesh tore. Blood flowed, freezing instantly on the pristine white snow.
He found her.
Elena was slumped in the small alcove. She was severely injured on her head. The handgun was gone, but the hatred remained in her eyes as they opened.
“You… you aren’t dead yet?” she whispered, blood flowing from her mouth.
“I have to get you out.” Marc said, his voice sounding like stones grinding together.
Problem Number Three: Hallucinations and Madness.
They were trapped in that small ice cave. Now, a new tragedy struck. The minus fifty-degree cold was beginning to ravage their minds.
Marc began to hear laughing.
Leo’s laugh.
He saw Leo standing in the corner of the cave, his face distorted by the fall, mocking him.
“Cut the rope, coward.” Hallucination-Leo whispered. “You know you want to. Like last time.”
“SHUT UP!” Marc screamed, slamming his head against the ice wall to chase the image away.
“Who are you talking to?” Elena looked at him, terrified. The cancer was exhausting her, and now, her only guide was going insane.
“No one.” Marc gasped, cold sweat pouring beneath the bone-chilling frost.
They survived the first night through shared warmth, a hateful dependence that was a cruel survival twist.
On the morning of the second day, Marc heard a sound.
A rescue team. Julian had called them, but not to rescue—to “confirm death” for Marc and Elena to seize the inheritance.
A helicopter hovered in the distance.
Marc knew they couldn’t see this small ice cave. He had to get out.
But the entrance was blocked by a massive block of ice.
And when Marc tried to move, he realized the ultimate tragedy the Alps had reserved for him.
An ice shelf dislodged in the avalanche had jammed his right arm against the rock face, right above the elbow.
He couldn’t move.
If he stayed like this, they would both die of hypothermia in a few hours. The rescue team would leave.
If he cut the safety rope to let Elena crawl out (she could make it), he would survive a few more hours, and she would be saved. But he would be letting his friend’s younger sister go to her death—a repeated tragedy.
Marc looked at Elena slowly drifting into a coma.
Looked at his trapped arm.
Looked at the rescue helicopter flying away.
A decision had to be made. A decision no human in the world should ever have to face.
Action.
No.
Agony.
Despair.
Fear.
Blood.
“Cut the rope, Marc.” Hallucination-Leo’s voice echoed again, but this time his voice was sad. “You have no other choice.”
“I… will not… let go.” Marc gritted his teeth, a twisted smile of madness appearing on his purple lips.
He looked around. He found one thing: a broken piton, sharp as a knife.
He brought the piton to his right arm.
“Marc! What are you doing?” Elena woke up, horrified beyond measure as she saw Marc bring the sharp instrument to his own body.
“To… save you.”
“SHANK!”
The sound of metal piercing through the protective layers. Piercing through flesh.
Agony hit him so violently it nearly stopped his heart. His entire nervous system exploded in a cruel form of torture.
He roared. A scream that tore through the cold Alpine sky.
He began to saw.
Using the piton as a crude knife.
Flesh was tearing.
Blood sprayed, freezing instantly on the white snow.
And when he reached the bone, Marc made the ultimate sacrifice.
He used the ice axe in his remaining hand, swinging hard against the half-sawn bone.
“SNAP!”
The sound of bone splintering echoed in the deathly silence of the ice cave.
Marc’s right arm was no longer permanently connected to his body.
He collapsed.
Suffering from severe blood loss. Hypothermia. Absolute hallucinations.
“Run…” he whispered, using the last ounce of his faded strength to shove Elena toward the cave entrance. “Run… until… they see… you…”
The blizzard began to rise again, but this time, it could not separate them.