Snow Bunny Season

Arakaya Yesskermesova stood nervously out the front of the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport. Her breath was icy cold. Fogging up the instant it left her lips. It wasn’t the sub-zero conditions that were worrying Arakaya though. She had expected this leaving Nur-Sultan in Kazakhstan. Arakaya had grown up skiing in Kazakhstan and Russia and had dressed accordingly. This was her first time coming to the United States though and she been expecting to be met by Hilde. Hilde Swanson was her childhood pen pal and had been the one to convince her to make the 24-hour trek Stateside to meet in person for the first time.

Arakaya checked the printed email she had last received from Hilde for the hundredth time already. Searching for clues as to why she’d been left all alone on her first day in a foreign country.

“Dear Harry

I’m sooooo excited to see you! I can’t believe we are finally going to meet at last. I’ve got your flight details and I’ll be waiting for you at the airport to pick you up. Daddy has got us the most incredible chalet for us to stay in for the holidays. You are going to love it! It’s all paid for so you don’t have to bring a thing with you.

Looking forward to seeing you. We are going to have the best time!

Love

Hilde xxx”

Harry was what Hilde called Arakaya as she had said it was easier to say when they first started writing to each other at 8-years-old. That was 10 years ago now. Arakaya liked the name Harry as it sounded Western to her and also because Prince Harry had visited her country and stayed at The Shymbaluk Resort. The same resort she had learnt to ski as a tiny child.

Arakaya checked her watch again. She had been waiting for Hilde for over an hour and a half already. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer for her pen pal to arrive or it would start to get dark soon. Hilde had said not to bring anything but she had $2000 in U.S. currency on her which she had converted before coming. It was all the money she had managed to save up in her life and she was loathed to waste it right away. Still, she had to find her friend or somewhere to stay at the very least.

{Author's note: Thank you everyone for reading (and liking!)

I'm going to do this one a little differently as an experiment. I'm not just going to add new chapters entirely of my own creation. Each new branch I add will be formed entirely from readers suggestions left in the chapter comments about what they want to happen next. Do you want Arakaya to hitchhike into town? Do you want her to turn back around and get on the next flight back home? For examples. I don't know where this is going but it's entirely up to you readers!

Chapters will be published after I've received enough different suggestions to build a great continuing story on. If there's more than one great idea I might add some alternate chapters to choose from too. Preference for adding new chapters will go to the one that has the most likes too so get voting for where you want me to continue this.

Dacia xoxo

Oh, almost forgot, this story is open too for anybody who feels like adding contributions of their own.}