Winter

The wind was just a slight breeze. The snow was getting in her hair and in her eyes blurring her vision. Gaia had to look down if she didn’t want to walk with closed eyes. However, looking down was frightening. Beneath her feet the liquid emerald waves were playing hide and seek with the snowflakes.

 The howling wind around her and the emerald water – which seemed boiling by now - beneath her feet were paralyzing her senses, numbing her reflexes.

Through the swirling whiteness, she glanced in the direction of the island. She wasn’t sure weather the distance had diminished at least a slightest bit. She didn’t even know weather she was on the right track any more, but she had to be for the almost invisible narrow path was still beneath her feet which in this city always meant one will reach the chosen destination.

Gaia had no idea for how long she was walking. The very concept of time had disappeared and blended in with the howls of wind and the never-ending swirls of white pieces of ice.

The wind was roaring and swirling around her, making her struggle to stay on her feet. Gaia felt her feet move, but the fog and snow swirling inside it was so thick she wasn’t sure of that not being just her imagination. It seemed she had not moved an inch from the moment she had entered the swirling and roaring ice-cold whiteness. With every passing minute she felt like desperately pushing against the coldest and most immovable wall of cotton rather than pushing through it.

Snowflakes she remembered liking now felt like pieces of scattered glass. Each time they touched her skin felt like an attack of razor-sharp blades. Moreover, the fog itself felt like an ethereal substance penetrating her senses and her eyes. It did not matter if she closed her eyes or kept them open – everything was always white. It seemed no other colour existed here.