by Donna Pampalone

Created on: September 17, 2010

The wind howled and blew against the window pane. The snow dropped at an incredible rate, covering everything in sight. It had been two days of being snowed in. Visibility was zero, this was not a night for man nor beast.

The lights flickered, suddenly darkness engulfed the house. No electricity or heat.

A candle was lit, it's light exposed the shadows. She made her way to the kitchen and was startled by the shadow on the wall, it took a moment to realize the shadow was her own. She was afraid. She picked up the phone only to find that it was dead.

She wrapped herself in an afghan as her teeth chattered.  Burying her face in the blanket she could feel the condensation from her breath. Night slowly evolved into dawn, and she could see outside from the windows. The snow was deep, it would be up to her chest if she were out in it.

From the window she saw something in the snow. She could see it's warm breath coming from the deep snow. She ran to the door and opened it but the snow was too high, there was no way to get out. She closed the door, went upstairs and ran to the window to look down to the spot where she saw the warm breath in the freezing air. She tried to open the window, it was frozen shut so she shimmied it to loosen it, and it opened. As the wind blew in her face she called out “Is anyone there” No response came yet she still saw the breath in the air.

Without a thought she proceeded to climb out of her bedroom window onto the roof of the garage below. She thought once outside on the roof, she could get a better look to see what was hidden by the snow. From the roof she now could see where the breath was coming from, she leaned forward slightly with outstretched arms and called out, again, but as she did she slipped and stumbled forward off the roof falling into the deep snow.

She was found by her dog three days later, frozen to death in the snow. As her dog licked her face for the last time his hot breath rose up into the freezing air once again.

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