Where am I?

The silence pounds into his eardrums. He can feel it thud and thump, bang and knock into the caverns of his ears. Everything is dark, everything is dim—it's not white, it's not grey, it's—

'Black.'

He turns his head to the side. He blinks once, twice. The insides of his eyelids are indecipherable against the backdrop. He blinks, three, four times. Suddenly he feels a burning sensation—it's hot, no—cold: really cold. Freezing cold. Ice cold. Snow cold. He can feel the prickling of the frosted feathers around his ears, neck—his wrists, his face. He feels something twitch—his eyelashes? Something causes him to make the same sensation occur again. Harder this time—faster, more intense and then—

Then his world is white, white, white.

Not like him.

He's the opposite of white—

He's Black.

He's Black—that's his name, he realizes. He looks to the left—white. He looks to the right, more white—he's suddenly aware of a freezing sting in the jellies of his eyes. There's something he needs to do.

He needs to see that again—needs to see himself; needs to see black.

Blink.

Blink-blink.

He sees himself only for a quick second before rolling onto his back—there's more stinging, only this time it's all across his back. All over it—it burns, makes his skin tingle—it's cold, cold, cold—it's freezing.

Something tickles his nose and mouth—moves his eyelashes and causes him to see white again.

Out of the corners of his eyes he can see something else; brown—most of it's white, but some of it's brown. Some of the brown looks soft—like his eyelashes. The other part of it looks rough, and is speckled with the cold—speckled with snow. Mount Silver—that's what it is.

He can see the top of Mount Silver. It's white, nut for some reason, all he can think is red.

Red, red, red, Red.

That's the color of his vest. But he's Black, like his T-shirt. He watches as something intrudes the black—something pale, and partially red. His hand—his fingers. He clutches the fabric and watches as the black somehow gets blacker. Not only that, it gets heavier and softens in his fingertips—it's wet.

Blink, blink, and blink.

He looks to the right, and suddenly it's not white. It's still mostly white, sure, but now there's green and even more brown. Why is that?

Why did everything suddenly change?

He looks back down to his shirt, which his hand is still clinging to. Isn't he supposed to have two of those? He feels the ligaments of his other hand flex—it digs into the pricks and pracks of the snow—it bites at his skin, and he whips his head to the right.

Down—

"Down," he commands himself, hearing his voice for the first time as he tilts his head towards the ground.

There. There's his hand, shriveled, pink, and red—it looks like it hurts, and does.

He flexes it again, watching as his joints twitch and further disturb the snow, even as it continues to fall upon his swollen skin. He begins to grasp the concept that it's the reason his back isn't on the ground anymore—that that (his hand) is attached to his arm, which he has two of. Those two arms are attached to two shoulders, which in turn connect to his torso—his torso beats with the pulse of his heart, that carries that pulse to his head and down through his knees and toes.

He flexes those too, finding that they work a lot like his fingers. He pulls them closer, contorting his face at how stiff and hard his knees and calves are to move. He doesn't think it's supposed to feel like that.

"Hello over there!"

His eyes sway this way and that—there's a hefty form approaching. It waves its arms above its head, and more noises escape its mouth. Black tries to do the same, shooting his arms up and flailing them above his own head, bumping his nose with his left hand along the way up there.

The other form jogs up to him—he's using some kind of walking stick and is heaving his chest up and down by the time he stands in front of the other. "You alright, son?"

Son?

"Son?"

The man pats this face lashes—no, it's called a beard—yes, that's right, a beard. He pats it and examines the boy with squinted eyes. "Hypothermia, frost bite, dehydration…how long have you been here?" His voice sounds as if it's searching, pondering—Black somehow feels like he shouldn't answer; that the question isn't directed at him, despite the two of them being alone down here—or is it up here?

Words tumble out of his cracked, chilled lips regardless.

"Are you my dad?"

The man walks forward and wraps something around his neck—it's Red—no, no, it's just red. It's red and soft—it's a red scarf, not Red.

It feels nice—it isn't cold like the rest of him. His fingers grab at the knitted cloth, and his eyes watch as the skin breaks and more red beads at his knuckles. The bearded man makes a disgruntled noise and asks something—Black can't answer, or if he can, he chooses not to. Watching Red is too interesting.

His eyes flash and he can see himself—brown hair, brown eyes and a red cap. Then he sees Red: brown hair, brown eyes and a red cap. Are they one in the same?

Are we one in the same?

"—name, son?" When had he been heaved onto the bulky man's back? A noise gurgles from his throat, but no words come.

"What is it? Your name?"

Black, like the backs of his eyelids—or was it Red like the backs of his eyelids?

No, no—he's the opposite of white—

He's not white, he's not Red, he's—

"Black."

Black, black, Black—

Not Red, no, not red, Black, not—

"Red! Hey, Red!" He opens his eyes to see brown and green—trees and Mount Silver?

No, it's Green. Green shakes him—it seems like he's been doing this for a while now. "Red!"

Red jerks himself away from Green's grip, prying his warm fingers away with his pink, swollen, cold ones. He blinks. The other stares at him, puffs of air bubbling out of his mouth and slithering off the sides of his face. His eyebrows knit together and he moves away from Red, shaking his head.

"You really need to get off this mountain." He looks past Red, off the peak of the mountain. "It's so white up here," he says listlessly, giving Red a once over.

"Not to mention cold. How can you stand it up here?"

There were a lot of things he could have said at that moment.

It doesn't bother me.

It's calming.

But his strongest point of reasoning was this:

He could stand the white because he was Black—it was a balance, and to him—to Black, all the white was a gust of wind to handle.

A gust of freezing wind and snow that bit his face and prickled his ears; a gust of cold he could handle because he was Red—he was red like fire, red like blood, and red like Red.

Red like Red and black like Black.

He was one in the same.

They were one in the same.

We are one in the same.