And then… the sky collapsed.
This wasn’t an ordinary snowfall. It was a white storm, a roaring monster that engulfed the mountain range in six hours. The outside world ceased to exist, replaced by a wall of ice, wind, and death.
Panic erupted in the village when it was too late. The flimsy doors of the houses couldn’t withstand the gusts of wind. Firewood supplies, which most had sold or hadn’t even bothered to buy, were depleted within the first two days. Dirt roads were buried under two meters of snow, cutting off any hope of escape or rescue.
While in the town, 5 kilometers away, underground, chaos reigned and muffled screams could be heard, a 14-year-old girl resisted.
The interior of the water wheel was dark and stuffy, but the side cave she had dug was working. Ximena had built herself a nest from layers of dry leaves, pine branches, and her own body. She lit small fires, about the size of her fist, stoking them with twigs to avoid choking on the smoke and to conserve the last of her firewood.
The days became mental torment. The darkness was almost absolute. To maintain her sanity, she counted her breaths and drastically rationed her food: a handful of acorns and two sips of melted snow water a day.
There were moments of utter despair. Entire nights, when the wind howled over the mouth of the well, as if La Llorona were trying to drag her down to hell. The cold seeped into her bones, causing her to shiver uncontrollably. Her stomach growled with a sharp pain that made her double over, sobbing silently to conserve her strength.
She almost gave up in the fifth week. Hunger and fever caused her to hallucinate about her mother, who begged her to close her eyes and rest once and for all.
But rage stirred within her. The image of her father hurling her into the dust in front of everyone lit a fire in her chest.
“I won’t give them that satisfaction,” she whispered, her lips cracked and bleeding. “I don’t intend to die in this pit.”
Time ceased to be measured by clocks and began by heartbeats. It was 82 days. 82 days buried alive.
Until one morning, the sound changed. The roar of the wind faded. In its place, he heard a soft, steady drip. The light seeping through the well’s opening was no longer the blinding, ominous white of ice, but a warm, golden hue.
With legs trembling from extreme weakness and lack of mobility, Ximena began to climb toward the surface. It took her almost an hour to reach the surface.
When she peeked her head out, the impact knocked the breath out of her.
The landscape was unrecognizable, yet beautiful. The snow melted, forming small, shimmering streams. The scent of petrichor, damp earth, and new life filled his lungs. Spring had reclaimed the mountains.
Ximena fell to her knees in the fresh mud and burst into tears. But this time, they were tears of triumph. She was alive.
Still weak, leaning on a thick branch like a staff, she made her way back to the village. She wanted to see her father’s face. She wanted to see the faces of all those who had laughed at her, and to erase from their memories that this “useless” girl had survived nature’s fury.
But as he approached the first houses, the feeling of triumph in his chest turned into an icy anxiety.
Something was missing. The barking of dogs was missing. The clucking of chickens was missing. The smoke rising from the chimneys was missing.
The silence in the village was complete, absolute, sepulchral.
