The landscape took on an alien appearance.
What had once been a descent clothed in the resilient vegetation of the tundra—mosses and creeping shrubs that denoted life's stubbornness—now transformed into an absolute, albino vastness.
The fury of the recent blizzard had buried nature beneath a rigorous mantle, whose severity hinted at the termination of all things, erasing the traces of the world the band used to inhabit.
—Mogu? —The voice of Kessa, one of the alpha females, came from behind him.
She approached with hesitation; sleep still marked her face, yet her expression immediately shifted to alertness upon noticing the leader's stillness.
Inside the cave, the rest of the group was waking, and a contained murmur of grumbles and soft touches filled the confined air.
—The danger has ceased —Mogu assured, without shifting his gaze from the glacial horizon.
—That is vital —she countered, her voice carrying the urgency of survival. —We must move! The band is hungry!
Mogu finally faced her.
The eyes that, the night before, radiated a new purpose, were now serious and distant. His expression suggested that something in his essence had changed, irremediably altering his way of interpreting existence.
—Yes —he agreed, though his countenance did not harmonize with the spoken word. —We must advance.
The group's organization was impeccable, a silent language of gestures that demonstrated mastery in resisting the relentless.
The baggage was minimal; each member carried only what was essential. Life at high altitudes had taught that unnecessary weight leads to death.
Bura kept his distance, a posture he had adopted since Mogu assumed leadership of the group. There was no clear hostility in his stance, just a grim conformity that weighed on his shoulders.
The youngsters, on the other hand, sought proximity to Mogu, as if his presence heralded a refuge that the environment denied them.
Upon leaving the shelter, the ice bit at their faces. It was not a common breeze; it was a dry cold that hinted at the paralysis of the very air. Although the sun was visible, its warmth had admitted a depressing, almost non-existent weakness.
—This way! —Mogu directed.
He pointed to a route he presumed to be the safest, an imaginary line between rocks that projected onto the snow like a giant's broken teeth.
They walked in single file, and the muffled sound of their steps established a steady rhythm that would echo in the landscape's stillness if there were ears to capture it.
Mogu stopped abruptly after an hour of marching. Kessa almost bumped into his back.
—What happened? —Her voice was pure alarm.
The leader gestured ahead.
The snow presented an odd protuberance that suggested an artificial alteration in the plain. Cautiously, he advanced. Upon reaching the small mound, he knelt and began to dig.
A hand appeared first—long fingers whose gray hairs attested to the rigor of the climate. The entire body of a monkey revealed itself: an adult male whose closed eyes suggested a terrible serenity.
There were no marks of attack; only surrender to winter.
Mogu moved to another uneven spot. His hands unearthed a female and, shortly ahead, an infant curled in an embrace that seemed to desperately seek an extinguished warmth.
—Mogu, stop! —Bura shouted, approaching with wide eyes. —Cease this at once!
Mogu ignored Bura's outburst.
He exposed the tragedy from mound to mound.
Entire families were petrified in that silent acceptance. There was no desperation, just a profound weariness, as if any discourse against the ice was futile. The valley, previously silent, was now filled with laments that claimed astonishment, a wail that made the surrounding peaks 'vibrate'.
—Were there so many? —Kessa inquired, her voice a broken whisper.
Mogu observed the surroundings. Dozens. Perhaps hundreds of elevations.
—Many —he replied. —Too many...
Kessa approached a female embracing her offspring, an image that revealed a love preserved by the ice.
—Didn't they find shelter?
—Mogu's warmth could help! —Bura considered, his voice now conveying a fearful respect, as if he saw in the leader the only barrier against that fate.
Interpreting what Bura suggested, he approached one of the monkeys buried by the snowstorm. Mogu then touched the snow, which immediately began to melt—a hope resided in him that the primate might still be alive.
When the snow finally conceded to melt under the warm influence of the Summer Bearer's hand, the monkey's body, which was that of a female, refused to stir. All had succumbed to the snowstorm, paralyzed like stones in a devastating landscape.
Mogu climbed onto a rock, seeking a broader view. The entire slope was littered with those white snow graves.
—Are we the only ones? —one of the youngsters questioned, his word hanging in the air like a puff of steam before dissipating.
Mogu closed his eyes, recalling the dream from the previous night and the greenish light dispersing from the fire.
—We have no way of knowing —he declared, his speech now assuming a renewed strength. —But if there are others, they will need hope. The belief that not everything has to end this way. We will fight until the end!
The group proceeded, but now they carried a burden that no single shoulder could sustain.
The crunch of snow underfoot was the only discourse that broke the mountain's morbid silence, while, behind them, the snow cemetery remained as a silent warning that winter accepted no excuses.