I scuttled backwards on my bum, my heels kicking up a flurry of snow.

Oh shit.

There was no way I was going up to those dark portacabins now. I backed around Luca's body and, mewling like a run-over kitten, half sprinted, half limped, back towards the light of the hotel.

I wasn't equipped for this.

This couldn't be my reality. It couldn't.

It was.

I turned fearfully towards the mast when I reached the hotel door, like I might see a cartoon green flash or buzzing lightning strike dart out to pierce me.

Of course, I didn't. The fact that I might hit me silently, invisibly, was somehow much worse.

Reception was still deserted.

I had to get help.

For a moment, careering through the icy corridors past the noiseless bedrooms, I was stricken with the fear they were all empty, I was the only person left alive.

In fact, when I pulled back the curtain to Ruben's room, that's what I was convinced I would find.

Nothing.

Not two glossy, black sleeping-bag slugs, curled up on the ice-block bed.

"Ruben," I rasped, my voice hoarse, throat rubbed raw by running. "Ruben! Wake up!"

There was a murmur from the bed, the sleeping bags moving.

"Ruben!" I went up to the biggest one and tried to shake what I assumed was his arm. "Ruben, you've got to wake up! It's an emergency!"

A groan came from within the bag.

"Jennie?" The voice was sleep-heavy, confused, and it wasn't Ruben's.

Suzie's screwed-up face poked out of the other bag. "What are you doing in here? What time is it?"

"Some time after five," I said, still desperately shaking Ruben. "We've got to wake him up. Something—something terrible has happened. We need to do something, now."

"Is it a fire?" Suzie sat up promptly, struggling out of her bag, her panicked eyes on the door. "Are we all going to burn? Oh God, Ruben! Wake up! Ruben!"

Finally, with another groan of protest, Ruben came to.

He slurred at me from within the sleeping bag. "What the fuck, Jennie? What's going on?"

"It's happened again, Ruben," I said, tears rimming my voice. "I saw it... in the snow. Just like Sam."

Ruben grunted and flipped over, burying his face in the bag. "I can't do anything. Go tell the staff. We can talk in the morning."

"There are no staff, Ruben." My voice was rising, both hands trying to flip him over, startle him awake. "It was Luca. It was Luca, Ruben. You need to wake up!"

Finally, he sat up, making a guttural noise like he was irritated by the inconvenience of this tragedy, that it had happened in the vicinity if him.

"Fucking hell," he said, his tone annoyed. "Have you called someone?"

"Who?" I asked, my voice trembling. "There are no authorities in Antarctica, you said so yourself."

Ruben took out his phone and jabbed three digits, pressing it to his face.

"Hello?" He said. "Hello? 911? Is that.... what...do you speak English?"

He threw the phone down with a "Fuck!"

"What?" I asked.

"Shoulda been 911," he said. "Just some weird tone, someone garbling in a foreign language."

"What's going on?" Suzie demanded, looking up from the phone she'd picked up. "Jennie? Are you going to tell me what's going on? Why you've just burst in here?"

"The manager," I said to her, tears rising, aware I sounded completely hysterical. "He's dead. And maybe all the staff are too. And we might all be dead soon, unless we can work out how to turn that off that phone mast."

"What are you talking about?" Suzie said sceptically, burying her head in her hands.

"Are you going to help me?" I turned to Ruben, my voice raising an octave, tears in my eyes.

"I don't know." He shook his head, face crumpled. "I just... I need to think about this, okay? It doesn't make any sense."

He didn't believe me. He'd seen Sam, and he didn't believe me.

He didn't want this to be his reality, just like I didn't want it to be mine. Disbelief was the easier choice.

"Okay," I said, turning away, trying not to cry. "I'll do it on my own. But We've got to turn off that mast, before someone else dies."

I could hear Ruben shout, "Jennie!" as I ran down the corridor.

***

The wind was even stronger when I got back outdoors. I could barely see to the end of my arms, splayed out in front of me to prevent myself running into an unseen obstruction.

It was only by the familiar incline that I could tell I was on the way towards the mast. Then, occasionally, the wind would drop slightly, and I would get that faint glimmer of red, signalling my destination.

I was terrified of running into Luca's body again, and tried to take a wider route than I had last time, so I could avoid it.

I tried not to think about him, his little paisley pyjamas in the snow.

I tried not to think about anything.

How cold I was, how afraid. How very, very alone.

I focused on getting there.

The portacabins loomed out of the darkness, uncomfortably close. I hammered on the doors and the windows.

Nothing.

I walked around to its back, hand on the wall, knocking at every pane.

Another small structure stood behind it. The mast base station? I'd need to get inside there to switch the power off.

I traced its flat walls with my fingers, the heavy metal door.

There was no way I was getting in there.

I had no chance.

I looked up, the red light flashing high above me.

There had to be connectors somewhere, wires... could I rip them out? Break off the antennae, perhaps?

I bashed again, pitifully, at the base station door before moving over to the base of the mast, shivering in the inhuman night. The wind howled monstrously through the metal frame.

The base of the mast was as big as a room, shooting up into the ether, solid vertical girders and zig-zagging struts.

And there, in one corner, wrapped with little metal hoops, was a ladder.

I hesitated a moment before dashing towards it, shivering in the frigid cold. I could barely curl my stiff fingers around the rings.

Was I really going to do this?

Before I had time to answer, I'd started to climb.

Up, up, up.

Again, I couldn't think about anything, except the placement of my feelingless feet, the load-bearing capacity of my inflexible hands.

I was sure I could hear the frequencies of the mast thrumming around me, but maybe that was just the wind, pushing through the metal, weighting my body, grabbing at my clothes.

Finally I reached the first round of antennae. The mast had multiple sets, spanning its whole height. From the ground, I'd seen them as similar to those satellite dishes people have on their houses, neat and compact. Up here, they were as tall as I was, the wind making their fixings grate and squeal.

I pulled myself tighter to the ladder, as the snow-lace wind pummelled me, sick with fear.

I'd do anything for this not to be real. For this not to be me, up a ladder in a blizzard at the bottom of the world.

It was.

Now I was up here, I had no idea how to get from the ladder to the antennae affixed to every side, or how I could in any way interfere with their solid, industrial fixings.

It was hopeless.

There was nothing I could do up here. Nothing.

I'd made a mistake.

But at least I had to try. It was too dark to see anything properly, so, hooking the crook of my right arm around the ladder, I fumbled in my pockets with my left, my breath painful, short and fast.

Finally, I found the square of my phone and pulled it out, attempting to flick on the torch. My gloves wouldn't let me.

I put my phone in my pocket again, feet jammed on the rung, legs trembling. The ground dropping away below me as I grappled to pull my glove off with my teeth.

Finally, with a whimper of relief, I got it off, my hand immediately clawing with the cold, painful, useless. I had to get my glove back on as soon as possible.

I retrieved my phone with a shaking hand and flicked on the torch, then–

"Jennie! Jennie!"

I lurched, balance destroyed, grabbing for the ladder. The cold metal seared my skin and I let go, slipping down a rung with a bump. Moaning, I managed to wrap my left arm around the metal loop around the ladder, arresting my fall, saving myself from certain death.

My phone pinged from my hand, diseappearing into the darkness below me.

I heard a clang as it hit metal on the way down, but nothing when it inevitably hit the snow.

"Jennie!" The voice repeated again. I turned towards it, my movements staccato, my weak limbs starting to tremble.

The wind had loosened, dropping its load of snow, and I could see two figures down on the ground, beyond the portacabins, hands shielding their eyes, looking for me.

Suzie and Ruben.

"Jennie!" Ruben called again. Then, "Fuck!" when he saw me, saw where I was.

"Are you crazy?" Suzie squealed. "Get down from there!"

"You can't turn off the mast, Jennie!" Ruben shouted. "What are you thinking? It's our only link to the outside world!"

I closed my eyes for a moment. He was right.

I couldn't work out how to turn it off, and even if I could, we'd still need to raise the alarm, try to get away from this place.

I couldn't do this alone. I needed help.

Someone who would understand how to disable the mast, and someone who could help us all get home.

The solution was more of a relief to me than it should have been, considering the circumstances.

I'd have to go back to Paulo's research station.

They were the only people for miles around, and our single other option was waiting until we were missed at home, hoping someone would raise the alarm in four days time.

But either Davey or Phil would know how to deal with the mast, surely, considering their jobs? And Paulo could speak to the closest authorities in Argentina—my guess for where Ruben had been put through to—to sort out getting us all home.

It was the only chance we had.

"I'm coming," I called to Ruben, my voice impossibly tiny in the night. "I'm coming down." It was unlikely they heard me.

I pulled on my glove the best I could—it would be impossible to hold onto the ladder with my bare left hand—and slowly began to descend.

Yet again, I unfairly survived a ridiculous stunt that I really, really shouldn't have.

Sobbing with exhaustion, I crumpled into the snow as I finally hit the bottom.

That's when I heard it.

I told myself it was the wind at first, shrieking through the mast.

That's what I wanted to believe.

But there's something unmistakable, isn't there, about a woman's scream?