The ice broke with a collective crack, plunging Lukas into the lake with an exclaimed yelp.

"Lukas!" Jesse was screaming before she even realized it. She took a step to the dark, gaping hole but the ice immediately disappeared underneath her, sending her leg through the ice.

"Jesse!" She heard Petra yell behind her. The water seeped through her armour and stabbed her with wave after wave of freezing water. Her lungs constricted, making her gasp in the freezing mountain air. The water reached all the way up to her thigh as more ice started to come loose around it. She tried pulling herself out, but the ice only cracked more when she made any sudden movements.

If she moved the ice would crack. If Petra or Ivor came over to help the ice would crack. She was going to fall in. She was...she was...

Stop.

A firm voice echoed in her head. Calm down. Breathe.

Jesse closed her eyes and focused on making long, deep breaths. Calm down, she told herself. Allowing panic to seize her mind would be a death sentence. She needed to keep a cool head and assess the situation.

The hole was only a few inches deep, but its thickness was probably the only reason why she hadn't fallen in as well. And yet the ice was very unstable with dozens of fissures running through its clear surface. "Alright, this shouldn't be too difficult." She murmured as she lay down onto her back, trying to distribute the rest of her weight evenly around her. She kicked her trapped leg back and forth, creating a flurry of bubbles beneath her, and swiped her arms out to the same rhythm as if she were making a snow angel.

Slowly, but surely, the force generated by her movements propelled her leg a few inches out of the hole. In between breaths, she looked down her body to Lukas' hole. He had still not resurfaced.

The moment she felt her foot rise up out of the hole, she rolled as far away from it as possible. The back of her neck slid against the ice, sending shivers down her spine as she stared up at the white sky.

Petra suddenly came running towards her at full speed - she could hear the vibrations of her footsteps in the ice. "Stop. Stop!" she yelled. Her pleads went right over Petra's head as she reached Jesse, pulling her onto her feet.

"Come on," she struggled to keep her feet steady as they slid and skidded around the ice. "We need to get onto the thicker ice."

They only managed to get a few metres away, thanks to Petra's wobbly legs. All the while they held each other up, Jesse watched Lukas' hole for any signs of life. "He should have come up by now."

Petra nodded in agreement but kept a firm grip on Jesse's shoulder. "It's too dangerous," she told her, as if she knew about the plan developing in her head. "You'd just end up falling in yourself."

Jesse shook her head, trying to dispel the negative thoughts in her head. He'd be alright. Lukas was a good swimmer - he'd be able to get out. They'd been in much worse situations than this: running from the Witherstorm, Endermen, Ghasts... In comparison to everything they'd gone through, this should be a walk in the park for him.

He'd make it. He had to.

"Hold up, hold up," Petra stopped and frowned, looking across the lake. "Do you hear that?"

Jesse closed her eyes and listened to the silence. "I don't hear anything but the wi-MMPH!" She glared at Petra as she covered her mouth, smothering the rest of her sentence.

"Shut up and listen."

The wind howled across the frozen wasteland, rustling through the bushes and pine trees on either side of the lake. There wasn't even any birdsong echoing from the forests, no bleating rams or gakkering penguins. She was about to snap at Petra when she heard it.

"What is that?" She knelt to the ground and put her hand on the ice. "Scratching?" she mumbled softly. There was that and the faint popping of bubbles rising up to the hole she made.

Almost like-

An arm shot through the hole, clawing at the edges and pulling handfuls of ice off. The bubble stream increased in both size and number, the sound becoming more frenzied by the second. After a few moments, Lukas suddenly popped through the ice. He squeezed through the hole and threw his arms out, digging his nails into the ice in an effort to stay above water.

"Lukas!"

He coughed and spluttered the water from his lungs, clinging onto the ice for dear life. Jesse broke free from Petra's clutches and took several steps forward. A large crack shot through the ice like a flash of lightning, forcing both girls to back off. "Stupid ice!" she growled at her feet.

Petra backed away from the crack, glancing up and down at the ice and Lukas. "Lukas," she shouted once she was a safe distance away. "Move your body horizontally and kick your legs together!"

He nodded - or maybe that was a shiver - and tried to drag himself further onto the ice. Jesse was close enough to see his legs kick up a storm under the ice. While they moved enough to create a cloud of minuscule bubbles, each kick grew more tired and weaker than the last. The jagged corners of the hole dug into his chest, keeping him firmly pinned down as he thrashed around. Then his movements stopped altogether as a strong Arctic gust blew past him, shivers wracking through his body.

"Just...give me a moment," he said in between shallow breaths. "Can't...m-move m' legs...very much."

Jesse scrutinised the ice between them. Despite the large crack that separated them, the ice was definitely thick enough to have supported both her and Petra's weight. However, she still kept her distance. Even if they could make it across to Lukas, the ice could easily break if they got too close. And then there was the matter of pulling him out. You'd have to be an idiot not to realize that simply walking up and pulling him out was just asking for trouble. No, there was no way of saving Lukas on foot. That left one other option.

"Petra, what have you got in your pockets?"

There was a brief pause before she got an answer. "My sword, some string and a couple of snowballs."

Jesse reached into her pocket, hoping that what she was looking for hadn't frozen. "Here," she tossed over a slimeball with her back turned to Petra. "Take that and get Ivor into the cabin. A cabin that big must have a bathtub somewhere; fill it with warm water and put him in."

"But Jesse-"

"This isn't up for debate! Craft two leads, tie them together and come back out. Go, now!"

Petra pursed her lips into a thin line and breathed through her nose. With an exasperated huff, she stalked to the shore. "I had better not find both of you in the lake when I come back." Jesse kept an eye on her until she was a mere speck on the snow, helping a brown dot to its feet and half carrying it up the stairs.

Lukas shivered as another gust brushed his face. He was as pale as a sheet, clenching his jaw and tensing the muscles in his neck. "You're going to be fine," she held her hand out reassuringly. "Just hang in there."

He chuckled softly, resting his chin on the ice. "Hang in there? What d'you think I'm doing?" She wasn't sure whether the joke was more for his sake or for hers.

She bit her cheek, inhaled deeply and pushed back all the panicked thoughts running around her mind into a corner. A wave of calmness swept through, sealing those thoughts behind a thin wall. Breathe. Assess the situation.

"First things first, how are you feeling?"

"I'm cold if that's what you're getting at."

"I mean it, Lukas. You didn't hit anything important while you were down there, did you?"

"Nothing serious. My hands hurt a little from all that scratching, but it'll pass."

Jesse tried returning his smile but it was impossible to keep the worry from her face. "You said you couldn't move your legs much. Is that still true?"

He nodded as another wave of shivers wracked his body. "Can't feel my ankles anymore. The water is really cold." A sharp finger poked her mental wall, creating a tiny crack in its centre. Breathe, breathe.

Lukas braced his elbows onto the ice and started wriggling his body again, trying to heave himself out. "Look, Jesse," he grunted, as he twisted and turned his torso. "I don't know what people say you should do in these situations, but I'm pretty sure I should try getting out before I can't move anything."

Jesse looked down at the cracked no man's land separating them. "That sounds about right." She watched tiny bubbles rise up and rest on the underside of the ice as he kicked unsuccessfully; his legs were nothing more than dead weights as they danced around in the playful currents.

She found herself thinking about her old life before the Witherstorm. Back then, the biggest concern she had was decorating her treehouse and making sure Reuben didn't get lost while looking for carrots outside. They seemed so...petty. Now it was all about trying to find the right portal home, keeping everyone alive and well, and making sure they didn't kill each other in the process.

"How do we keep ending up in these messes?" she mused out loud.

Lukas looked up from his struggling for a moment and tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"You'd think that everything would have calmed down since the Witherstorm, but we keep getting into these situations. It's almost like trouble finds us rather than the other way around. It's not just me, is it?"

"No, I understand. We definitely, NNGH, seem to suffer from a severe case of bad luck."

Jesse rose an eyebrow at Lukas' muffled grunting. From where she was standing, it didn't look like he had made any progress on pulling himself out. He hadn't even budged an inch. Despite herself and the severity of the situation, a small laugh escaped her lips. "You're stuck, aren't you?"

"No. I just can't kick my legs hard enough to propel me out."

"There's that, and how that hole is tiny."

"Jesse..."

"There's no shame in admitting it, you know."

Lukas shot the darkest death glare Jesse had ever seen from him. "I'm. Not. Stuck."

She smirked at him, crossing her arms as her eyes glinted mischievously. "Sure. And I'm the Queen of Boomtown. All hail." She resisted the urge to laugh again as his glare intensified.

When it became evident that his legs were useless, he stretched his arms out even further and clawed at the ice. Jesse shook her head at his pathetic attempts to reach a few millimetres of ice just out of his grasp. "I don't think that's helping Lukas. You're just wasting your energy."

"It is helping. I can reach it."

"No, you can't. You really can't."

Lukas gritted his teeth together and glared up at her again. "Jesse."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

She rolled her eyes and held her hands up defensively, sighing at his fruitless endeavour. Once she got bored of watching him struggle, she looked behind her to check on how Petra and Ivor were doing. There was no sign of either one on the staircase, though - they must have made it inside. Just knowing that Ivor wasn't exposed to the elements any more released a heavy weight from her shoulders. Hopefully, it also meant that Petra would be back any minute now.

That was assuming that Lukas had minutes' left to spare.

The sound of cracking ice made Jesse turn back around. Lukas immediately stopped squirming as several chunks of ice disappeared into the lake. His body suddenly sunk several inches down.

"Lukas!" Jesse watched in horror as he frantically dug his nails into the ice, gasping as the water rose up his chest.

"I'm alright," he called to her. His descent halted at his armpits, leaving him even wetter than before. "I'm alright!"

"No, you're not!"

"Yes, I-"

His nails dragged against the ice as he sunk again, chipping the ice around his fingers. With a growl, he drove his nails further in. Jesse could feel the cracks spread across her mental wall like wildfire. Tiny shards of her fading self-control clinked onto the floor as her fear, with its dark, spindly fingers, poked and prodded through the cracks.

Lukas met her eyes, wearing the same terrified expression plastered on her own face. He shook his head slowly - a warning. As if he knew what was going through her mind.

It was in moments like this that Jesse truly believed that he knew her far better than she did.

The cabin doors burst opened behind her, banging against the walls as they almost swung off their hinges. "Jesse!" It was Petra. Jesse breathed a sigh of relief as she saw her friend running down the staircase at top speed, taking two steps at a time.

It would be alright now. Petra was here and they would get Lukas out the lake and leave this world together. It was going to be-

The ice cracked again. Lukas was doing his best to stay above water, but he was tired and the freezing temperatures were taking their toll on his body. The weight of his legs pulled him further down, all the way to his shoulders. He was sinking too fast. Petra wasn't even at the bottom of the staircase. They weren't going to make it in time.

All Jesse could hear was the blood roaring in her ears, and her heart pounding in her chest. Breathe, her mind repeated in a firm voice. It was struggling to keep control over her. Her thoughts scratched against her mental wall, pushing and nudging against the weak barrier locking them up. At that moment, a hand shot through her wall and shattered the thin veil. Pieces of her calm façade fell around her like broken glass, until all that fear swarmed out and smothered the voice keeping her placid.

Her mind erupted as her emotions rushed around, screaming, shouting orders at her. Go save him! Don't move or you'll make the ice worse. Wait for Petra. Don't wait. Jesse couldn't make sense of anything as the voices clamoured over each other, trying to win her attention.

Enough! Amid the chaotic storm thundering inside her, a new voice spoke to her. It was strong and authoritative but lacked the patronising tone of its counterpart. It hushed the clamour of her emotions. A surge of adrenaline suddenly swept through her, clearing her mind of all distractions until she could focus on one thing.

Lukas.

She smiled as it whispered its command, an order that she could heartily agree with.

Lukas said something to her as she bent her knees, took several steps back and glared at the ice with unwavering determination. "Jesse, no!" His voice rung across the lake, but it fell on deaf ears.

Screw calm.

She dashed forward and slid onto her stomach, using the momentum to carry herself towards Lukas.

"JESSICA, STOP!"

She didn't care about the ice cracking around her, or how she was moments away from falling in herself. None of that mattered. The only thing that did was Lukas.

She reached out to him as she came within arm's reach. Her momentum practically threw her into him just as he fell another inch. "Don't you dare let go!" She said. Her eyes burned into his as she firmly clasped his wrists.

Lukas shook his head at her, hanging his jaw wide open. "You're crazy," he breathed. "You know that?"

"Yep. And right now this crazy girl is saving your life."

Jesse strained her neck towards Petra, to see her leap over the last four steps and stop at the edge of the ice. She cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled loudly. "Are you two okay?"

"Throw the lead over!"

Petra pulled it out of her inventory, grasping its end and coiling the rest of it in her other hand. She swung it around and around over her head. as it reached the peak of its speed, she released it, letting it fly over the ice and land at Jesse's feet.

Jesse twisted her ankle towards the large loophole knotted at the end of the lead. The movement itself sent a loud shudder through the ice. "I can't reach it," Jesse shouted at her.

The rope vanished as Petra swiftly pulled it back to shore. "I'm going to try again. Just hold on!"

Jesse could barely hear her as she observed Lukas. His heartbeat pulsed in her hands, almost in rhythm with hers. Now that she was next to him, the severity of the situation hit her like a tonne of bricks.

His heartbeat was incredibly slow, as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep. His face was paler than his hair, while the tops of his ears, nose and cheeks were speckled blue. She could feel the cold radiating off his fingers - a clear sign that he was frozen to the core.

To make things worse, his eyes kept fluttering open and closed. "Don't mean to freak you out," he mumbled, "but I'm feeling kinda tired right now. That's a bad thing, right?"

Jesse couldn't find the words to say, choosing to nod instead.

Lukas panted a shaky breath. "Look, if we don't make it to shore...I need to tell you something."

She knitted her brows together. "You can tell me when we're in the cabin."

"But Jesse-"

"Anytime now, Petra!" she yelled over her shoulder.

The loop landed flat on her back on cue. She released one hand from Lukas to yank the rope over her shoulder, took his wrist again, and did the same with the other.

Suddenly, the hole completely collapsed around them. Lukas opened his mouth to scream but was pulled under the ice before he could make a sound. Jesse tightened her grip on his wrists, even as she was dragged into the water with him. She felt her face plunge into the icy waters, the cold slashing her cheeks like daggers. She squinted into the darkness to see Lukas looking up at her with his cheeks puffed up with air. His wrists slid in her hands, until she felt him grab her own wrists.

The lead went taut around her chest, pulling the two of them out of the water again. The coughed and gasped for air as Petra tugged them out of the hole and further onto the ice. It wasn't easy - in her desperation to get to Lukas, Jesse had made the entire stretch of ice she had slid across unstable. While she was out of the water, every time they tried to pull Lukas up the ice broke beneath him. It took several tries to successfully get his whole body of out of the water and onto the ice.

Jesse shivered as the wind bit into her wet skin. Her lungs felt like they were shrinking, as an invisible pair of hands wrapped around her throat and choked the little air she had left. It hadn't been so bad when it had just been her leg in the water. But now it felt like the gusts were trying to tear her apart, as freezing droplets trickled off her clumped strands of hair. The chill raced down her spine and numbed her bones to the marrow.

Stop it, her brain hissed at her. Lukas had been in the water for far longer than she had and dealt with the Arctic winds while the rest of them fumbled over his rescue. If she felt like this after a few seconds, how did Lukas feel?

"Lukas, you still there buddy?" He struggled to keep his eyes open, opting to make a guttural moan rather than form a sentence. "We're almost at the shore. Stay with me, ok."

She didn't hear a response.

They finally reached the shoreline. Jesse threw herself off the ice, throwing the lead over her head and thanking the invisible forces for creating land. Meanwhile, Petra pulled Lukas to his feet and looped his arm over her shoulder. "I've got a fire going inside. Help me with Lukas."

Jesse lifted his dangling arm over her own shoulder and wrapped her arm around his back. Lukas was nothing more than a dead weight, weighing all three of them down as he swayed and stumbled all the way to the staircase. Both girls went onto the first step and had to haul Lukas up before continuing.

When they were halfway up, he suddenly slumped his head onto Jesse's shoulder, mumbling incoherent garbage. She instinctively tensed up, feeling a new wave of goose bumps run down her arms as his wet hair tickled her cheek and tiny droplets ran down her neck.

"When we get inside the two of you need to get your armour off," Petra grumbled as they hauled Lukas onto another step. "The last thing we need is for anyone to get sick, on top of being hypothermic."

Jesse nodded in agreement, trying to ignore how close Lukas was to her, until a sudden thought popped into her head. It threw a spanner in her brain cogs, grinding everything to a halt. She swallowed uneasily and slowly turned her head to Petra. "What exactly do you mean by, 'take our armour off'?" The hairs on the back of her neck rose as Lukas' hair tickled her chin.

"I mean, take off your armour," she glared, clearly unamused. "Right to your underwear." Jesse hoped that Lukas wasn't awake to hear her high-pitched squeak. "Your bodies are trying to bring your temperature back to normal. By keeping those wet clothes on, you're stopping that from happening."

"I know that! It's just..." Jesse looked down at Lukas' blue skin. "Lukas isn't exactly in a position to do that himself."

"And?"

"And!" she spluttered. "You can't just take his armour off. It's rude!"

Lukas stirred and lifted his head up slightly. "What's rude?" he mumbled.

Jesse heaved a heavy sigh of relief before Petra interrupted her. "Jesse and I are going to take your armour off when we get inside."

That got a reaction. Lukas shifted his neck to get a better look of Petra. "Uh, I must be hearing things," he laughed, nervously, "because for a moment it sounded like you said the two of you were going to strip me." His smile faded away as he caught sight of Petra's annoyed face. "Wait, you're serious?"

"Tell me about it," Jesse muttered under her breath.

"You guys that's not necessary. I can easily do that myself."

"Do you want to get hypothermia?" Petra shot back.

"I..uh...whoa." Jesse tightened her grip as Lukas started swaying again. And once again, his head rolled back onto her shoulder. "Sorry, everything just went really dizzy..."

Petra huffed while Jesse tried to calm her breathing and gently squirm away from Lukas' head. He seemed to have other ideas. She went rigid was he abruptly nuzzled his face into her neck, his cool breaths sending shivers up her spine.

"Lukas you're already hypothermic. You need to...and you're unconscious again. Great." She peered over at Jesse, who let out a quiet whimper. "Jesse, what are you doing?"

"He's in my neck!" She hissed in a tiny voice.

"He's cold and your neck is probably the warmest thing closest to him. Which, considering how your face is as red as a tomato, doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Now stop fussing and help me get through the door."

When they reached the glass double doors, Jesse kicked them open with her foot. The wind did the rest, nearly blasting the doors off their hinges as they hammered against the windows. Snow blew in and dusted the oak floor, before melting into a giant puddle. The three of them shuffled in together, trying to shield Lukas from the gusts.

Once inside, Petra pulled herself free and lightly shoved Lukas onto Jesse. "The fireplace is down the hallway, the last door on the left," she said, as she scurried to close the banging doors. "I'll find some blankets and meet you there."

Jesse pulled Lukas closer and adjusted her grip on him, before hobbling underneath the sweeping U-shaped staircase that filled the room. They passed extravagant paintings of snow-topped mountains and small tables littered with candles, glossy wax pooled around each stick. A wave of cinnamon and fresh cloves enveloped them as they went further down the corridor.

The walls opened into a large rectangular room. There were two pine doors on the back wall leading to separate rooms, and two long sofas arranged on either side of a glass coffee table in the centre of the room. A brightly coloured tapestry hung between the doors, with a strange diamond pattern running down it. A dusty loom stood close by, with the remnants of an unfinished project dangling between the pieces of wood.

Heat flowed through the left door, cracked open several inches, with a faint orange glow illuminating the room.

A deep, guttural moan beside her reminded her not to get distracted.

She limped around the leather sofas and pushed the door open. The heat surged into her bones from a large stone fireplace. She dragged Lukas, slammed the door behind her, and headed to the crackling fire. His eyelids flickered as she lay him down just short of the hearth.

Her hands trembled over Lukas' shoulder. Right. First things first, get his iron armour off.

She slipped her gloves off, figuring that she could do a better job without them, and put them down beside her. The tips of her fingers were red but it didn't look like there was any damage to the skin. That lit a spark of hope within her as she fumbled with the clasps and buckles securing the pauldrons on Lukas' shoulders. When she had slipped them off, she threw them into a pile next to her gloves, spreading out the leather straps to dry. She continued with his gloves, greaves, and belt, carefully removing the items from the belt pockets before leaving them to dry. His items went into a chest on the right wall underneath a tall window.

Only then did she notice the room's furnishings.

She had closed the lid of the chest and turned back to Lukas when she noticed a large, taxidermy yeti next to the door. It glared at her with glazed, while pupils, frozen with its arms outstretched as if it had tried to grab someone before being preserved. Rows of sharp teeth were bared at her, daring her to come closer. Her skin prickled with unease.

Then she noticed the others. Mooshrooms, cows, wolves, even a pair of ocelots, had been placed around the room and against the walls. In the glow of the fireplace, she realized that there were no paintings in the room, but rather the mounted heads of numerous animals.

She felt the blood flow from her face as she spotted the head of a pig on the far wall.

This was a trophy room.

Jesse felt bile rise up her throat; she covered her mouth and forced it back down. Just ignore it and focus on Lukas, she said to herself. Once she pulled off his boots and damp socks, all his armour pieces were off. That just left his clothes.

She bit her lip as she slipped his jacket off and hung it over a chair in between two white wolves. To her mortification, his arms weren't as thin as she'd expected them to be. Slivers of muscle ran underneath his pale skin, thanks to the months he'd contributed to the post-Witherstorm rebuilding efforts, as well as using his sword more often in the past weeks.

She grabbed the hem of his shirt and averted her gaze before quickly ripping it off. His goggles got caught as she pulled it over his head, slicking his hair off his forehead. "Nope," she said, as she threw both the shirt and goggles over the chair, and returned to peel his pants off. "Nope, nope, nope, nope."

They put up a little resistance when they reached his knees, so she tugged harder. "Please just come off," she begged. "Just be a cooperative pair of jeans and just come off."

"Jesse?"

She ripped them off, causing Lukas to yelp in surprise, and stared wide-eyed at her now fully-conscious friend.