The good news: I still had my boots. The bad news: I don't need to say it, right? The last thing I remembered was June hitting the wall and, out of nowhere, SPLASH. Thus began the most exciting episode of my life.
A dark hallway opened before us. Suddenly, we were no longer in the small room of the Edelweiss Shelter. In front stretched a long tunnel, its walls covered in snow and Christmas decorations. Above us was a ceiling instead of the night sky. When we turned to retrace our steps, the door had vanished behind us, replaced by an intersection of two corridors.
"Okay then, after you, Rex," I said.
"No way," Rex replied. "You figured it out. You go first."
Ivy murmured, "No one goes first; we go together."
"I want to go first," June declared.
"If you want to be eaten by something."
I approached one of the walls. They were covered in frost; some places had carved drawings, symbols, and lines almost identical—if not very similar—to those from the cabin wall.
June placed her palm on the snow. "It feels warm."
"Warm?" Rex asked. "That doesn't make any sense. Impossible. We're surrounded by ice."
"Great, now we're getting to the weird part."
Suddenly, a draft whipped through the hallway and blew out the flashlight in my hand. How could wind blow out a modern flashlight? I had no idea.
"It must have been the wind."
"I don't think it was the wind."
I turned the flashlight back on, pointing it directly at the fork ahead. To the left, a faint blue light glowed; to the right, total darkness reigned, filled with shadows.
"The left has light… the right…"
"I say right."
"Of course you do," Rex sighed, rolling his eyes. As we were about to move, a metallic clang echoed down the right corridor. We all froze as the noise grew closer.
"Change of mind," I said. "Definitely left."
We ran as fast as we could, zigzagging through the shifting hallways. No matter how fast we ran, the noise only grew louder. Besides, running a marathon in pajamas and slippers wasn't easy. The ice floor made it worse—we slipped more than once.
"This way," Ivy called, turning left. Our footsteps softened in the snow, and the maze seemed to close in. Entrances began to be blocked, and hallways shifted before we could enter. Luckily, we seemed to have lost sight of whatever was following us, as the metallic roar grew increasingly distant before fading away completely.
"Does anyone have any idea where we are?" I asked, hands on my knees, breathing heavily. Ivy, Rex, and June all looked similar, as if they'd run a marathon (which they had). Rex's brown hair was messy and damp with sweat. Ivy had cuts on her arms and was missing a slipper. June, though tired, looked unharmed.
"This looks like a maze," Rex suggested.
"An underground labyrinth beneath the shelter?" Ivy questioned. "That's pretty hard to believe."
June stared at us seriously, though it was hard to take her seriously when she was wearing pajamas. "I feel like we're no longer under Mr. Bram's domain."
"You're right," I said. "This place is too dangerous. We need to find our way home... I wish we had a map."
Everyone seemed to reach a silent agreement: we were lost. Rex adjusted his green scarf. "We should move forward. We can't stay still. Who knows if that thing will come back?"
No one objected, we pressed on, struggling. As the adrenaline of the chase began to fade, cold creeped in. We were all shivering, some more than others. We passed through a few more tunnels. If only we could decode those symbols… At a corner, we stopped dead.
The sound of bells began to be heard in the distance, at the end of the hallway. "Why does it sound like bells…"
"There's something up ahead," Rex said. "We should turn back."
As he said that, the doorway behind us clicked shut. We were trapped in an icy corridor, probably with a monster lurking at the end.
"Looks like we have no choice but to move forward," June declared. Getting closer to a strange noise wasn't wise, but none of us wanted to stand still. Even Ivy agreed.
The sound of the bells seemed to get louder and louder, and I began to wonder if it was a bad idea to have gotten so close. A cold breath shook the hallway, completely extinguishing the blue light from the ice.
A few feet in front of us, there was a motionless figure. It was hard to make out in the darkness, but we could guess what it was.
"Is that… a snowman?" I asked Rex.
"Inside an underground labyrinth." Ivy's expression was grim, though she maintained her typical sarcasm. "Completely normal."
June tilted her head. "He seems… friendly."
"Nothing alive down here is friendly," Rex insisted, eyeing the snowman cautiously. He stood on his back, a red scarf wrapped around his neck, and long black branches for arms.
He was quite tall and disproportionately large, as if a child had built him and left him lying there. Perhaps most disturbing was the giant gift box he was holding in his left arm, or possibly the red sack he was carrying on his back.
"But… why is it carrying… a giant gift box…?" I whispered, not wanting to attract attention.
Ivy was shivering from the cold. "Maybe it's decoration."
"Or maybe it's a gift for us," June suggested, like it made perfect sense.
We didn't have to wait long to find out. In the blink of an eye, a noise broke the silence. A faint "ting" from a music box, straight from the gift box.
"Did you hear that?" Rex questioned.
"Yes," Ivy murmured, her expression expressing her nervousness, "and I don't like it."
"Can we open it?" June joked.
Rex, Ivy, and Ivy all shouted "No" in unison. Probably the first unanimous agreement ever, a shame it had to be under these conditions. At the same time this happened, the snowman moved. His head began to slowly turn until he was face-to-face.
He seemed excited to see us because his icy blue eyes blinked, and his crooked smile seemed to widen. Perhaps he was friendly.
"Oh, he saw us," I added in resignation, as we all took a step back.
"He saw us? He's going to eat us!" Rex exclaimed.
The snow figure turned completely around, his ancient voice echoing through the halls. "Open... the present."
"That was creepy," June muttered.
"Back. Everyone. Now," Ivy ordered.
The lid of the box opened by itself, releasing a blue glow. The air around it began to twist, forming a vortex that emerged from the bottom of the box. I had the good sense to back away, as the box seemed to swallow everything in its path.
"Uh…" I muttered worriedly, "I think it's sucking in air."
"Not just air, it's swallowing the ice on the ground," Rex warned. The next second, his scarf was sucked in. "Hey, that's mine!"
"Our backpacks!" June added.
The snowman took a step forward, the snow crunching under his heavy step. The soft whistling of the wind and the sound of chimes mingled with the ominous ding of the gift box. Beneath our feet, fresh ice began to form.
His voice didn't sound friendly. "Gift… forever."
"Run, now!"
The snowman followed us, the chimes getting closer. His mournful voice announced, "You must open your presents." We turned different corners, but the further we went, the more erratic the maze became. A 20-meter drop appeared in our path, and we narrowly avoided it, and the walls seemed to close in on us.
"Faster," Ivy shouted. "It's right behind us."
"I'm trying my best without freezing to death." The snow on the ground seemed to thicken, and I slipped. I barely managed to grab onto Rex to keep me from falling; we both narrowly missed toppling over. "Miles, let go!"
"To the right," Ivy ordered. "There's a narrow passageway!"
The snowman was too, too close. As we ran, we felt his icy breath and a force pulling us back. Rex's backpack began to slide off his shoulders, and despite his attempts to retrieve it, it slipped from his hands and flew straight into the snowman's box.
The Christmas monster didn't seem to like the taste, making gagging sounds before expelling the unrecognizable remains of what had once been a backpack.
"Noooo, my tools," Rex growled.
Without warning, the box exploded into thousands of fragments, and the snowman disintegrated into dust, his remains merging with the snow. I was so shaken up that it took me a while to realize the threat had passed. But one thing you learn in the maze is that threats never pass, and we were soon to discover that.
As we turned into a corridor, the metallic screech was right behind us.
When we reached a square, I could finally see what was chasing us. It was a sleigh, covered in strings of flashing lights, gliding across the ice with a mechanical laugh and shouting: (HO-HO-HO…) This must have sounded ridiculous, but at the time, it was less funny than it was frightening. We didn't laugh; we flinched. It's definitely not the same seeing it in a movie as being chased by one in real life.
"What is that?! A sleigh without reindeer?"
"Who's driving it?"
"I don't think anyone," June replied. "And it's coming toward us, very fast!"
Behind us, the noise seemed to intensify, and as the sled accelerated, the mechanical laughter grew closer and closer. It wasn't just impossible to outrun the machine; the maze itself seemed to be its ally.
The paths began to shift, and suddenly, we were running toward a dead end as the metallic screeching slithered ferociously. "There's no way out!"
"Do something," Ivy said to Rex. "I don't want to freeze to death by a killer sled."
The hallway opened onto a huge wooden door carved with snowflakes and sculpted garlands. A door. It seemed like luck was on our side for the first time since we'd fallen into this misfortune, but we were soon to discover that wasn't the case.
"The door won't open!" Rex shouted as he tried to turn the handle.
"Do something!" Ivy exclaimed, banging on the door, her breath visible in the air. "You said you knew how to pick locks!"
Rex desperately tried to kick the door. "These doors don't have locks! Besides, I don't have the tools."
"Hurry up," I said. "It's getting closer!" The mechanical laughter was already deafening, and the ice beneath our feet was already starting to crack. "I don't think we have much time."
"I'm trying," Rex said.
"Look at the wall." June pointed to a concrete panel on one side of the door. It had a message, but the problem was… it was in another language! The noise was getting louder and louder, making it hard to think clearly. The words jumbled together in my mind… if only I could understand what those words meant.
"Wait a moment," Ivy called, "Isn't that German?"
"That's true… I think I know," I said, concentrating on the text. Suddenly, I remembered the German course. I'd taken it just before the holidays—not just because I suspected we'd travel, but mainly because Mrs. Gothberg was strict enough to make sure I actually learned the material.
Despite not being much of an academic, I could get a sense of what it was written above.
"Christmas brings three gifts:
one that gives warmth, another that sweetens life,
and another that lights up the cold night."
"What is this?" Rex asked. "A riddle contest?"
"A riddle, it is a riddle," Ivy declared.
"Okay…" June nodded. "Warmth… that gives warmth." We didn't have to think much until Rex said, "A sweater."
"Good. Sweater. Joy…" Ivy muttered.
"Chocolate," I said without thinking.
"This isn't the time to be thinking about food…" Ivy scolded. "We don't have time for this."
"Chocolate gives joy," I insisted.
"Okay, we'll leave it," Ivy sighed. "Just need one that lights up, maybe…"
"Candles!" June suggested.
Ivy leaned over the panel, her fingers hovering over the three figures on the panel. "Perfect, sweater, chocolate, candles." The panel made a soft click, audible despite the monstrous roar behind it. The ice was melting at our feet.
The door mechanism activated just as the metallic screech was halfway through behind us. The sleigh was speeding around the corner. I could have sworn I saw a smile on the red metal.
"Everyone in," I ordered, and when everyone was inside, I leaped inside. No sooner had I done so than the door slammed shut behind us. From the hallway, the sleigh's terrifying laughter could still be heard: "HO, HO...NO!" In the next instant, a brutal thud shook the wood.
Then silence.
"Looks like the party is over for you."