How Long Does it Take for Cocoa Butter to Remove Scars ...

I’m kind of at a loss with scar care. I had top surgery a little over two months ago and my doctor basically told me to rub cocoa butter on my scars and shrugged in regards to silicone tape, only after I asked. He’s a pretty good doctor, but I knew so little about aftercare going in that I didn’t even really quite no what to ask.
Do you guys have any tips? I’ve heard vitamin e oil works well, should I use that over cocoa butter? How often should I be massaging my scars and for how long? Should I wear scar tape every day? Should my scar tape be put on “tightly” (like with tension to put pressure on scar) or should it be placed gently? Tbh I don’t even really understand what scar tape does. Is there anything else I could be doing? My scars are pretty stretched, I knew that would happen cause my doctor had to do some fenangling to get me straighter scars, but I’d like to minimize them as much as possible.
Lastly, I have stretch marks galore. Would I massage those as well/treat them basically the same?

Hello! For a 2 months now I have been applying Palmers Cocoa Butter Formula Massage lotion for stretch marks on my face after my Neutrogena hydro boost water gel creme for dry skin. Does anyone else put this lotion on the face? My concern is the "oil" may be fragrance and I don't know if that's necessarily good to put on my face but I also think it can be good for healing acne scars. Thank you :)

A little cosmic horror inspired by [IP] Arctic Outpost. Enjoy?
He was ice cold. The man with a weaponized glare, we called him. Between the dark furrows that creased his brow, the long scar across his cheek, and the disorderly black scruff down his chin, Steven looked every bit as wild and fierce as the snowy wasteland we called home.
Antarctica is one hell of a continent. Wild and untethered from the chains of the modern world. Cold too, and not the type of chill you can run from—an inescapable freeze that pierces the jacket and the fleece and the wool underwear and sinks into the very depths of your soul, as if to say, “fuck this, you need hot chocolate!”
Waiting for our stew to warm, we stood inside the kitchenette pod. The pod was little more than a hyped-up and insulated shipping container. Each pod had a single door, no windows, and the best radiant heating that the government could afford. The cold tile made it painfully apparent that we needed a bigger budget.
Instead, we funneled every dollar into our research. Digging up the ice. Drilling for samples. Probing the deep shelf for seismic and acoustic vibrations and all the other check-the-box bullshit that made university professors haw and hum. But I needed this research to graduate. Steven needed time away for himself. We all had something to prove here, in this frozen stepping-stone hell.
The stew was still fucking cold.
“You look like you need a drink, Mary,” Steven said.
I frowned. “You look like you’ve had one too many.”
He chuckled. He stirred the stew. The other four researchers were still at the drill site collecting the last of the samples and I swear, I swear to god they sent me back with Steven on purpose. I hope they’re laughing about it. Lord knows we could use a smile around here.
“I’ve got an unopened bottle of Old Forrester stashed under my bunk. The good stuff.”
“Is that your way of getting me inside your pod?”
His expression was ice-cold. “This is strictly business.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah—the business of drinking myself to sleep. In the quiet dark, when I lay back and hear the voices screaming around my pod,” he said. “Three shots of burning whiskey and the voices vanish, and I can sleep again. You should try it sometime.”
The voices.
They started the very first night I arrived. When I was all unpacked and lying in bed, waiting for sleep to take me but too excited to close my eyes. I listened to the sounds of gusting snow against the concrete walls of the pod. The wind whipped the snowdrift with a whistle. When I closed my eyes, I could see it in my mind’s eye—my old family cabin, my father’s aging smile, the laugh on his face when he ducked behind the snowman to doge an oncoming snowball. Hot chocolate while the blizzard raged, as the power flickered, snuggled with woolen blankets at the base of the brick fireplace. Stuck indoors for days with nothing but board games and magazines—I must have been an absolute menace to my parents. The howling wind brought back these memories. It was peaceful. Somber.
Then a high-pitched shriek tore me back.
A single note carried itself over the wind. It was pained, mournful and beautiful. It reminded me of the lone cry of a humpback whale, something so large and powerful but all at once gentle and lonely. And it drew closer.
Other voices joined the symphony. These were softer, somber. A hum or an echo of a voice that I couldn’t quite discern. Back and forth these four, no—five, no—six! Voices seemed to converse as they coalesced around my pod; my own heartbeat raced, eyes wide, as I sunk down in my mattress and drew close the sheets, praying that this was all just a nightmare—
Then silence. Utter and absolute silence.
Six weeks have passed since that night.
Now, a gust of wind rattled the pod. The whistle caught and resonated in the tiny ventilation duct and both Steven and I stopped for a moment to consider the noise. It was getting late. We both knew that the voices would return soon; no one wanted to be caught outside or in the kitchenette when that happened.
“A storm’s coming,” Steven said.
“The others should have returned,” I said. “We should radio them. We wouldn’t want them to get caught out.”
“Thomas won’t let that happen.”
He was right, of course. The drilling party was led by one Dr. Thomas Rogelio Yates III—though he insisted everyone call him on a first-name basis. He loathed the title Dr. Yates, said it made him sound like a university snob. Said that a real seismologist gets his hands cold and dirty. He was probably the most level-headed researcher within a thousand-mile radius. The drill team was well entrusted in his cold, dirty, capable hands. And yet…
I grabbed one of Thomas’s small, handheld radios. Each pod had two—one for regular use and one as a backup. Redundancy is a cold comfort in this brutal wasteland. I switched the radio to the first channel and sent a call. Then I waited, listening to the gentle static.
Steven shook his head. “He probably switched his—”
“Steven?” Thomas asked, his voice sounding robotic over the radio.
I glanced over and smirked. “Are you headed back? A windstorm is coming.”
Thomas’s voice was cracking, cutting in and out, making each word hard to discern. It was odd. We usually had no trouble with the radios.
“Mary! Our drill… crack in the ice… fell through.”
Steven swiped the microphone from me. His voice was unsteady. “Say again?”
“Slipped into pit… going haywire…. one more test.”
“We can’t understand you!” Steven said, eyes growing wider. “Do you need rescue?”
Thomas was frantic. “No, no!”
“Are you coming back before nightfall?”
“Yes!”
Steven clicked off the microphone and let out a slow, audible sigh. “Thomas says he’ll be back, so he’ll be back.”
I swiped the microphone back from him. “Are you kidding me? What the hell is going on over there? Fell into a pit. Doesn’t need rescue. What the hell was Thomas talking about?”
He shrugged. “You worry too much.”
I tried the radio again. This time, the call went unanswered. I put the radio back in my jacket pocket and tapped my boots on the tile, trying to mimic “Seven Nation Army” as best I could. Steven noticed and shook his head—too modern for his tastes. He was more of a Beethoven and bourbon type anyway, sitting by the stove, filling out a crossword puzzle. He was a crossword puzzle himself: an enigma as strange as the voices we had been hearing, looking for a sense of completeness.
“Stew’s ready,” Steven said.
“I’m not hungry.”
I was too worried to be hungry. Steven handed me a bowl and stretched out in his chair, relaxing as the stew slowly warmed him. The warm aroma of savory beef and vegetables filled the pod and eventually won me over. The stew was delicious. But a knot twisted in my stomach as afterwards I fidgeted and shuffled and waited for the others to return. I couldn’t take it any longer.
“I’m going back to my pod,” I said.
“Can’t stand the smell of me?”
“Yes, actually.”
A cool fog had descended on the campsite. Visibility was already low by the time I opened the door and stepped out into the hard-packed snow. I could barely discern my pod amongst the blowing snow and wind. It stood on the far northwest edge of camp—furthest from the kitchen and closest to the ice shelf.
I was halfway between the kitchen and my own pod when a shadow caught my eye.
The outline of a man, silhouetted by snow, stood near the tall, jagged mass of rock that marked the far path between the ice shelf and the pods. Although I couldn’t make out who it was, I was certain it was a member of the returning drill team. I waved at it.
“Back already?”
The figure remained motionless.
I squinted, wondering if it was a trick of the eye. The figure was featureless. I couldn’t see any sign of the bright orange jackets we all wore, no reflectors and no heavy bags of gear, snowmobiles, or the sounds of moving machinery. Only a grey shadow where a man should have been, standing still.
My eyes were playing tricks on me.
“Steven?” I asked.
The figure remained motionless. The shadow was mesmerizing, holding my gaze with a spell, as something terrible that I couldn’t bear to watch but couldn’t look away from. An uneasy feeling crept into the corners of my mind. The darkness of the shadow was unnerving. The light outline in the snow was unsettling. It wasn’t natural.
I reached into my pocket and grabbed my radio. “Steven, are you outside?”
“No, it’s pajamas and Playboy for me. Why?”
The figure moved closer.
I bolted for my cabin. The lock had frozen solid with ice. Glancing back, I saw the creature plunge towards me. On the ground by the pod entrance was an ice pick. I gabbed it and chipped furiously Someone who was not Steven, Thomas or the other four researchers.I chipped and chipped and screamed and expected at any moment for the creature to drag me to the ground and consume me.
A moment of silence passed as we both thought about the implications. The voice Steven heard was different. I wondered if the voices had ever been the same, or if each person heard something else. Something unique. A custom-tailored cry.e other four researchers.
The voices started on the wind. This time there was no shriek or howl, but an almost indiscernible whisper, as if the wind itself was calling out to me.
“Mary,” the voice whispered, desperate, pleading. “Mary.”
I switched on my radio. “Steven are you hearing this?”
“Mary, what the hell is going on!” He replied.
“Can you hear it too?”
“It’s calling my name! What the fuck, Mary, how does it know my name?”
“No, it’s calling my name,” I said.
“We have to rescue them,” I told Steven. “We can’t let them freeze to death.”ce steven heard was different. I wondered if the voices had ever been the same, or if each person heard something else. Something unique. A custom-tailored cry.
I looked around the small confines of my pod, all alone, and wished that I had stayed with Steven. He wasn’t that bad. His gruff voice was far better than the ethereal whispers and inhuman moans that pierced the fog and snow. Steven was tangible. Steven was human.
Thomas’s voice crackled over the radio. “Mary, Steven, what the hell is going on! Are you out there? There’s… wrong with this storm. It came in too quick, too… not natural… can’t make it back.”
“Thomas! The voices are back, and I saw someone outside our camp,” I said, trying to keep a level head. Six weeks had passed without any serious incident. The voices were always benign and incoherent—so what had changed? What has new and different about today, this storm, these voices. “Thomas, what in God’s name did you find under the ice?”
He didn’t reply. The radio silenced. I took a deep breath and scanned my room, letting my eyes drift across the scattered piles of datasheets, the stack of heavily highlighted textbooks, and the graphing calculator with googly eyes. I used to lock myself in the study room of the university and listen to quiet music to drown out the world around me. Isolation used to be a blessing. Now, as I thought about what might be lurking outside, I wished to return to those crowded halls and cluttered dorms.
Here, there was nowhere to run.
Thomas called again over the radio. Through his muted voice I discerned two things: that the storm was coming in too fast, and that the voices had come for them. They pitched an emergency shelter. There was an unsteady crack in Thomas’s voice; he was unnerved. And before the radio silenced again, he gave one last cryptic message, “don’t let it claim you.”
The blizzard roared. Huge gusts of buffeting snow blasted the pods. Clouds darkened the sky with furious malevolence. A snowstorm and a cozy cabin make a blissful moment in good company. But with the creature lurking outside, with nowhere to run for a thousand miles, no easy escape or promise to return home, this blizzard was a prison.
I darted forward towards the door and wrapped my hand around the cool steel handle. The door burst open. I closed my eyes and lunged, swinging madly, screaming with all the rage and pain and terror inside. Swinging for Thomas, dead on the ice shelf. For Steven, cut down in the storm. For Myself.
Steven agreed. Two snowmobiles were parked in a storage pod. They had plenty of muscle to power through the ice and snow, provided we knew where to go. That was the problem. We had no idea where Thomas and the others were located. And the only way to know for sure was to switch on the GPS locator, situated on a hill one quarter-mile from the pods. It was too expensive to keep on continuously. We needed a bigger budget.
“I’ll go, but you need to stay here,” Steven said.
“That’s a dumb fucking idea if I ever heard one.”
“I’m not asking.”
I agreed to let him go, provided he kept his radio on at all times and provided he wore a wire tether. We used the wires to walk from pod to pod in heavy snow. In a blizzard whiteout, you can completely lose track of your surroundings. Wearing a wire helps you keep a sense of direction. And in the worst case--if you find yourself completely lost--you can always follow the wire back to where you started.
The voices howled like screaming children.
Steven arrived at my pod. His eyes were wide, stoic expression rattled, body quivering but not from the cold. I hugged him briefly but tightly. He secured his wire to an eyelet on the side of my pod.
“If something happens to me,” he started, but trailed off.
“Don’t think about that.”
“That bottle of Old Forrester under my bunk. Pour one out for me. And for my son—name was Daniel Wadsworth, bless his soul—pour one out for him too.”
He started off into the night. I stood outside with a flashlight, scanning the blackness for any signs of the creature. All I could see was white whipping snowflakes and the thin black wire that led to Steven. All was silent. If the creature left the camp, I could not tell.
“I’m headed back,” Steven said, “Just hold on!”
But I couldn’t hold on as a massive gust of wind blew me back. A deep rending noise like metal-on-metal sounded from Steven’s direction. I rose to my feet, now covered in snow, and grabbed the end of Steven’s wire.
The wire taughtened. I held on to one end, feeling for vibrations. The radio was within range but when I tried to call Steven, I had no response. The line went dead. The wire shifted and started to rock slightly like a fishing line with a struggling bass at the end of it. I held on. The line jerked one last time and then went limp.
The voice screamed again. This time, it almost sounded like Steven.
I started to frantically reel in the wire. No, no, no! My lips were frozen, and my mouth was dry. I thought of home, how my father used to take me fishing by the cabin. But the fishing was always pleasant when you knew what to expect at the other end of the line. Here, I might be reeling in a monster. The Leviathan of ice and snow.
But to my horror I found something much worse: the severed strands of wire ripped and frayed. Steven was gone. There was nothing I could do. Sometimes pike can slice through fishing line with their teeth. Steven was dead. There was nothing I could do!
The shadow returned to the corner of my eye. I wanted to look at it. I wanted to move towards it. It beckoned me and if not for the voice of reason in my head screaming at me, yelling at me to look away, look away—I would have walked straight towards it.
Instead, I hurried back inside my pod and wrapped myself in blankets. Huddled close under the sheets, praying to myself, thinking about all the times when I was a girl hiding from the monsters. They can’t see you if you just stay still. They can’t reach you under the wool. If only I believed that. I was going to die here, alone and in the cold, with no other people around me for a hundred miles.
But just when I thought I was all alone, the radio flared to life. It was Thomas. But there was no cracking or hesitation. The reception was crystal clear, and I heard every word.
“It took the others,” he said. “That thing—it took them.”
Damp stared in the back of my eyes. “No, please, please.”
“Oh god….” His voice crackled behind pained sobs. “I see it now, Mary. And I think I finally understand.”
“Thomas—listen to me—you can’t look at it!”
“The darkness.”
A lump rose in my throat. “Please don’t look at it.”
“The light.”
“Thomas!”
“It’s so beautiful!”
Static rose to a crescendo over the speaker. But I could still hear the wailing—*the voices—*and I could still hear Thomas’s screams until the last. Until his screaming stopped and all sound was a gentle staccato of wind and snow. My head pounded, pressing down on my eyes like a dam, the dampness I fought back. The radio slipped from my hand and clattered to the cold tile.
I slumped down beside it, holding my head in my hands, still fighting back the damp in my eyes.
And there on the back of the radio, I saw his initials—TRY—and the dam broke inside me.
Tears dripped with a steady plink plink plink like raindrops on the tile and there was no one left to hear them. I was completely and utterly alone.
“Mary,”—again the nameless whisper formed words—“mary. Marrrrry. MARY!”
There was nothing I could do. Nowhere I could run—the whispers had me trapped in my pod, like a cat toying with a mouse before it eats it whole. And I could do nothing but wait for the ravenous jowls of the faceless monster, the terror of ice and snow.
“Mary, let me in!”
It was Steven.
I backed up against the back of the wall. Steven was dead. This thing out there, whatever it was, was not Steven. I scanned the room, my eyes resting on the ice pick by the door. Quickly!
The door shook and rattled.
I darted forward towards the door and wrapped my hand around the cool steel handle. The door burst open. I closed my eyes and lunged, swinging madly, screaming with all the rage and pain and terror inside. Swinging for Thomas, dead on the ice shelf. For steven, cut down in the storm. For Myself.
Ice pick met wet flesh with a sickly crunch.
Steven screamed and toppled over.
I opened my eyes. I dropped the ice pick. Steven lay doubled over, clutching the side of his ribs, the first inch of the pick embedded deep in his ribs. Blood seeped out onto the yellow of his parka and clotted back as it bit the cold.
“Oh my god!” I screamed.
“Mary, what the fuck!”
Steven’s eyes widened as his shaking hands fumbled the shaft of the pick. His blood-slicked hands slipped. Again, he struggled to free the blade, and it left the rib with a sickening squelch. He gasped. He bucked. Blood gurgled up from his pierced lung.
I rushed towards him and ripped off the side of his parka, exposing his bare chest. The wound was clean and deep and gushing. I grabbed a rag and pressed down as hard I could. It was hard to tell whose hands shook the hardest, his or mine, as we struggled to staunch the flow of blood.
The rattle in his lungs settled as he stabilized.
He survived.
In an hour, he was bandaged and resting against the side of the cabinetry. Blood slicked and stained the tile and I don’t think I could ever forget the smell—that metallic smell that broke the cold air and sent shivers down my spine. It didn’t matter. Steven was here beside me. I made a fresh cup of hot cocoa and sat beside him, unsure of what I wanted to ask him. Long sips kept the silence.
“I thought you were dead,” I finally managed.
His voice was shallow. Wheezing and rattled and every breath came with pained gasps. His lung was collapsed, at the least, but he still had the strength to speak.
“The wind knocked me-knocked me out. Hit my head. Didn’t see. Didn’t hear. Thomas, the others.”
He caught and held my gaze. I shook my head. The dam came rushing back. I saw his gentle soul shine out from behind the damp of his eyes—wet as mine—and I knew he blamed himself.
I reached out and twined his fingers with mine.
We sat together in silence, waiting for the dark voices to return. We didn’t know if we would survive the night, but knowing that we would face the voices together was enough. I think it had always been enough. And as we sat and waited for the darkness to come and claim us, a voice crackled over the radio.
The gentle thump of a helicopter heartbeat started overhead. We weren’t alone, after all. Thomas had made one last call on the ice shelf. One last, desperate plea. We were saved.
“I think I’d like that drink now, if you don’t mind,” I said.
A smile cracked Steven’s ice-cold expression.
We left the base behind, abandoning the pods, the equipment, and the research. I couldn’t care less. I’m never going back to that lonely hell. Neither is Steven. We’ve been through enough together to know that whatever haunts that place can claim it.
The source of the voice was never discovered. I’ve talked to several therapists and they all say the same: that the voice was a figment of my imagination, a product of psychosis brought on by the extreme isolation. The other scientists say it was a natural phenomenon—a Kármán vortex street—caused by the intense wind. There is always a rational explanation, they claimed.
Sometimes foxes scream like children.
It was only the wind.
In the height of the blizzard, a sheet of jagged steel ripped free from my pod. It sliced clean through Steven’s cable as a hot knife through butter. There was no monster on the ice, they assured me. There is always an explanation. Always an excuse.
It took a full year before another expedition found the bodies of the drilling team. At their last, they had trenched themselves inside a snow cave. Bodies nestled together for warmth, faces looking up towards the stars, expressions calm and peaceful. They died of hypothermia. They died in their sleep. They died with their hands twined together.
Thomas’s body was never found.
More chilling haunts at BLT_WITH_RANCH

He was ice cold. The man with a weaponized glare, we called him. Between the dark furrows that creased his brow, the long scar across his cheek, and the disorderly black scruff down his chin, Steven looked every bit as wild and fierce as the snowy wasteland we called home.
Antarctica is one hell of a continent. Wild and untethered from the chains of the modern world. Cold too, and not the type of chill you can run from—an inescapable freeze that pierces the jacket and the fleece and the wool underwear and sinks into the very depths of your soul, as if to say, “fuck this, you need hot chocolate!”
Waiting for our stew to warm, we stood inside the kitchenette pod. The pod was little more than a hyped-up and insulated shipping container. Each pod had a single door, no windows, and the best radiant heating that the government could afford. The cold tile made it painfully apparent that we needed a bigger budget.
Instead, we funneled every dollar into our research. Digging up the ice. Drilling for samples. Probing the deep shelf for seismic and acoustic vibrations and all the other check-the-box bullshit that made university professors haw and hum. But I needed this research to graduate. Steven needed time away for himself. We all had something to prove here, in this frozen stepping-stone hell.
The stew was still fucking cold.
“You look like you need a drink, Mary,” Steven said.
I frowned. “You look like you’ve had one too many.”
He chuckled. He stirred the stew. The other four researchers were still at the drill site collecting the last of the samples and I swear, I swear to god they sent me back with Steven on purpose. I hope they’re laughing about it. Lord knows we could use a smile around here.
“I’ve got an unopened bottle of Old Forrester stashed under my bunk. The good stuff.”
“Is that your way of getting me inside your pod?”
His expression was ice-cold. “This is strictly business.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah—the business of drinking myself to sleep. In the quiet dark, when I lay back and hear the voices screaming around my pod,” he said. “Three shots of burning whiskey and the voices vanish, and I can sleep again. You should try it sometime.”
The voices.
They started the very first night I arrived. When I was all unpacked and lying in bed, waiting for sleep to take me but too excited to close my eyes. I listened to the sounds of gusting snow against the concrete walls of the pod. Wind whipped the snowdrift with a whistle. When I closed my eyes, I could see it in my mind’s eye—my old family cabin, my father’s aging smile, the laugh on his face when he ducked behind the snowman to doge an oncoming snowball. Hot chocolate while the blizzard raged, as the power flickered, snuggled with woolen blankets at the base of the brick fireplace. Stuck indoors for days with nothing but board games and magazines—I must have been an absolute menace to my parents. The howling wind brought back these memories. It was peaceful. Somber.
Then a high-pitched shriek tore me back.
A single note carried itself over the wind. It was pained, mournful and beautiful. It reminded me of the lone cry of a humpback whale, something so large and powerful but all at once gentle and lonely. And it drew closer.
Other voices joined the symphony. These were softer, somber. A hum or an echo of a voice that I couldn’t quite discern. Back and forth these four, no—five, no—six! Voices seemed to converse as they coalesced around my pod; my own heartbeat raced, eyes wide, as I sunk down in my mattress and drew close the sheets, praying that this was all just a nightmare—
Then silence. Utter and absolute silence.
Six weeks have passed since that night.
Now, a gust of wind rattled the pod. The whistle caught and resonated in the tiny ventilation duct and both Steven and I stopped for a moment to consider the noise. It was getting late. We both knew that the voices would return soon; no one wanted to be caught outside or in the kitchenette when that happened.
“A storm’s coming,” Steven said.
“The others should have returned,” I said. “We should radio them. We wouldn’t want them to get caught out.”
“Thomas won’t let that happen.”
He was right, of course. The drilling party was led by one Dr. Thomas Rogelio Yates III—though he insisted everyone call him on a first-name basis. He loathed the title Dr. Yates, said it made him sound like a university snob. Said that a real seismologist gets his hands cold and dirty. He was probably the most level-headed researcher within a thousand-mile radius. The drill team was well entrusted in his cold, dirty, capable hands. And yet…
I grabbed one of Thomas’s small, handheld radios. Each pod had two—one for regular use and one as a backup. Redundancy is a cold comfort in this brutal wasteland. I switched the radio to the first channel and sent a call. Then I waited, listening to the gentle static.
Steven shook his head. “He probably switched his—”
“Steven?” Thomas asked, his voice sounding robotic over the radio.
I glanced over and smirked. “Are you headed back? A windstorm is coming.”
Thomas’s voice was cracking, cutting in and out, making each word hard to discern. It was odd. We usually had no trouble with the radios.
“Mary! Our drill… crack in the ice… fell through.”
Steven swiped the microphone from me. His voice was unsteady. “Say again?”
“Slipped into pit… going haywire…. one more test.”
“We can’t understand you!” Steven said, eyes growing wider. “Do you need rescue?”
Thomas was frantic. “No, no!”
“Are you coming back before nightfall?”
“Yes!”
Steven clicked off the microphone and let out a slow, audible sigh. “Thomas says he’ll be back, so he’ll be back.”
I swiped the microphone back from him. “Are you kidding me? What the hell is going on over there? Fell into a pit. Doesn’t need rescue. What the hell was Thomas talking about?”
He shrugged. “You worry too much.”
I tried the radio again. This time, the call went unanswered. I put the radio back in my jacket pocket and tapped my boots on the tile, trying to mimic “Seven Nation Army” as best I could. Steven noticed and shook his head—too modern for his tastes. He was more of a Beethoven and bourbon type anyway, sitting by the stove, filling out a crossword puzzle. He was a crossword puzzle himself: an enigma as strange as the voices we had been hearing, looking for a sense of completeness.
“Stew’s ready,” Steven said.
“I’m not hungry.”
I was too worried to be hungry. Steven handed me a bowl and stretched out in his chair, relaxing as the stew slowly warmed him. The warm aroma of savory beef and vegetables filled the pod and eventually won me over. The stew was delicious. But a knot twisted in my stomach as afterwards I fidgeted and shuffled and waited for the others to return. I couldn’t take it any longer.
“I’m going back to my pod,” I said.
“Can’t stand the smell of me?”
“Yes, actually.”
A cool fog had descended on the campsite. Visibility was already low by the time I opened the door and stepped out into the har-packed snow. I could barely discern my pod amongst the blowing snow and wind. It stood on the far northwest edge of camp—furthest from the kitchen and closest to the ice shelf.
I was halfway between the kitchen and my own pod when a shadow caught my eye.
The outline of a man, silhouetted by snow, stood near the tall, jagged mass of rock that marked the far path between the ice shelf and the pods. Although I couldn’t make out who it was, I was certain it was a member of the returning drill team. I waved at it.
“Back already?”
The figure remained motionless.
I squinted, wondering if it was a trick of the eye. The figure was featureless. I couldn’t see any sign of the bright orange jackets we all wore, no reflectors and no heavy bags of gear, snowmobiles, or the sounds of moving machinery. Only a grey shadow where a man should have been, standing still.
My eyes were playing tricks on me.
“Steven?” I asked.
The figure remained motionless. The shadow was mesmerizing, holding my gaze with a spell, as something terrible that I couldn’t bear to watch but couldn’t look away from. An uneasy feeling crept into the corners of my mind. The darkness of the shadow was unnerving. The light outline in the snow was unsettling. It wasn’t natural.
I reached into my pocket and grabbed my radio. “Steven, are you outside?”
“No, it’s pajamas and Playboy for me. Why?”
The figure moved closer.
I bolted for my cabin. The lock had frozen solid with ice. Glacning back, I saw the creature plunge towards me. On the ground by the pod entrance was an ice pick.I gabbed it and chipped furiously at the lock, not looking back, not wanting to look back. Faster! I chipped and chipped and screamed and expected at any moment for the creature to drag me to the ground and consume me.
The lock broke free. I threw open the door, slammed it shut behind me and pressed my back up against it, breathing heavy, thinking fast. Someone else is waiting outside. Someone else is out there. Someone who was not steven, Thomas or the other four researchers.
The voices started on the wind. This time there was no shriek or howl, but an almost indiscernible whisper, as if the wind itself was calling out to me.
“Mary,” the voice whispered, desperate, pleading. “Mary.”
I switched on my radio. “Steven are you hearing this?”
“Mary, what the hell is going on!” He replied.
“Can you hear it too?”
“It’s calling my name! What the fuck, Mary, how does it know my name?”
“No, it’s calling my name,” I said.
A moment of silence passed as we both thought about the implications. The voice steven heard was different. I wondered if the voices had ever been the same, or if each person heard something else. Something unique. A custom-tailored cry.
I looked around the small confines of my pod, all alone, and wished that I had stayed with Steven. He wasn’t that bad. His gruff voice was far better than the ethereal whispers and inhuman moans that pierced the fog and snow. Steven was tangible. Steven was human.
Thomas’s voice crackled over the radio. “Mary, Steven, what the hell is going on! Are you out there? There’s… wrong with this storm. It came in too quick, too… not natural… can’t make it back.”
“Thomas! The voices are back, and I saw someone outside our camp,” I said, trying to keep a level head. Six weeks had passed without any serious incident. The voices were always benign and incoherent—so what had changed? What has new and different about today, this storm, these voices. “Thomas, what in God’s name did you find under the ice?”
He didn’t reply. The radio silenced. I took a deep breath and scanned my room, letting my eyes drift across the scattered piles of datasheets, the stack of heavily highlighted textbooks, and the graphing calculator with googly eyes. I used to lock myself in the study room of the university and listen to quiet music to drown out the world around me. Isolation used to be a blessing. Now, as I thought about what might be lurking outside, I wished to return to those crowded halls and cluttered dorms.
Here, there was nowhere to run.
Thomas called again over the radio. Through his muted voice I discerned two things: that the storm was coming in too fast, and that the voices had come for them. They pitched an emergency shelter. There was an unsteady crack in Thomas’s voice; he was unnerved. And before the radio silenced again, he gave one last cryptic message, “don’t let it claim you.”
The blizzard roared. Huge gusts of buffeting snow blasted the pods. Clouds darkened the sky with furious malevolence. A snowstorm and a cozy cabin make a blissful moment in good company. But with the creature lurking outside, with nowhere to run for a thousand miles, no easy escape or promise to return home, this blizzard was a prison.
“We have to rescue them,” I told steven. “We can’t let them freeze to death.”
Steven agreed. Two snowmobiles were parked in a storage pod. They had plenty of muscle to power through the ice and snow, provided we knew where to go. That was the problem. We had no idea where Thomas and the others were located. And the only way to know for sure was to switch on the GPS locator, situated on a hill one quarter-mile from the pods. It was too expensive to keep on continuously. We needed a bigger budget.
“I’ll go, but you need to stay here,” Steven said.
“That’s a dumb fucking idea if I ever heard one.”
“I’m not asking.”
I agreed to let him go, provided he kept his radio on at all times and provided he wore a wire tether. We used the wires to walk from pod to pod in heavy snow. In a blizzard whiteout, you can completely lose track of your surroundings. Wearing a wire helps you keep a sense of direction. And in the worst case--if you find yourself completely lost--you can always follow the wire back to where you started.
The voices howled like screaming children.
Steven arrived at my pod. His eyes were wide, stoic expression rattled, body quivering but not from the cold. I hugged him briefly but tightly. He secured his wire to an eyelet on the side of my pod.
“If something happens to me,” he started, but trailed off.
“Don’t think about that.”
“That bottle of Old Forrester under my bunk. Pour one out for me. And for my son—name was Daniel Wadsworth, bless his soul—pour one out for him too.”
He started off into the night. I stood outside with a flashlight, scanning the blackness for any signs of the creature. All I could see was white whipping snowflakes and the thin black wire that led to Steven. All was silent. If the creature left the camp, I could not tell.
“I’m headed back,” Steven said, “Just hold on!”
But I couldn’t hold on as a massive gust of wind blew me back. A deep rending noise like metal-on-metal sounded from Steven’s direction. I rose to my feet, now covered in snow, and grabbed the end of Steven’s wire.
The wire taughtened. I held on to one end, feeling for vibrations. The radio was within range but when I tried to call Steven, I had no response. The line went dead. The wire shifted and started to rock slightly like a fishing line with a struggling bass at the end of it. I held on. The line jerked one last time and then went limp.
The voice screamed again. This time, it almost sounded like Steven.
I started to frantically reel in the wire. No, no, no! My lips were frozen, and my mouth was dry. I thought of home, how my father used to take me fishing by the cabin. But the fishing was always pleasant when you knew what to expect at the other end of the line. Here, I might be reeling in a monster. The Leviathan of ice and snow.
But to my horror I found something much worse: the severed strands of wire ripped and frayed. Steven was gone. There was nothing I could do. Sometimes pike can slice through fishing line with their teeth. Steven was dead. There was nothing I could do!
The shadow returned to the corner of my eye. I wanted to look at it. I wanted to move towards it. It beckoned me and if not for the voice of reason in my head screaming at me, yelling at me to look away, look away—I would have walked straight towards it.
Instead, I hurried back inside my pod and wrapped myself in blankets. Huddled close under the sheets, praying to myself, thinking about all the times when I was a girl hiding from the monsters. They can’t see you if you just stay still. They can’t reach you under the wool. If only I believed that. I was going to die here, alone and in the cold, with no other people around me for a hundred miles.
But just when I thought I was all alone, the radio flared to life. It was Thomas. But there was no cracking or hesitation. The reception was crystal clear, and I heard every word.
“It took the others,” he said. “That thing—it took them.”
Damp stared in the back of my eyes. “No, please, please.”
“Oh god….” His voice crackled behind pained sobs. “I see it now, Mary. And I think I finally understand.”
“Thomas—listen to me—you can’t look at it!”
“The darkness.”
A lump rose in my throat. “Please don’t look at it.”
“The light.”
“Thomas!”
“It’s so beautiful!”
Static rose to a crescendo over the speaker. But I could still hear the wailing—the voices—and I could still hear Thomas’s screams until the last. Until his screaming stopped and all sound was a gentle staccato of wind and snow. My head pounded, pressing down on my eyes like a dam, the dampness I fought back. The radio slipped from my hand and clattered to the cold tile.
I slumped down beside it, holding my head in my hands, still fighting back the damp in my eyes.
And there on the back of the radio, I saw his initials—TRY—and the dam broke inside me.
Tears dripped with a steady plink plink plink like raindrops on the tile and there was no one left to hear them. I was completely and utterly alone.
“Mary,”—again the nameless whisper formed words—“mary. Marrrrry. MARY!”
There was nothing I could do. Nowhere I could run—the whispers had me trapped in my pod, like a cat toying with a mouse before it eats it whole. And I could do nothing but wait for the ravenous jowls of the faceless monster, the terror of ice and snow.
“Mary, let me in!”
It was Steven.
I backed up against the back of the wall. Steven was dead. This thing out there, whatever it was, was not Steven. I scanned the room, my eyes resting on the ice pick by the door. Quickly!
The door shook and rattled.
I darted forward towards the door and wrapped my hand around the cool steel handle. The door burst open. I closed my eyes and lunged, swinging madly, screaming with all the rage and pain and terror inside. Swinging for Thomas, dead on the ice shelf. For steven, cut down in the storm. For Myself.
Ice pick met wet flesh with a sickly crunch.
Steven screamed and toppled over.
I opened my eyes. I dropped the ice pick. Steven lay doubled over, clutching the side of his ribs, the first inch of the pick embedded deep in his ribs. Blood seeped out onto the yellow of his parka and clotted back as it bit the cold.
“Oh my god!” I screamed.
“Mary, what the fuck!”
Steven’s eyes widened as his shaking hands fumbled the shaft of the pick. His blood-slicked hands slipped. Again, he struggled to free the blade, and it left the rib with a sickening squelch. He gasped. He bucked. Blood gurgled up from his pierced lung.
I rushed towards him and ripped off the side of his parka, exposing his bare chest. The wound was clean and deep and gushing. I grabbed a rag and pressed down as hard I could. It was hard to tell whose hands shook the hardest, his or mine, as we struggled to staunch the flow of blood.
The rattle in his lungs settled as he stabilized.
He survived.
In an hour, he was bandaged and resting against the side of the cabinetry. Blood slicked and stained the tile and I don’t think I could ever forget the smell—that metallic smell that broke the cold air and sent shivers down my spine. It didn’t matter. Steven was here beside me. I made a fresh cup of hot cocoa and sat beside hm, unsure of what I wanted to ask him. Long sips kept the silence.
“I thought you were dead,” I finally managed.
His voice was shallow. Wheezing and rattled and every breath came with pained gasps. His lung was collapsed, at the least, but he still had the strength to speak.
“The wind knocked me-knocked me out. Hit my head. Didn’t see. Didn’t hear. Thomas, the others.”
He caught and held my gaze. I shook my head. The dam came rushing back. I saw his gentle soul shine out from behind the damp of his eyes—wet as mine—and I knew he blamed himself.
I reached out and twined his fingers with mine.
We sat together in silence, waiting for the dark voices to return. We didn’t know if we would survive the night, but knowing that we would face the voices together was enough. I think it had always been enough. And as we sat and waited for the darkness to come and claim us, a voice crackled over the radio.
The gentle thump of a helicopter heartbeat started overhead. We weren’t alone, after all. Thomas had made one last call on the ice shelf. One last, desperate plea. We were saved.
“I think I’d like that drink now, if you don’t mind,” I said.
A smile cracked Steven’s ice-cold expression.
We left the base behind, abandoning the pods, the equipment, and the research. I couldn’t care less. I’m never going back to that lonely hell. Neither is Steven. We’ve been through enough together to know that whatever haunts that place can claim it.
The source of the voice was never discovered. I’ve talked to several therapists and they all say the same: that the voice was a figment of my imagination, a product of psychosis brought on by the extreme isolation. The other scientists say it was a natural phenomenon—a Kármán vortex street—caused by the intense wind. There is always a rational explanation, they claimed.
Sometimes foxes scream like children.
It was only the wind.
In the height of the blizzard, a sheet of jagged steel ripped free from my pod. It sliced clean through Steven’s cable as a hot knife through butter. There was no monster on the ice, they assured me. There is always an explanation. Always an excuse.
It took a full year before another expedition found the bodies of the drilling team. At their last, they had trenched themselves inside a snow cave. Bodies nestled together for warmth, faces looking up towards the stars, expressions calm and peaceful. They died of hypothermia. They died in their sleep. They died with their hands twined together.
Thomas’s body was never found.
X

He was ice cold. The man with a weaponized glare, we called him. Between the dark furrows that creased his brow, the long scar across his cheek, and the disorderly black scruff down his chin, Steven looked every bit as wild and fierce as the snowy wasteland we called home.
Antarctica is one hell of a continent. Wild and untethered from the chains of the modern world. Cold too, and not the type of chill you can run from—an inescapable freeze that pierces the jacket and the fleece and the wool underwear and sinks into the very depths of your soul, as if to say, “fuck this, you need hot chocolate!”
Waiting for our stew to warm, we stood inside the kitchenette pod. The pod was little more than a hyped-up and insulated shipping container. Each pod had a single door, no windows, and the best radiant heating that the government could afford. The cold tile made it painfully apparent that we needed a bigger budget.
Instead, we funneled every dollar into our research. Digging up the ice. Drilling for samples. Probing the deep shelf for seismic and acoustic vibrations and all the other check-the-box bullshit that made university professors haw and hum. But I needed this research to graduate. Steven needed time away for himself. We all had something to prove here, in this frozen stepping-stone hell.
The stew was still fucking cold.
“You look like you need a drink, Mary,” Steven said.
I frowned. “You look like you’ve had one too many.”
He chuckled. He stirred the stew. The other four researchers were still at the drill site collecting the last of the samples and I swear, I swear to god they sent me back with Steven on purpose. I hope they’re laughing about it. Lord knows we could use a smile around here.
“I’ve got an unopened bottle of Old Forrester stashed under my bunk. The good stuff.”
“Is that your way of getting me inside your pod?”
His expression was ice-cold. “This is strictly business.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah—the business of drinking myself to sleep. In the quiet dark, when I lay back and hear the voices screaming around my pod,” he said. “Three shots of burning whiskey and the voices vanish, and I can sleep again. You should try it sometime.”
The voices.
They started the very first night I arrived. When I was all unpacked and lying in bed, waiting for sleep to take me but too excited to close my eyes. I listened to the sounds of gusting snow against the concrete walls of the pod. Wind whipped the snowdrift with a whistle. When I closed my eyes, I could see it in my mind’s eye—my old family cabin, my father’s aging smile, the laugh on his face when he ducked behind the snowman to doge an oncoming snowball. Hot chocolate while the blizzard raged, as the power flickered, snuggled with woolen blankets at the base of the brick fireplace. Stuck indoors for days with nothing but board games and magazines—I must have been an absolute menace to my parents. The howling wind brought back these memories. It was peaceful. Somber.
Then a high-pitched shriek tore me back.
A single note carried itself over the wind. It was pained, mournful and beautiful. It reminded me of the lone cry of a humpback whale, something so large and powerful but all at once gentle and lonely. And it drew closer.
Other voices joined the symphony. These were softer, somber. A hum or an echo of a voice that I couldn’t quite discern. Back and forth these four, no—five, no—six! Voices seemed to converse as they coalesced around my pod; my own heartbeat raced, eyes wide, as I sunk down in my mattress and drew close the sheets, praying that this was all just a nightmare—
Then silence. Utter and absolute silence.
Six weeks have passed since that night.
Now, a gust of wind rattled the pod. The whistle caught and resonated in the tiny ventilation duct and both Steven and I stopped for a moment to consider the noise. It was getting late. We both knew that the voices would return soon; no one wanted to be caught outside or in the kitchenette when that happened.
“A storm’s coming,” Steven said.
“The others should have returned,” I said. “We should radio them. We wouldn’t want them to get caught out.”
“Thomas won’t let that happen.”
He was right, of course. The drilling party was led by one Dr. Thomas Rogelio Yates III—though he insisted everyone call him on a first-name basis. He loathed the title Dr. Yates, said it made him sound like a university snob. Said that a real seismologist gets his hands cold and dirty. He was probably the most level-headed researcher within a thousand-mile radius. The drill team was well entrusted in his cold, dirty, capable hands. And yet…
I grabbed one of Thomas’s small, handheld radios. Each pod had two—one for regular use and one as a backup. Redundancy is a cold comfort in this brutal wasteland. I switched the radio to the first channel and sent a call. Then I waited, listening to the gentle static.
Steven shook his head. “He probably switched his—”
“Steven?” Thomas asked, his voice sounding robotic over the radio.
I glanced over and smirked. “Are you headed back? A windstorm is coming.”
Thomas’s voice was cracking, cutting in and out, making each word hard to discern. It was odd. We usually had no trouble with the radios.
“Mary! Our drill… crack in the ice… fell through.”
Steven swiped the microphone from me. His voice was unsteady. “Say again?”
“Slipped into pit… going haywire…. one more test.”
“We can’t understand you!” Steven said, eyes growing wider. “Do you need rescue?”
Thomas was frantic. “No, no!”
“Are you coming back before nightfall?”
“Yes!”
Steven clicked off the microphone and let out a slow, audible sigh. “Thomas says he’ll be back, so he’ll be back.”
I swiped the microphone back from him. “Are you kidding me? What the hell is going on over there? Fell into a pit. Doesn’t need rescue. What the hell was Thomas talking about?”
He shrugged. “You worry too much.”
I tried the radio again. This time, the call went unanswered. I put the radio back in my jacket pocket and tapped my boots on the tile, trying to mimic “Seven Nation Army” as best I could. Steven noticed and shook his head—too modern for his tastes. He was more of a Beethoven and bourbon type anyway, sitting by the stove, filling out a crossword puzzle. He was a crossword puzzle himself: an enigma as strange as the voices we had been hearing, looking for a sense of completeness.
“Stew’s ready,” Steven said.
“I’m not hungry.”
I was too worried to be hungry. Steven handed me a bowl and stretched out in his chair, relaxing as the stew slowly warmed him. The warm aroma of savory beef and vegetables filled the pod and eventually won me over. The stew was delicious. But a knot twisted in my stomach as afterwards I fidgeted and shuffled and waited for the others to return. I couldn’t take it any longer.
“I’m going back to my pod,” I said.
“Can’t stand the smell of me?”
“Yes, actually.”
A cool fog had descended on the campsite. Visibility was already low by the time I opened the door and stepped out into the hard-packed snow. I could barely discern my pod amongst the blowing snow and wind. It stood on the far northwest edge of camp—furthest from the kitchen and closest to the ice shelf.
I was halfway between the kitchen and my own pod when a shadow caught my eye.
The outline of a man, silhouetted by snow, stood near the tall, jagged mass of rock that marked the far path between the ice shelf and the pods. Although I couldn’t make out who it was, I was certain it was a member of the returning drill team. I waved at it.
“Back already?”
The figure remained motionless.
I squinted, wondering if it was a trick of the eye. The figure was featureless. I couldn’t see any sign of the bright orange jackets we all wore, no reflectors and no heavy bags of gear, snowmobiles, or the sounds of moving machinery. Only a grey shadow where a man should have been, standing still.
My eyes were playing tricks on me.
“Steven?” I asked.
The figure remained motionless. The shadow was mesmerizing, holding my gaze with a spell, as something terrible that I couldn’t bear to watch but couldn’t look away from. An uneasy feeling crept into the corners of my mind. The darkness of the shadow was unnerving. The light outline in the snow was unsettling. It wasn’t natural.
I reached into my pocket and grabbed my radio. “Steven, are you outside?”
“No, it’s pajamas and Playboy for me. Why?”
The figure moved closer.
I bolted for my cabin. The lock had frozen solid with ice. Glancing back, I saw the creature plunge towards me. On the ground by the pod entrance was an ice pick. I gabbed it and chipped furiously Someone who was not Steven, Thomas or the other four researchers.I chipped and chipped and screamed and expected at any moment for the creature to drag me to the ground and consume me.
A moment of silence passed as we both thought about the implications. The voice Steven heard was different. I wondered if the voices had ever been the same, or if each person heard something else. Something unique. A custom-tailored cry.e other four researchers.
The voices started on the wind. This time there was no shriek or howl, but an almost indiscernible whisper, as if the wind itself was calling out to me.
“Mary,” the voice whispered, desperate, pleading. “Mary.”
I switched on my radio. “Steven are you hearing this?”
“Mary, what the hell is going on!” He replied.
“Can you hear it too?”
“It’s calling my name! What the fuck, Mary, how does it know my name?”
“No, it’s calling my name,” I said.
“We have to rescue them,” I told Steven. “We can’t let them freeze to death.”ce steven heard was different. I wondered if the voices had ever been the same, or if each person heard something else. Something unique. A custom-tailored cry.
I looked around the small confines of my pod, all alone, and wished that I had stayed with Steven. He wasn’t that bad. His gruff voice was far better than the ethereal whispers and inhuman moans that pierced the fog and snow. Steven was tangible. Steven was human.
Thomas’s voice crackled over the radio. “Mary, Steven, what the hell is going on! Are you out there? There’s… wrong with this storm. It came in too quick, too… not natural… can’t make it back.”
“Thomas! The voices are back, and I saw someone outside our camp,” I said, trying to keep a level head. Six weeks had passed without any serious incident. The voices were always benign and incoherent—so what had changed? What has new and different about today, this storm, these voices. “Thomas, what in God’s name did you find under the ice?”
He didn’t reply. The radio silenced. I took a deep breath and scanned my room, letting my eyes drift across the scattered piles of datasheets, the stack of heavily highlighted textbooks, and the graphing calculator with googly eyes. I used to lock myself in the study room of the university and listen to quiet music to drown out the world around me. Isolation used to be a blessing. Now, as I thought about what might be lurking outside, I wished to return to those crowded halls and cluttered dorms.
Here, there was nowhere to run.
Thomas called again over the radio. Through his muted voice I discerned two things: that the storm was coming in too fast, and that the voices had come for them. They pitched an emergency shelter. There was an unsteady crack in Thomas’s voice; he was unnerved. And before the radio silenced again, he gave one last cryptic message, “don’t let it claim you.”
The blizzard roared. Huge gusts of buffeting snow blasted the pods. Clouds darkened the sky with furious malevolence. A snowstorm and a cozy cabin make a blissful moment in good company. But with the creature lurking outside, with nowhere to run for a thousand miles, no easy escape or promise to return home, this blizzard was a prison.
I darted forward towards the door and wrapped my hand around the cool steel handle. The door burst open. I closed my eyes and lunged, swinging madly, screaming with all the rage and pain and terror inside. Swinging for Thomas, dead on the ice shelf. For Steven, cut down in the storm. For Myself.
Steven agreed. Two snowmobiles were parked in a storage pod. They had plenty of muscle to power through the ice and snow, provided we knew where to go. That was the problem. We had no idea where Thomas and the others were located. And the only way to know for sure was to switch on the GPS locator, situated on a hill one quarter-mile from the pods. It was too expensive to keep on continuously. We needed a bigger budget.
“I’ll go, but you need to stay here,” Steven said.
“That’s a dumb fucking idea if I ever heard one.”
“I’m not asking.”
I agreed to let him go, provided he kept his radio on at all times and provided he wore a wire tether. We used the wires to walk from pod to pod in heavy snow. In a blizzard whiteout, you can completely lose track of your surroundings. Wearing a wire helps you keep a sense of direction. And in the worst case--if you find yourself completely lost--you can always follow the wire back to where you started.
The voices howled like screaming children.
Steven arrived at my pod. His eyes were wide, stoic expression rattled, body quivering but not from the cold. I hugged him briefly but tightly. He secured his wire to an eyelet on the side of my pod.
“If something happens to me,” he started, but trailed off.
“Don’t think about that.”
“That bottle of Old Forrester under my bunk. Pour one out for me. And for my son—name was Daniel Wadsworth, bless his soul—pour one out for him too.”
He started off into the night. I stood outside with a flashlight, scanning the blackness for any signs of the creature. All I could see was white whipping snowflakes and the thin black wire that led to Steven. All was silent. If the creature left the camp, I could not tell.
“I’m headed back,” Steven said, “Just hold on!”
But I couldn’t hold on as a massive gust of wind blew me back. A deep rending noise like metal-on-metal sounded from Steven’s direction. I rose to my feet, now covered in snow, and grabbed the end of Steven’s wire.
The wire taughtened. I held on to one end, feeling for vibrations. The radio was within range but when I tried to call Steven, I had no response. The line went dead. The wire shifted and started to rock slightly like a fishing line with a struggling bass at the end of it. I held on. The line jerked one last time and then went limp.
The voice screamed again. This time, it almost sounded like Steven.
I started to frantically reel in the wire. No, no, no! My lips were frozen, and my mouth was dry. I thought of home, how my father used to take me fishing by the cabin. But the fishing was always pleasant when you knew what to expect at the other end of the line. Here, I might be reeling in a monster. The Leviathan of ice and snow.
But to my horror I found something much worse: the severed strands of wire ripped and frayed. Steven was gone. There was nothing I could do. Sometimes pike can slice through fishing line with their teeth. Steven was dead. There was nothing I could do!
The shadow returned to the corner of my eye. I wanted to look at it. I wanted to move towards it. It beckoned me and if not for the voice of reason in my head screaming at me, yelling at me to look away, look away—I would have walked straight towards it.
Instead, I hurried back inside my pod and wrapped myself in blankets. Huddled close under the sheets, praying to myself, thinking about all the times when I was a girl hiding from the monsters. They can’t see you if you just stay still. They can’t reach you under the wool. If only I believed that. I was going to die here, alone and in the cold, with no other people around me for a hundred miles.
But just when I thought I was all alone, the radio flared to life. It was Thomas. But there was no cracking or hesitation. The reception was crystal clear, and I heard every word.
“It took the others,” he said. “That thing—it took them.”
Damp stared in the back of my eyes. “No, please, please.”
“Oh god….” His voice crackled behind pained sobs. “I see it now, Mary. And I think I finally understand.”
“Thomas—listen to me—you can’t look at it!”
“The darkness.”
A lump rose in my throat. “Please don’t look at it.”
“The light.”
“Thomas!”
“It’s so beautiful!”
Static rose to a crescendo over the speaker. But I could still hear the wailing—*the voices—*and I could still hear Thomas’s screams until the last. Until his screaming stopped and all sound was a gentle staccato of wind and snow. My head pounded, pressing down on my eyes like a dam, the dampness I fought back. The radio slipped from my hand and clattered to the cold tile.
I slumped down beside it, holding my head in my hands, still fighting back the damp in my eyes.
And there on the back of the radio, I saw his initials—TRY—and the dam broke inside me.
Tears dripped with a steady plink plink plink like raindrops on the tile and there was no one left to hear them. I was completely and utterly alone.
“Mary,”—again the nameless whisper formed words—“mary. Marrrrry. MARY!”
There was nothing I could do. Nowhere I could run—the whispers had me trapped in my pod, like a cat toying with a mouse before it eats it whole. And I could do nothing but wait for the ravenous jowls of the faceless monster, the terror of ice and snow.
“Mary, let me in!”
It was Steven.
I backed up against the back of the wall. Steven was dead. This thing out there, whatever it was, was not Steven. I scanned the room, my eyes resting on the ice pick by the door. Quickly!
The door shook and rattled.
I darted forward towards the door and wrapped my hand around the cool steel handle. The door burst open. I closed my eyes and lunged, swinging madly, screaming with all the rage and pain and terror inside. Swinging for Thomas, dead on the ice shelf. For steven, cut down in the storm. For Myself.
Ice pick met wet flesh with a sickly crunch.
Steven screamed and toppled over.
I opened my eyes. I dropped the ice pick. Steven lay doubled over, clutching the side of his ribs, the first inch of the pick embedded deep in his ribs. Blood seeped out onto the yellow of his parka and clotted back as it bit the cold.
“Oh my god!” I screamed.
“Mary, what the fuck!”
Steven’s eyes widened as his shaking hands fumbled the shaft of the pick. His blood-slicked hands slipped. Again, he struggled to free the blade, and it left the rib with a sickening squelch. He gasped. He bucked. Blood gurgled up from his pierced lung.
I rushed towards him and ripped off the side of his parka, exposing his bare chest. The wound was clean and deep and gushing. I grabbed a rag and pressed down as hard I could. It was hard to tell whose hands shook the hardest, his or mine, as we struggled to staunch the flow of blood.
The rattle in his lungs settled as he stabilized.
He survived.
In an hour, he was bandaged and resting against the side of the cabinetry. Blood slicked and stained the tile and I don’t think I could ever forget the smell—that metallic smell that broke the cold air and sent shivers down my spine. It didn’t matter. Steven was here beside me. I made a fresh cup of hot cocoa and sat beside him, unsure of what I wanted to ask him. Long sips kept the silence.
“I thought you were dead,” I finally managed.
His voice was shallow. Wheezing and rattled and every breath came with pained gasps. His lung was collapsed, at the least, but he still had the strength to speak.
“The wind knocked me-knocked me out. Hit my head. Didn’t see. Didn’t hear. Thomas, the others.”
He caught and held my gaze. I shook my head. The dam came rushing back. I saw his gentle soul shine out from behind the damp of his eyes—wet as mine—and I knew he blamed himself.
I reached out and twined his fingers with mine.
We sat together in silence, waiting for the dark voices to return. We didn’t know if we would survive the night, but knowing that we would face the voices together was enough. I think it had always been enough. And as we sat and waited for the darkness to come and claim us, a voice crackled over the radio.
The gentle thump of a helicopter heartbeat started overhead. We weren’t alone, after all. Thomas had made one last call on the ice shelf. One last, desperate plea. We were saved.
“I think I’d like that drink now, if you don’t mind,” I said.
A smile cracked Steven’s ice-cold expression.
We left the base behind, abandoning the pods, the equipment, and the research. I couldn’t care less. I’m never going back to that lonely hell. Neither is Steven. We’ve been through enough together to know that whatever haunts that place can claim it.
The source of the voice was never discovered. I’ve talked to several therapists and they all say the same: that the voice was a figment of my imagination, a product of psychosis brought on by the extreme isolation. The other scientists say it was a natural phenomenon—a Kármán vortex street—caused by the intense wind. There is always a rational explanation, they claimed.
Sometimes foxes scream like children.
It was only the wind.
In the height of the blizzard, a sheet of jagged steel ripped free from my pod. It sliced clean through Steven’s cable as a hot knife through butter. There was no monster on the ice, they assured me. There is always an explanation. Always an excuse.
It took a full year before another expedition found the bodies of the drilling team. At their last, they had trenched themselves inside a snow cave. Bodies nestled together for warmth, faces looking up towards the stars, expressions calm and peaceful. They died of hypothermia. They died in their sleep. They died with their hands twined together.
Thomas’s body was never found.

Stretch marks are very uncomfortable. And can sometimes ruin the whole look of the knee-length dress or sleeveless top you’ve been wearing for ages. Usually, on the abdomen, thighs, and upper arms, these hideous scars are seen. The causes include dramatic and sudden loss or gain in weight, a sudden shift in body size, inherited variables, and stress. As the skin spreads, the collagen of the skin becomes fragile and causes fine lines to form under the skin’s topmost layer. At first, the stretch marks are colored red or purple. With the moment, a thin silver line appears on the skin’s surface, giving birth to stretch marks. There are some home remedies for stretch marks.
There’s nothing to worry about, though. There are some remedies that can assist avoid stretch marks and also decrease the appearance of old and new ones. There are many ways to remove stretch marks, and a mixture of techniques generally works best. Within a few weeks, you will notice these unsightly lines lightening and becoming less noticeable.
Wondering how stretch marks can be removed? Then you need to read this article to know home remedies for stretch marks.

1. Aloe Vera

Aloe vera gel is a wonder herb that is of great benefit to the body, particularly to the skin. For the skin, it is soothing and fastens the healing process as well. This is due to the glucomannan and gibberellin compounds, which increase the synthesis of collagen and fade stretch marks. It also contains vital vitamins, minerals, and enzymes with antioxidant characteristics
Take the fresh gel from the leaf and massage with stretch marks to the area and leave for 20-30 minutes. Do it every day and wash away with tepid water.
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2. Cocoa Butter

Cocoa butter for stretch marks is also quite effective. Your skin will be hydrated and made smoother. It penetrates deeper skin layers and replenishes damaged cells and repairs them. Only cocoa butter can be applied twice a day to the affected area. The stretch marks will disappear after a few months.
The best time to use cocoa butter is at night, so massage it well into the skin and the stretch marks will be reduced and faded away over a period of time.
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3. Vicks Vaporub

Vicks vaporub is made up of essential oils such as eucalyptus oil, turpentine oil and leaf oil of cedar. It also has petrolatum and camphor. All of these jobs together to make the skin more moisturized and softer. Although there is no scientific information to support this remedy, by using this remedy, females around the world have observed a 60-80% difference in their stretch marks.
Apply the vaporub for a minute or two to the impacted region and massage. Use cling wrap to cover the area and leave it overnight.
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4. Cucumber and Lemon Juice

The natural acidity of lemon juice enables to cure and decrease scars, and the cool relaxing impact of cucumber juice leaves your skin fresh. Mix lime juice and cucumber juice together in equal components and apply the combination to the impacted regions until the skin soaks it. Let it be about on your flesh. After 10 minutes you can rinse it with hot water.
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6. Castor Oil

Stretch marks need nourishment and humidity because of their dried, shriveled look. Castor oil will assist cure and smooth the marks gently when massaged on the skin. But this is something you need to feed your skin with constantly.
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7. Coffee Scrub

Coffee is rich in highly biologically active caffeine that can readily penetrate the skin. It stimulates skin fat degradation and has antioxidant characteristics as well. The soft movement of scrubbing will also increase the blood flow in the region. To lighten stretch marks, all of these jobs well together.
To create a paste, mix coffee grounds with water. Scrub the impacted region well. Scrub three to five minutes in smooth, circular movements. Rinse with warm water and moisturize. For better outcomes, you can add one or two tablespoons of olive oil or aloe vera gel.
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8. Apricot Mask and Oil

Apricots have excellent tendencies to exfoliate, making them very efficient in healing stretch marks. Take 2-3 apricots, cut them, remove the seeds. Crush the fruit into a paste and add the mask to the impacted regions of the stretch mark and leave it on for 15 minutes. Wash it off using hot water and then repeat the process for a month every day to see outcomes. Pure apricot oil rejuvenates the skin and thus helps to reduce stretch marks. Massage for efficient outcomes on the skin with some lemon juice.

9. Argan Oil

Argan oil is widely used for its diverse advantages in cosmetic products. It is rich in vitamin E and has antioxidant characteristics. They nourish and cure the skin and decrease scars and stretch marks at the same moment. The skin’s collagen and elastic fibers are rejuvenated by applying argan oil.

10. Tea Tree Oil

There are many advantages to tea tree oil. His capacity to fade stretch marks and scars is one of the lower recognized advantages. It is also anti-inflammatory.
Mix the vital oil on the stretch marks with the carrier oil and massage. Let the skin absorb it and let it on.

11. Turmeric

The best way to get rid of stretch marks is to regularly apply turmeric. Turmeric is full of antioxidants and also has characteristics that are anti-inflammatory and skin-lighting. The strong distinction between your skin and the stretch mark scars will be reduced by the regular implementation. You’ll also notice your stretch marks fade to a large extent after a couple of weeks.
To create a paste, mix the turmeric with the cream or yogurt. Apply this to the stretch marks and allow for 10-15 minutes to dry. Rinse with warm water and moisturize.
To get rid of stretch marks, these are the finest home remedies. Include them in your daily routine to prevent the appearance of stretch marks and also remove any existing marks. Drink plenty of water because when dehydrated, the skin tends to lose its elasticity. Have a nutritional diet. To guarantee that your skin receives the necessary nutrients to cure and recover, eat skin healthy food. A good diet will assist your skin to stay healthy.
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If u want to know more about blogs visit: https://www.momababyetc.com/home-remedies-for-stretch-marks/

Here's the album link. The one with the orange wall was taken in December at 5 months post-op, and the gray wall is from today, around 8 months post-op (if my math is right lol)
So I had some weird graft complications later on post-op in the healing process, so my nipples have gotten...well, you can see them. The left one especially had some issues, and has become really protruded and discolored. The right side didn't suffer as badly, but does stick out now more and got a bit weird looking in the center as well. Both of them got significantly darker, but it's possible they were always going to do that as they healed since my pre-op nipples were darker.
Basically, Dr. Mosser thinks it might have been small cysts caused by the grafts' stitches not dissolving quite right, but it was unusual given how late it began happening for me and how severe the problem was. I haven't had any issues since January, but it looks like the damage was unfortunately done :/ Hopefully they can recover as time goes on. They still seem very fragile to me.
In all honesty, if I had to do it all over again I might have chosen to forego grafts. I was already extremely iffy about them going in so...I dunno. Tattooing probably would've been a good option given how numb the area was/largely still is, or buttonhole and just dealing with having "a little volume" as it was described to me. The actual nipples themselves (the actual erectile circle, not the areola) have not made a reappearance either, which is disappointing.
Additionally, I had some fat necrosis on the left side at around 3 months post-op, which basically just resulted in some loss of contour and the scar appears to sag a bit now. It looks more severe in photos than it does in real life, I find though. Also I've been going to the gym and building muscle is helping in filling out the area some. I think my scar also formed minor keloids in the center third, though I'm not terribly worried about it right now as previous scars I've had have been raised, hard, and pink for the first 2 or so years and then turned white and flat.
At about 6-8 weeks post-op, I started to develop horizontal stretch marks on the top of my chest. These were more severe on the left side too. I started using a cocoa butter mix I made at the suggestion of Dr. Mosser and this did seem to prevent them from getting worse, and they also look like they're beginning to fade a bit, which is good.
Anyway, I meant to post more frequent updates, but I was really bummed by the (truly minor) complications I had. I was so pleased with how my chest looked at the 4 week mark that it was really upsetting to watch it get worse, especially the graft situation since it required me to start wearing dressings again as there was significant bleeding. Ultimately, I'm still happy with how it looks though, but the nipples/areolae are a disappointment and annoyance with how fragile they are (this isn't Dr. Mosser's fault though, just bad luck during healing. Still recommend him completely!)
tldr; I talk about my minor complications from 2-8 months post op.

As a lot of women know, stretch marks are a natural part of pregnancy. When I was dreaming of conceiving the child I am carrying now, I KNEW I was going to get stretch marks. And that didn't stop me. But after actually getting pregnant and going through the motions of it, somehow my brain forgot this was a thing. And when I first noticed my stripes beginning to appear, I was devastated. My mom has them, so I should have been expecting it. Despite the argument that nothing can reduce the appearance of these scars, I immediately bought some Bio Oil and Palmer's Cocoa Butter and slathered it on in a sobbing mess. I kept repeating to myself: My body is RUINED. RUINED.
It's been a few weeks since I first discovered my lovely first set of marks, and since then I have developed more. My tummy, hips, inner thighs, and I'm pretty sure my boobs as well are covered in these red, angry stripes. I'm so vain that this is actually keeping me up at night. All night. Every time I use the bathroom I examine my body and point out every little mark and I hear it in my head again: Your body is RUINED.
I've tried gaining the courage to talk to my friends who are also mothers about stretch marks and how they dealt with it. But I just couldn't bring myself to let anyone see me so vulnerable. Sure, my body wasn't perfect before, but it sure as hell didn't look as bad as it does now.
I asked my SO if they bothered him. He said he sees them, but he doesn't take note of them. They don't even phase him. It's nice to hear, but I feel like he shouldn't have to be looking at such an ugly body when he used to have such a good body to look at. I feel as if it's like someone giving you steak, then turning right back around and taking the steak from you and replacing it with a half-eaten, raw chicken nugget. I feel like a half-eaten, raw chicken nugget.
I talked to my mom about her stretch marks. She said they didn't even bother her and after 3 months they faded drastically. She told me all she cared about was me being healthy and she knew that my dad still loved her and thought she was beautiful so why did it matter? I guess this goes to show how much more shallow I am than my mother.
The only thing that has helped me feel better was knowing that other women go through the same thing. I did a search on here and I found women proudly displaying their stretch marks. And they were beautiful to me. Why couldn't I see the beauty in myself and my marks?
Seeing those pictures made me realize something. They are only as bad and as important as you make them out to be. I have let these stupid marks control my sleep schedule and thoughts for FAR too long. I'm done with it. From here on out, those scars will NOT be ugly to me. Instead of covering away in a corner while changing in front of my SO, I will proudly change in front of him. Instead of pointing them out and throwing a mini pity-party each time, I am going to point them out and say: Look babe! Our son is growing! Look what our son can already do all by himself. He can grow! And I have the marks to prove it.
I will no longer scrutinize my every flaw in the mirror. I will look at myself, smile, and thank whoever there is to thank for allowing me to create what many women would die for- a child.
And if I do happen to have some fall-backs, I will point out my already-faded stretch marks from puberty to myself and remind myself that soon I won't have those angry, red marks. Soon those fresh marks will become old and join the rest of my collection of white, barely noticeable marks that don't bother me one bit. Except this time, I'll have a wonderful son instead of longer, wider limbs.
It's silly to think that I am letting my appearance control my life. What I haven't realized is that I'm missing out on so much. While I'm hiding away from the world harping on my looks, everyone else is out there enjoying themselves. I am now going to be one of those people.
I'm going to start this new mindset that I am beautiful by giving myself a nice pedicure and scheduling myself to have my hair trimmed. I believe that improving on the things that I CAN control is going to help tremendously.
I am so sorry for writing such a long, mindless post. But I know I'm not alone in this struggle and I was hoping that maybe this could help someone else during their journey of creating a wonderful life. Or maybe one of you ladies can share a similar experience. This post was mainly for me to get out my feelings and feel sorry for myself one last time. Thank you so much for reading if you made it this far. Happy gestating!

A roommate left tons of vitamins and health supplements (which are still unexpired) when he moved across the country (apparently couldn't make room to bring them). I now have a bunch of vitamin E gel tablets. I remember reading a while ago that Vitamin E was the only proven thing to get rid or stretch marks (vs. cocoa butter, and other "stretch mark" remedies.) Well, I'm not trying to get rid of stretch marks, but since Vitamin E (tocopherol) is often a main active ingredient in scar creams and stretch mark creams, I wondered if I can apply the gel from the Vitamin E tablets directly to my skin to help acne scars. But I can't seem to find any good information about whether they work for that. Does anybody know? I'm gonna admit something now: I just experimented the other day and smeared it all over my cheeks before bed (hey - whats the worst that could happen? haha) and I would swear the condition of my skin was improved in the morning. It has a serum-esque consistency. But I also know about the psychological power of placebos, so I don't always trust my own judgement.
Anyone know anything about applying the gel from Vitamin E tablets directly to your skin? Would it help with acne scars? Might it have any other positive or negative effects?

I read online that vitamin e is really good for dark spots, scars and stretch marks and that cocoa butter produces similar results as well. I recently picked up a bottle of Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula with Vitamin E for about 4 bucks at the grocery store and have been using it for the past week or so. I love the smell of it and it makes my skin feel awesome after it sets in but I'm wondering if I'll get good results in terms of minimizing the appearance of a a scar or two. Anyone else use a similar product and gotten good results from it? Is this stuff legit for how cheap it is? Also wondering if it would be safe and effective to use on sensitive facial skin with mild acne scars.