Buried During Snowfall – Chapter 34
The Snow Above Ashriver
The climb out of Ashriver felt endless.
The maintenance tunnel twisted upward through collapsing concrete shafts while freezing water surged behind them like the lake itself was trying to reclaim everything beneath it. Rusted pipes burst overhead. Emergency lights flickered weakly before dying one by one in showers of sparks.
Noah could barely walk.
Every step looked painful. Decades of surgeries and experiments had left his body fragile beneath the unnatural endurance Ashriver forced into him. Adrian and Mara carried most of his weight between them while the underground facility groaned and collapsed below.
And still Adrian could hear whispers.
Faint now.
Very faint.
The Hollow sleeping beneath Blackwater Lake.
Not gone.
Never gone.
Just quieter.
Mara noticed him listening. “You still hear it?”
Adrian nodded slowly.
“Does it want something?”
He thought about that carefully.
Then answered:
“No.” A pause. “I think it’s dreaming.”
Another violent tremor shook the tunnel. Concrete exploded behind them as part of the shaft collapsed inward beneath rushing black water.
“MOVE!” Mara shouted.
They forced themselves higher.
Every breath burned.
Every step felt stolen from death.
Then finally—
cold night air hit them.
The three emerged through a broken service hatch near the western edge of Ashriver grounds just as part of the school itself collapsed into Blackwater Lake behind them.
The sound was enormous.
Like a mountain breaking apart.
Entire sections of the old boarding school slid downward into darkness while snowstorm winds screamed across the lake. Floodlights from abandoned federal vehicles reflected off collapsing ice and rising black water.
Ashriver was disappearing.
Floor by floor.
Memory by memory.
Noah stared at the ruins silently.
For a moment Adrian saw the child he once knew beneath the scars and suffering.
Then Noah whispered:
“It’s really ending.”
Another section of the school vanished into the lake with a deafening crash.
Mara looked around sharply. “Where the hell did everyone go?”
The federal teams were gone.
Vehicles abandoned.
Equipment scattered across snow-covered ground.
No bodies.
No movement.
Like everyone fled during the collapse.
Adrian looked toward Blackwater Lake.
The surface had begun freezing again already.
Slowly.
Silently.
As if the lake wanted to hide itself once more.
Noah suddenly coughed violently.
Blood splattered into the snow.
Adrian knelt beside him immediately. “Noah.”
Noah smiled weakly.
“Relax.” His breathing sounded shallow now. “I was never leaving this place alive.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You know it’s true.”
Silence settled between them while snow fell harder across the ruins of Ashriver.
Mara quietly stepped back giving them space.
Noah looked toward Adrian carefully.
“You remember everything now?”
Adrian nodded once.
The memories still hurt.
But they belonged to him again.
All of them.
Noah closed his eye briefly.
“Good.”
Then he asked the question Adrian feared most.
“Do you hate yourself?”
The snowstorm swallowed the world around them.
Ashriver continued sinking into Blackwater Lake behind them.
And Adrian thought honestly before answering.
“Yes.”
Noah smiled faintly.
“That means you’re still human.”
The sentence nearly broke him.
Adrian looked at Noah through falling snow.
“I left you beneath the lake.”
“You were a child.”
“I killed people.”
“So did I.”
Silence again.
Noah’s breathing weakened further.
“The Headmaster destroyed us long before the fire.”
Adrian grabbed his hand instinctively.
Cold.
Too cold.
Noah looked toward Blackwater Lake one final time.
“You know what scared me most down there?”
Adrian shook his head slowly.
“That the Hollow wasn’t evil.” Noah’s damaged face tightened painfully. “Just lonely.” He swallowed weakly. “And humans taught it the worst parts of themselves first.”
The lake groaned behind them.
Huge cracks spread across the ice while the remaining sections of Ashriver disappeared beneath freezing black water forever.
Noah looked back at Adrian.
“Don’t let them build another place like this.”
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know humans very well then.”
A weak laugh escaped him afterward.
Then another coughing fit.
Blood stained the snow darker.
Mara quietly approached again. “We need medical help.”
Noah shook his head immediately.
“No hospitals.”
“You’ll die.”
“Yes.”
No fear in the answer.
Only exhaustion.
Noah looked toward Adrian again.
“When the Hollow wakes someday…” His voice weakened further. “Teach it something better.”
Adrian felt tears freezing against his skin.
Noah smiled faintly.
“You were always better at becoming human than the rest of us.”
Then his body finally relaxed.
The tension left his face slowly.
The pain too.
And beneath the falling snow outside the sinking ruins of Ashriver—
Noah died peacefully.