I laughed, “You’re exaggerating a bit, don’t you think?”

He shrugged, “I think your memory is just bad.”

Come on,” I pointed, “let’s go. We need to get our shelter made for the night.”

Slowly and carefully we made our way off the peak. I felt the wind give me a nudge. Another reason to keep moving.

As the sun was halfway below the horizon, a snowflake kissed my face. The sky rumbled again. The clouds looked heavy and dark gray. And with the glow of the sun fading, they were ominous. The third mountain could no longer be seen. Snowfall had begun there first and was heading our way. I knew it would make our journey the next day a difficult one, but not anything I needed to think about now.

We found the right place to camp for the night, a patch of trees clumped together. We began to dig in unison, no words needed. Four hands scooping, brushing, digging deep into the snow, burrowing to make shelter for the night.

Deep, deep we went as we each naturally took a side. Me to the right, him to the left, we made an underground cave, tossing out excessive snow and then packing the walls hard with our hands. Tossing and packing until we had a barrier surrounding us and were able to stretch out. We had even gotten really good at making a compacted covering to our cave with only a tiny opening for the smoke from our fire to escape.

I was sure the snow would continue to fall throughout the night, which meant we could end up buried beneath many feet of snow.

My brother, being a strong survivalist, had pulled a handwoven rope he made before we left. He tied it to the thickest part of the strongest tree and had taken it down into our shelter with us.

This was our safety to insure we would know which way was up, which way was down, and we could pull ourselves out of the snow if it indeed fell foot after foot and buried us in a tomb.

We lit a tiny fire and set it in a clay bowl. The smoke escaped through the small hold above us.

“Do you miss home?” he asked.

“Not really. It doesn’t seem that much different since were together. Do you?”

“I just worry about our parents, is all.” He stretched his body out and lay with his eyes to the tiny bit of dark sky we could see. “I know they worry about us, even if they won’t say so.”

I cut us off some pieces of cured meat and handed him some seeds from a leather pouch.

“They’re parents, it’s their job to worry. But they went on their own quests at our age. They know we’ll be fine.”

“Do you think we’ll be fine?” he asked.

I felt a warm rush of anger through my body. “Why would you even say something like that? Of course we’ll be fine.”

He sighed. “I know. We will. It’s just not everyone makes it back from their journeys. Some people die. What did they do wrong?”

“I can’t answer that. But we’re not going to die.”

“But,” he continued, “do you think just because we believe we’ll survive, that means we will? Do you think people whose fate is death sensed it was their time to go? Do we all know when it is our time?”

I had never thought about that before. “Yeah, maybe you just do sense it and you have to decide to do your best and then let go. If that’s true, I definitely do not have that feeling.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I almost didn’t want to ask, but there’s never been anything we didn’t talk about.

“Do you have that feeling?”

He turned his head toward me; the fire illuminated his face and danced in his eyes.

“I…I feel something. I don’t know what. I sense darkness in the air.”

“Maybe that’s because it’s night time.” I forced a laugh but his serious tone didn’t budge.

“I’ve never said this out loud to you before or anyone,” he paused.

“What is it?” I moved closer to my brother. He needed me.

“I’m scared.”

These words from his lips were the most vulnerable I have ever seen him. He always had shown strength, confidence, on the verge of fierceness. Never fear. But even though we had just turned 18—adults—we were just kids.

“What are you afraid of?”

He turned away. To hide his face? To spare me? I don’t know.

“Something in me tells me my part in this journey is going to challenge me the most I have ever had to face. And I have no idea what that could be because I’ve never really felt fear before. Not anything like this.”