I didn't pass out when the snowmobile crashed.

I just lay there, dazed, cold, not even hurting in the snow. I wasn't in a crevasse—I didn't think—but my leg was wedged beneath the overturned vehicle, the pressure on my thigh like a tourniquet, and I couldn't move.

Not that I had anywhere to go.

Even if I could free my legs, I was miles from anywhere. All I could hear was wind. All I could see was snow on blackness. Not even stars.

There was nothing I could do.

The snow-hole I was in protected me from the bitter wind, and beyond my early-onset panic, breathlessly struggling to be freed, I soon settled into hopelessness.

So this was it. My time to die.

Let me tell you something strange. Once I accepted that—that my measly life was finally done—it really wasn't so bad.

It must be one of the best ways to go, freezing. Drowning, burning, even a heart attack—they all sounded so painful.

Freezing didn't. Inexplicable warmth, sleepiness, drifting away... it was a humane, even blissful, release.

And as I lay there, contemplating my own imminent mortality, I suppose I had something like an epiphany.

It didn't matter.

I didn't matter. My death didn't matter.

In the vast, pulsating, energetic flow of life; the dance and hum of the ever-rotting, ever-blossoming world; the dousing of one insignificant little human existence, far out here in the ice, didn't matter at all.

Jocasta, Ben, GlobalGreen. Ruben, Suzie, InTrepid. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

None of them meant anything at all.

It was time to turn off the noise, the static chatter of my shallow consciousness, and dissipate into everything. There was only me and eternity.

Snow flurried, settling with soft kisses on my face.

And for the first time, I was at one with the universe.

***
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When my consciousness surprised me by returning, both my connection to the universe and awareness of eternity remained.

I was calm. Peaceful. At one.

With hindsight, that was probably the super strong opiates the doctor had just administered to me for the ruptured tendon in my leg, but it felt real nonetheless.

"Ah, Jennie." Stephen put down One Thousand Leagues and smiled down at me. "How're you feeling?"

Stephen?

If the posh blonde doctor was with me, that meant I was in the research station.

I slowly blinked myself into awareness, confused and amazed that information was finding its way into my senses. I had no idea where I was, or how I had got there.

I was laying in a small, warm bed in a small, white room; somewhere between a ship's cabin and college dorm. Stephen was sitting in a chair beside me. I sank into a kitten-soft grey duvet and pillows, billowy and feather light. It smelled heavenly. Despite it being entirely unfamiliar, I felt completely at home.

A picture of an orca cresting was tacked on the wall above me. To my right, a small table was topped with a half-full glass of water, a copy of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, bent at the spine, and a grainy framed photo of a dark-skinned, black-haired woman in a 1980s dress, sitting on a garishly patterned wooden sofa.

This could only be Paulo's room, I realised.

"What's going on?" I groggily asked Stephen, trying to sit up. "What am I doing here?"

"You fell off a snowmobile, by all accounts," Stephen replied, leaning back in his chair, folding one long leg over the other. "Luckily for you, Paulo found you, and brought you back here. You could have easily lost your fingers to frostbite. Quite a singularly reckless stunt." He shook his head disapprovingly.

I fell back into the pillows, letting my eyes close.

Paulo had found me? How was that possible? It was surely a miracle.

"I'll go tell him," Stephen said, standing up. "He'll be glad you're awake. How's the leg? Do you need any more pain-killers?"

I shook my head, the movement leaving slight trails in my vision.

I definitely didn't need any more painkillers.

Closing my eyes again, I snuggled into the softness of the strange bed, testing the unfamiliar weight and tension in my left thigh.

I just wanted to sleep.

I must have got my wish, for in less than a second, I could hear Paulo's voice close by, softly saying, "Jennie. Jennie."

His silhouette emerged from the darkness of my lashes. He was sitting on the side of the bed, watching me intently.

"Hello," I said, dreamily.

"Hello," he replied, and he smiled, a look something like relief on a tired, drawn face.

"You found me. I thought I was going to die."

"So did I."

"It's okay." I closed my eyes. "We should all die really. Our existence in these conditions is a farce."

"Jennie," he shook my shoulder gently. "What... what happened? Why did you leave? I thought..."

I opened my eyes to see him looking away, studying the orca on the wall, its supple back glinting in the photographer's sun.

"A text," I said, shutting my eyes again, and not reopening them this time. "I saw a text on your phone from Philomena. I thought you two were broken up. Properly broken up. I didn't realise you weren't. I was upset."

"We are broken up," Paulo said tersely. "For two years."

There was silence, and I opened my eyes a crack to see what he was doing.

He'd got his phone out, and was studying it.

"That text..." he said tightly, "you misread it. It wasn't like... that. It's complicated. Phil's about to lose her job. She's having a difficult time. We're both under a lot of stress..."

He frowned. "All you need to know is that that's over, and has been for a long time. I don't... what we did, you and I... it wasn't just..."

I opened my eyes properly, so I could see what he was trying to say. His eyes were closed now, dark circles underneath them, but he was still so beautiful it hurt.

He looked like he might cry again.

"It's okay," I said, putting out a hand to stop him. I knew what he meant.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I was stupid, and I'm an idiot. I just felt vulnerable. Because I like you."

He smiled sadly, and leaned in to give me a hug, squeezing me over-gently like I might break. "Oh, Jennie," he said. "Don't go away again."

"Lay with me?" I asked, my face in his sweet-smelling hair.

He did.

The room breathed deeply around us.

I wanted to stay here, in this warm, peaceful little pod, forever. But there was a reason I couldn't. Something to do with a deadline, with the nightmare I was having before I woke up...

"Fuck!" I sat up stiffly, startling Paulo into doing the same. "The hotel! Paulo! How long have I been asleep? We have to help them! Please! The mast—how long have I been asleep?"

I gripped his sleeve, panic-stricken.

The colour drained from his face.

"What are you saying?" He asked warily.

I closed my eyes again, desperate to fall back into my golden doze.

Suzie, Ruben... it all felt a world away. Couldn't I just ignore it? Stay here with Paulo till summer, then go back to Shetland and never, ever think about any of that horror ever, ever again?

I'd hated every moment of that hotel. The cold, the ice beds, the constant photos. The loneliness. The fear. And now... I couldn't bear to go back.

I buried my head in my hands, talking to a wary Paulo through splayed fingers.

"The mast at the hotel. It seems to be... weaponised. Like a death ray. Microwaves,  like I told you. It's killing people. I saw it. I couldn't find any staff. I was coming back to get you, call for help."

I dropped my hands and looked at him. His face had fallen, and he looked absolutely exhausted. How long had he been looking for me?

"I know it sounds crazy," I went on. "I saw a body. I tripped over it. And then..." I moaned, Suzie's face screaming at me silently from the darkness of my memories. "We have to do something. Turn off the mast. We have to..." I pulled on his sleeve, trailing off. I didn't know what we had to do.

"Uh, okay," Paulo said uncertainly. He pushed his hair off his face, and frowned. "I'll... if you're sure..."

He looked at me questioningly. I nodded, serious.

"Alright," he said hesitantly. "We'll sort something out, I'm... I'll go talk to the others."

He stood up, his brow heavy. Leaning in, he kissed me softly on the forehead. "Don't run away again, okay?"

I closed my eyes as he left, trying to get my mind in order, the renewed horror of what had happened in the hotel all over everything now.

What time was it? I couldn't see a clock anywhere. How long had I wasted?

The red parka and my outdoor trousers were strewn on the floor next to the bed, and I leaned down, checking in the pockets for my phone. I winced as a shard of glass slipped under my fingernails when I tried to grab it.

Of course. It was smashed.

There was another phone in there though. Sam's.

I pulled it out, then went through my other pockets and retrieved the charger.

Would it work?

I plugged it into the socket beside Paulo's bed.

I'd call the police if it worked, I decided. Even if there weren't any authorities in Antarctica, I was a British citizen, wasn't I? The police would have to do something. Send the army, or get in touch with someone who would know what to do.

They would go to the hotel, then I wouldn't have to. I could stay here, in the warm safety of the research station, and not have to face that nightmare, or send Paulo or Phil or any of the others into danger.

I leaned back into the pillows and rolled this plan over in my head. It was the obvious thing. The only sane choice. I couldn't believe I'd ever considered anything else.

Why should I deal with any of this? I was lucky to have got out alive.

Beside me, Sam's phone beeped to life and I picked it up. I'd never used a Samsung Galaxy before.

Of course it needed a passcode. What was I thinking?

But wait! Emergency call—that was exactly what I wanted.

I pressed it, quickly dialled 999, and then call.

It didn't work.

I exhaled.

Oh well. I'd tell Paulo or Stephen to do it. Then we could stay here, safe, away from whatever Russian conspiracy was happening at that God-forsaken evil ice hotel.

My only sane plan temporarily foiled, Sam's phone flashed white for a moment before returning to the lock screen.

Hang on a second.

A spider of discomfort crept up my spine.

It hadn't flashed white.

It had, momentarily, shown me another part of his device, something beyond the lock.

Something...

I went back to emergency call and mashed the keys.

Again, I pressed call, and again it didn't work.

Error message, lock-screen.

But before the lock-screen... there was half a second of something else.

A call log.

Fingers shaking, I did the emergency call manoeuvre again.

Again, an unfamiliar screen flashed up:

Wednesday, 3.12 AM.

Was this... was it showing me what had been on the screen the last time the phone had been used?

What would still be there now, if I could only open the phone?

Wednesday, 3.12 AM.

That was the time Luca said Sam died.

The last time he'd used his phone.

I'd stolen a dead man's mobile, and I just got a glimpse at the last call he ever received.

But that wasn't the worst part.

I pressed emergency call again. I mashed the keys.

Error message, call log, lock screen.

But before that:

I knew that number.

I'd studied it a thousand times in my Facebook messages, surrounding it with an imaginary romance, which had turned out to be so different—and so inferior—to the real thing.

Yes, I knew that number. It was Paulo's.