The door stuck again for a moment when I got back to the front of the car, but I was able to rip through it just like I was one of those behemoths in those World’s Strongest Man competitions they used to put on ESPN in the middle of the night that my dad would watch. Once open, I dove head first into the car, slammed the door behind me and locked it.

I collected myself in the driver’s seat and stared out at the frosted windshield for a second before I jumped when a shearing sound ripped out from behind the thick glass. I saw the black of my windshield wipers faintly shredding the thin layer of ice which had concealed my window. Accompanied by a smear of blue windshield cleaner, the wipers told me I must have accidently bumped the button which sent my wiper system into a 30-second cleaning operation when I jumped into the car. This happened about once a week whenever I drove my car.

Oxygen seeping back into my brain, my head started to clear and I kept my eyes glued to the windshield which started to let a little of the light of the storm in through the ice which had been nearly all the way shaved off at this point. It was probably just my mind, but for a second, I felt I could actually feel some warmth coming from the clear window.

For a few moments, a vision of the outside world worked to make me feel a little bit better and draw a little hope out of my veins, but it was fleeting. After about 30 seconds of enjoying the beauty of the storm which could still kill me, I saw a figure start to emerge before my eyes in the slow-motion daydream of the falling snow.