The first thing he felt was weight.
Heavy. Crushing.
Not the weight of his body, but something pressing from all sides. Cold against his arms, his legs, the side of his face.
Snow.
He opened his eyes.
Grey light seeped through a thin layer of white above him, faint and lifeless. His eyelashes stuck together, crusted with frozen tears.
He lay still a moment longer, heart sluggish in his chest. Breathing shallow and ragged against the scarf frozen stiff against his mouth.
'Still alive,' he thought, forcing the words through the slow churn of his mind.
'Barely.'
The storm had buried him during the night.
Only the thin shelf of rock overhead had kept him from being crushed completely.
He shifted his hand first. Gloved fingers curled weakly. Numb. More like stone than flesh.
The motion dislodged some of the snow packed against his shoulder.
Small avalanches of powder fell into the crook of his neck, down the collar of his coat.
The shock of cold was sharper than any blade.
