Hibernation (continued)

>>77226999
http://pastebin.com/RsfW0byb im not this guy but im lazy and my version would have the same basic setup and leaving off point

Day 1

Panda sat down on his bed, pulled his phone out and halfheartedly flicked through his usual sites. He let out a sigh and looked out his window. Ice Bear seemed to have already cleared over half the visible snow and piled it in the center of their yard.

Panda got up out of boredom more than interest and went to the front door. The cold blast as he stepped outside quickly reminded him of why he had elected to stay indoors. He crossed his arms around his torso in an effort to keep warm and looked over to see Ice near the end of the clearing, rolling a giant ball of snow.

”Do you uhh, need... help... with whatever you're doing?” The words were flat as he didn't really mean them. Ice Bear's snow boulder was about a foot taller than him now. He pushed it towards the center, passing by the shivering panda without a glance or a word. Panda got the answer he expected. “Have fun I guess.” He quickly turned around and shut out a frigid breeze that was building behind him.

The relatively warm cave air was a relief, but was accompanied by an unusual silence. His ears perked up though, as he heard Grizzly's snoring get louder in the other room. He was reminded of Ice Bear's instructions and rolled his eyes. “He'll probably 'disturb' himself if he keeps that up.” Panda took as much time as he could to wander across the room and plop himself on the couch. He found the remote and flicked the television on to the weather channel.

“A state of emergency has been declared for the entire Bay Area as we now face the beginning of a  massive once in a lifetime cold moisture system. Local residents are advised to keep their vehicles off the road and stay indoors if at all possible. At the very least we expect dense snowfall and steady sub freezing temperatures all night and well into tomorrow afternoon. Get cozy folks, and break out those sleds if you got 'em!”

Panda glared at the screen. “Stupid cold dumb snow UGH!” He mashed the off button and whipped the remote at the floor beneath the television. He stormed off into the kitchen to grab the laptop off the table and headed back into his room. He intended to slam his door loudly but hesitated and closed it quickly without much noise. As a substitute he leaned against his closed door and attempted a frustrated grunt that came out as a whining pout.

Ice Bear's operation was in full swing now. Walls rose in a large cylindrical shape at the base. Floors were set. New heights. More walls. A tower was forming. Where snow had been cleared now laid scores of round and square containers of various sizes filled with freezing, slowly crystallizing water. Preparations. Ice bear could not yet see his enemy but he knew it was coming. He knew it's name.


Day 2

Panda's grumbling stomach woke him up early in spite of his plans to sleep as long as possible. He had found some mediocre anime series to watch and binged a third of the episodes until early in the morning. Maybe he could sleep some more after eating something. He shivered on his way into the kitchen only to see it abandoned with no freshly cooked breakfast waiting for him like usual.
Panda frowned.“Oh, right.”

His feet were freezing. He looked down and saw that he was standing in a small puddle of water. He retracted his foot as his face soured more and stepped further into the kitchen. On closer inspection he noticed a box of Hoppin' Hippo cereal sitting horizontally on the kitchen table with a note next to it.

'Ice bear milk fridge no time.'

He would have usually scoffed at something like this but the circumstances painted his reaction differently. His frown turned upward for a moment but wavered just as quickly. “Well... at least he thought about me.” He wandered over to look out the window and his eyes widened.

Atop the gleaming spire of ice and snow stood a king. Ice bear looked down upon his realm with strained sleepless eyes. “Ice Realm...everything...snow touches.” He saw his kingdom and found that it was good. Ice bear shifted and grunted softly. “hmm...good.” The exhausted ruler turned  and started toward his ice chamber for some well deserved rest, but then something caught his eye. He looked up and saw a tiny gap in the still snowing clouds. Light hit his face for an instant and then vanished as the gap closed.

Panda had moved and stuck his head out the narrowly opened front door for a better view. He saw his little brother make strange gestures at the sky. “What the... what is he doing?” He continued watching in awe as the polar bear effortlessly scaled down the tower that must have been at least two stories, and began traveling on all fours to the nearest road, carrying his axe by it's handle in his jaw. “W-wait, where are you going?!” Panda called after the bear but he knew it was useless. He mumbled. “Don't leave me alone...” He looked up at the spire again before the chill got to him, and then he moped back into the cave with his arms drooped in at his sides instead of trying to conserve warmth. He ate his cold afternoon breakfast.

Afterward he made his way for his room, but stopped as he passed by Grizzly's. He shifted and glanced out the nearest window. Ice must still be gone. “I should just... check on him.” He delicately turned the knob and slowly nudged the door just enough to peek in. He saw what he expected, but was surprised at how it made him feel lighter. Grizz didn't seem to have moved an inch from the last time he saw him. The brown bear's breathing appeared slow but deep and steady from the way his round form raised and lowered in equal pace. The quiet still troubled Panda. “Hey, Grizz.” He whispered. “You should see what the front yard looks like, it's kind of crazy. I bet you would like it. Maybe I'll take a picture of it for y-” He heard noises outside. It sounded like...machines? “Ok, get your rest bro! L-uh...love you.” He had made his cheeks warm as he gently closed the door.

Panda hurried to his room and looked out the window to see what appeared to be a gigantic snowplow truck pulling an even larger trailer filled with snow, piloted by his little brother. He rubbed his eyes and turned around. “Okay.” He sunk down and sat under the window. “Maybe something... productive! He looked around the room and spotted his drawings sitting on his desk.


Day 3

Panda woke up just past noon and found the motivation to cook a hot breakfast for himself. The night had gone by well enough. He had spent some time on his art before running out of ideas and then started to get into his new anime. He was pleasantly surprised when he finally got tired and saw how late it was. Now with a warm bowl of brown sugar laden oatmeal in one hand and his phone in the other, he made his way into the living room and turned on the television. He tapped at his phone while chewing on spoonfuls of his breakfast, and felt confident that he could manage on his own today. He still occasionally glanced at his brother's door. The weather report on the TV caught his attention.

“Most of the metropolitan area is frozen in place today with many residents having lost power as emergency and limited road clearing services struggle to respond to this almost unheard of situation. Their efforts have been further exacerbated as contact was apparently lost last night with one of the Transit Authority's first responding plows. The whereabouts of the vehicle and it's driver are currently unknown. We do have some good news though! The system appears to be moving south and will soon weaken it's hold on local temp-” The screen went black.

Panda's eyes widened. “Oh, no. No no no.” He clicked the remote to no avail, got up and headed into the kitchen. The fridge was silent and the lights didn't work. He closed his eyes and strained his face and turned his head back. His phone was still in his hand. He used his thumb to touch the screen and peeked down. Battery: 13%. “Noohoo!.” He ran into his room and placed his phone on the nightstand, careful not to activate the screen again, and opened the laptop that had been plugged in. 98%. Panda began to show relief, but then he looked again. 97%. He hovered over the icon. 'Consider replacing laptop battery.' “Stupid... dingle UGH!”

He ran back to grab is now lukewarm breakfast and rushed back into his room to watch an episode before it was too late, but he couldn't get into it and instead ended up staring at the rapidly depleting icon. He closed the laptop soon after finishing his oatmeal and sulked in his desk chair for a minute. He let himself slip out of his chair and sprawled out onto the cave floor. ”I wish I could just hibernate though everything too.” Panda thought about the people on his friends list that always seemed to be doing cool stuff without him. He frowned and turned over onto his belly to survey the room and spotted some old mangas on the bottom shelf of his bookcase. He clumsily slithered his torso over and picked some off the shelf. “I guess I could look at some of these again.”

The merciful chill of dusk was approaching. The trailer now served as a base for what could only be described as a feat of modern engineering. Curved crystal lattices interspersed salvaged metal to serve as the skeleton of a massive snow covered fully mobile vertically warped reverse dish-like structure that was presumably intended to block the sun's rays. Whomever had the duty of moving the structure along the path of the sun appeared to have abandoned one's post at least an hour ago.

Panda was slumped against the cave wall with an opened manga laying face down in the disheveled fur on his tummy. He batted it off to the side and awkwardly stood himself up to inspect the higher shelves. There were a lot of books here that didn't belong to him. 'The Wizard's Guide to Love' Panda rolled his eyes. 'How to Build a Robot Clone' 'The Joys of Seal Clubbing' “Gross!” The next several volumes were all cookbooks, and then a binder that was tucked in at the far end. Panda opened what turned out to be a photo album. “Oh! These were from when we framed pictures for the house.” He slid back down the cave wall and paged through the images.

A few were pictures of wildlife but all the rest were of the bears, and it appeared that Grizz took nearly all of them. There was Ice fitting in windows and doors, and then cooking for the first time on their new stove. Panda sitting on the floor in a nearly empty room reading manga books and drawing books from the library, with his lame old cellphone close at his side. There were a couple blurry shots of the proper portraits that Grizz made the other bears assemble for. There were several with Grizz and Ice or Grizz and Panda, each latter looking increasingly annoyed. The rest were selfies of Grizz making silly faces and jumping around with time delay shots. Panda's expression warmed as he thought. He always looks so happy...always trying to get us to do stuff. He stared at the last photo for awhile before he noticed it becoming difficult to see. He perked up and turned his head towards the window. “The picture!” He got up and grabbed his phone. 1%. “Noo!” He tried to load the camera app and the screen went blank.

The outside air was still far too chilly for Panda's tastes but he noticed that it was warmer now. He clumsily shut the front door with a sketching pad and pencil in hand, turned around and looked up. “Whoa.” He sat down where he had stood and got to work. Scenes and complex perspective-sensitive objects were not exactly Panda's artistic strong points. He struggled to capture what he saw as daylight slipped away from the subject and the paper. After some time it became too dark to continue effectively. Panda stood  and looked up to the top of the tower and wondered about his brother. “Hey! Are you still up there? I think... it's uh, starting to melt.” He tilted his head to the side. “...do you know where the candles are?” He stood in silence for a moment, sighed and turned to go back inside.

Panda could barely see a few feet in front of him. He touched the wall on his way into the kitchen and set his limited sights on the junk drawer but something caught his eye on the table. A short glass candle jar and a lighter. No note this time, but Panda was still thankful. He lit the wick, pulled a chair over and set his pad down on the table to inspect his work. His face showed disapproval. He sat with his drawing and thought. It's just so...plain. He had glossed over details and made scratchy, messy lines that stuck out sorely. Panda brought his things into his room and sat at his desk to try to fix the image, but found it difficult to concentrate with the silence and meager light. He couldn't help but look around into the surrounding darkness and feel uneasy.

A dim light slowly creeped into Grizzly's room from the floor as the door was quietly opened. Panda reached down for the jar with his free hand and nudged the door the rest of the way as he carefully stepped inside. He nearly held his breath as he moved with his other arm full of various art supplies and some books. The flickering light made the brown bear's eyelids twitch slightly but he barely stirred. Panda's ears must have become more sensitive from so much quiet time because he could now hear his brother's breathing, still as steady and rhythmic as before. He sat down in front of the nightstand and set the candle down close to his side, using the bed's angle to keep the flame out of Grizzly's eyes. Now  with his big brother's company, Panda was put at ease. He picked up his sketch pad with renewed purpose.


Day 4

Dawn. The ice chamber tenuously housed it's sleeping ruler. Creaking sounds began to emanate from every direction, rapidly building in intensity. A sudden screech, followed by a crashing sound occurred somewhere overhead. Ice Bear's eyes shot wide open as his world collapsed around him. He dug his way out of a pile of wet snow, got up and surveyed the fate of his efforts. He turned and headed back into the cave.

Panda squinted his eyes from the now brightly sunlit room as he slowly woke up to the sound of a knife chopping and the smell of ...strawberries? He began to roll himself over to block the light and felt something wrapped around him resisting the movement. His expression rivaled Ice Bear's from earlier as he realized not only where he was, but also that the owner of the heavy brown paw that he had carefully pulled over himself last night was also waking up to the same noise. Grizz slowly opened his eyes to identify the mysterious warm fuzzy mass that was in his arms. “Oh.” He smiled and squeezed his baby brother. “Good morning Panpan!” Panda squirmed and his whole face felt like it was on fire. “Y-you were hibernation-ated-ating! N-no power! I just, I was just... um.” An object resting between his arms and chest distracted him from his incoherent fumbling. It was his drawing pad. “Oof!” Grizz hoisted his brother onto his shoulder and started for the door. “M mm, something smells good out there.”

Ice had no intentions of disappointing the freshly hibernated bear. A feast of bacon, eggs, steak, sausage  and every fixing a hungry bear could desire spanned multiple plates that covered almost half of the kitchen table. Grizzly's eyes were transfixed. He quickly set Panda down and was already shoving a fistful of bacon in his mouth while his newly freed arm pulled out his chair. Panda's embarrassment was pushed aside when he spotted a stack of syrup drenched strawberry pancakes with a generous topping of whipped heavy cream waiting for him on the other end of the table. His mouth watered and he quickly made his way over to his seat.

Momentarily satisfied after a few bites, Panda looked across at his brother who had already managed to inhale a third of his breakfast buffet. He was reminded of the pad that he was still clutching with his paw under the table. “Oh, right!” He got up and went over to his brother's side. “So our bro made this crazy thing in the yard but I didn't have my phone so-” He looked down at his drawing for the first time in the full light of day. It didn't look quite how he remembered it from late last night with only a dim flickering candle to see with. “You drew something?” Grizz grabbed the pad out of the others grasp before he could react. Panda mumbled quietly, “Yeah um, in the yard... its not that great”

“Oh hey you drew us! I don't think you ever drew us before? And our little bro made that huge snow thing in the back, huh?” Ice went to the other side and looked over Grizzly's left shoulder. “Ice Bear fought until the end.” Grizz sported a toothy grin and continued. “Look, we're all smiling! Mines the biggest too. Dude, you made me look totally rad! Panda still felt embarrassed but he let himself smile. “Thanks, I guess.” Grizz grabbed the other bear's side and squeezed him. “We could hang this up somewhere.” He turned his head and looked up into Panda's eyes with a caring smile. “I really like it, Panpan.” He let Panda take the drawing back. “Yeah, um...maybe. I'll put it away for now.” Grizz turned to watch his little brother leave the kitchen and yelled after him. “Okay, bro!” He happily went back to devouring his feast.

Panda went back into Grizzly's room to collect his things. He wouldn't be hanging the drawing up. It was too messy and you couldn't really tell what was in the background. He waddled through the opened door to his room and dropped everything in his arms onto the bed, picked out the album and opened it to the last occupied page. He carefully tore his drawing from the art pad, placed it on top of the page and looked at it one more time. He looked at his rendition of Grizz, but in his mind he saw the look that Grizz had given him a minute ago. He closed the album and brought it back to it's spot on his bookcase.  Panda rubbed some moisture out of his eyes and started back for the kitchen to finish his breakfast.