Black Ice

         "Is it solid?" I ask, throwing one of the obsidian stones onto the black surface of the sea. It skitters across the water, which turns out to in fact not be water but some sort of stone.
         Or ice.
         "As solid as anything you've never walked on," my teacher answers, handing me a knife. "Cut."
         I slip the knife through the black ice easily enough. I pull it out, revealing a three-centimeter thick film of frozen liquid over inky blackness. The knife sizzles and disintegrates slightly. "What's under the ice?"
         "Acid. Poison. Something like that. No one knows, but I think you can guess." I shudder and wipe my knife on my shirt. The black liquid stains the blue cloth blood red and dissolves it near the seam. I touch the wet fabric, and my skin burns. "You have to walk out there. Forever."
         I swallow and stand up.
         My feet balance atop the sleek, cold back surface. I can hear it creak as I take a step forwards, putting my full weight on the ice.
         "The ice goes on to infinity," I say, and I know it is true.
         My second step holds. So does my third. "Keep walking," my teacher says, "don't stop, don't falter, don't look back. Walk until you die."
         Nodding, I walk forwards. My footsteps echo, which is strange, because wherever I look there is only the black endless ice and white endless sky. Nothing else. Endless.
         If I look down, I can faintly see my reflection staring up at me from the frozen poison.
         It becomes deathly cold pretty soon. My breath comes out black. The air is foggy with poisonous vapor. I am starting to slip more often, my feet are so tired. A sickly sulfurous smell dirfts through the air with the poison.
         The sun never sets. I never stop walking. Sometimes I stumble and nearly fall on the frozen poison, but even when I want to stop, to sit, to die, I continue walking. My muscles are motorized now, unaware that they are moving, stuck in routine.
         I am all alone There is no longer any sun. Just a blinding white sky and seamless black ice.
         All of a sudden, I trip and plummet onto the ice, screaming. I hold out my hand to stop my fall and it breaks through the ice, straight into the poison.
         "Aaugh!" I scream, yanking it out as it sizzles and burns a deep red, the skin rotting and revealing my bones beneath, dyed purple-black.
         I clutch my hand to my chest and continue walking, back tears pouring down my face, leaving blue streaks on my cheeks. No one comes to help me, to help heal the pain of my burning, dead hand. I continue walking until I am dragging my legs along, on the brink of death.
         And then I die, breaking through the black ice and into the poison to melt away.