Winterover
A world by Ari Weaver
Winterover
Fourteen people are wintering at Halvorsen Station on the Antarctic plateau, and no plane can reach them until November. At three in the morning the doctor, Mikael Berg, is found dead at the foot of the galley stairs with no parka on, and the door above him was bolted from the inside. Station leader Ingrid Aasen asks you to find out what happened before the other twelve start deciding for themselves.
Playing as Traveler·
Kwabena Asare is still in his parka when he bangs on your door, and the frost in his eyebrows hasn't melted. “It's Mikael. He's under the galley stairs. I think he's dead. I'm fairly sure he's dead. It was 2:58, I looked at my watch, I don't know why I looked at my watch.”
You follow him north along the corridor in your socks. The galley boot room smells of wet wool and diesel. Ingrid Aasen is already there in thermal leggings and a sweater, heaving at the steel bar across the outer door. It's swung fully across, dogged, the way the night round leaves it. The bar comes free with a bang and she shoves the door open.
Cold hits your face like a slap. Minus 71, the thermometer by the door says. The floodlight shows ten steel steps going down to the snow, and at the bottom Mikael Berg lies on his back in a blue fleece and his boots. No parka, no hat. His beard is white with frost and there's a dark frozen patch under his head.
Behind you Teodor Ilie arrives. He sees the door and goes the colour of paper. Further down the corridor somebody is shouting for Katrin.
Ingrid pulls on a parka from the hooks and holds out a headlamp to you. “Katrin's bringing the stretcher. Before she gets here I want somebody who isn't me to look at him and remember what they saw. Please. Put this on, and take gloves, the big ones.”
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