“It’s a calm for a few minutes,” the doctor looked around.
“You think they’ve gone far?” David asked.
Yulia answered:
“In this storm we won’t even see them within fifty meters.”
To prove Yulia’s words, the light went down even more.
“Okay,” agreed Jean-Pierre.
Everyone began to walk forward, getting over the slight incline. The wind howled again somewhere in the distance. After a few hundred meters, they came to a large rock. The top of the cliff was covered with fog. But somewhere at the top was a dark cave. The travelers looked around the steep stone wall. A hermit was climbing the steps carved in the stone. He turned and beckoned again, pointing to the beginning of the stairs.
“A little more,” Yulia whispered in Debby’s ear, “don’t be afraid, everything will be fine soon.”
David lifted the stretcher above his head to keep Debby from rolling down. They slowly began to climb the narrow, winding stairs. David’s hands began to shake from fatigue, and he set the door on his head. The wind died down, and the scalding snow stopped falling. They climbed the last step, and David collapsed to the ground with fatigue.
“We need to walk a few more meters,” said Dr Capri, “let me do it.”
David nodded and relented. Sweat ran down his face.
He wiped his sleeve and looked at the stairs they had just climbed. The makeshift steps were of varying heights and stooped from time. In some places, snow covered the stairs. David tried to see the valley they had come from, but the weather was still bad and nothing was visible. The wind rustled and drove a wad of fog in front of David’s eyes. He looked around, and a peak flashed between the clouds. Majestic and calm. It seemed unaffected by the storm. It was illuminated by the sun, and only the fuzzy top showed that the strong wind had blown thousands of tons of snow off the ridge of the giant.
“David,” Dr Capri’s voice was heard, “you will freeze there. Please go deeper into the cave. You have a lighter, don’t you?”
“Yes,” David answered, still breathing heavily, and wiped his face again with his sleeve.
He rose with great effort, stepped into the gloom of the cave, and saw Jean-Pierre trying to wake Debby up. Dr Capri watched him and looked intently at Debby. Yulia was sitting on the cold floor, breathing tiredly. Out of the darkness came the hermit.