The Phoenix of Lís by E.A Colquitt
It wasn’t as if he’d done a lot. A mere shift of weight from one foot to the other, but it was enough. He’d toppled into the middle of the snowbank. Now, he lay looking at the empty sky through the hole he’d made on his way down.
Funny. He didn’t think he’d walked that far. It was only a few metres from station to ridge, and he hadn’t seen much of the colony anyway. At that distance, penguins were nothing more than a silent huddle on the plain. Nor was it snowing. Yet, when he’d looked back, the whole building had gone. He’d blinked.
And then, he’d slipped. Maybe he was lucky… wasn’t he? He hadn’t broken anything…?
Yes. He could still move. Although… his movements were limited. He was too far down to climb out without help.
He squirmed, extracting his emergency contact radio. More luck: it hadn’t been crushed in the fall… but it played only white noise. Its inbuilt compass spun without stopping. Would the station hear his messages?
Perhaps they’d already noticed his absence, sent out a search party. He called out. The longer he stayed here, the colder he’d get. Then there’d be fatigue, and after that…
A cry made him look up. He called again in answer, and a – a bird fluttered into view. It grew to the size of a small dog as it neared, dropping through the hole he’d made and landing on his stomach. Snow shifted beneath his back.
The bird was a, well, a sort of small peacock. Its eyes were pale grey, its feathers the same until those flashed iridescent in the light. Odd. His zoology course hadn’t taught him about this.
The – peacock, whatever it was – raised its head and wings, and then caught fire. He yelled, twisted, trying to shoo it off –
But the flames didn’t harm his clothes or body. He began to shine with the greens and purples of an aurora.
The snow collapsed under him. He fell again, into a chute; his gloves swept down the walls of ice around him. Eventually, he rolled out onto a shallow bank of snow, inside, inside...
It was a cave, low and well-lit by a fire in those same aurora colours. Figures huddled around it. He breathed and started towards them, ready to greet his team, to thank them –
But they weren’t his team. They weren’t even human. They were small, graceful creatures covered in white fur. The tallest reached only to his elbow; each babbled away to the others with more meaning than animal calls usually had.
The one at the forefront held out a cup, motioning for him to drink. The liquid warmed him through, and the more he drank, the more the babbling twisted into words he could understand.
‘Welcome-’
‘Welcome-’
‘Welcome.’
‘H-h-hello.’ He drained his cup. ‘I… didn’t know that any spe– that anyone lived underneath Antarctica.’
‘We don’t-’
‘We don’t-’
‘We don’t,’ they said. ‘Welcome to Lís.’
Next piece out next Sunday!
Written by E.A Colquitt
E.A Colquitt is based in the north of England. Currently working on her first novel, she is a graduate of Lancaster University and her favourite thing is being happy.
You can check out her blog HERE.