The boat left us on the dock and just turned around. No goodbye. The engine noise faded into the wind until it was just us and the silence.
Then the cold hit.
It wasn't normal cold. This was the kind of cold that feels like a betrayal. Your body says this isn't right, this isn't possible, but your face is going numb anyway. I took a breath and my lungs stung. The air tasted like nothing. Like static.
Longyearbyen looked fake. Like one of those model villages. Bright colored houses huddled together like they were scared of the dark. Everything was covered in a thick layer of wind-blown ice. A few people were out, moving fast between buildings. They didn't look at us. Looking meant stopping, and stopping here seemed like a death sentence.
Borealis didn't say anything. He just started wal
