Chapter 1

The cold wind went oddly silent as Red walked up the last few steps to the mountain. The quiet felt strange, as if all sensory perception had fallen behind in the cave. Red smiled. He imagined the added solace of the peak was a distantly familiar comfort.

Mt Silver welcomed him, almost as if it knew what he had gone through to reach it. But did it really? Did the mountain have any idea how far the world had fallen? It had been around long enough.

Red made his way to the edge of the mountaintop and took in the surroundings. All he could see before him were rolling clouds unperturbed by the lives of the people below. If limbo were a place on Earth, it would be here.

“You don’t have to go.”

These were the last words she had said to him before he walked away. He could not bring himself to react or reply.

“Please…”

It had all been too much.

Red stared blankly out into the world, expressionless; blank. A solitary tear broke through from his eye and froze on his cheek.

At that very same moment, the sky responded in kind. Icy tears of its own falling silently on the already snow laden giant. Big white drops of ice descending in limitless sheets towards the ground below. Red smiled again.

Mt Silver knew.