“Want to go fishing?” asked Asda smiling. He was off to one of his crazy fishing trips and as always Ste would have to come along to make sure he didn’t do something to stupid or wonder off too far away from the igloo. As unusual as it was, Ste rather liked these trips. It was the only worthwhile thing to do for him in Salvbard, go out and catch some fish; better than anything he had planned anyway.
“Sure, nothing better to do in this boring place” said Ste. “Let me just go tell dad were heading out, I’ll be back in a sec.” We set off into the winter wonderland before us, a snow storm was approaching from the east, but we were heading in the other direction.
“It’s my lucky day today, I can feel it. I’m going to catch a hundred fish” said Asda in a joyful mood. Ste didn’t hear, he was too busy listening to Lordi on his iPod, swinging around his right flipper, mimicking the drum beat. “Hey, you listening to me?” said Asda, “Ste” he shouted, nudging Ste with his beak.
“What?” replied Ste looking confused.
“Never mind, I was just saying that I’m going to catch a hundred fish today” Asda said delightfully.
“Yeh, whatever” replied Ste not interested. Asda loved to show off his fishing, bragged about it all day and night. It drove Ste mad. Then almost suddenly Ste stopped looking around, Asda didn’t notice and kept going for a bit, still talking of how great he was at fishing.
Asda looked back and saw Ste standing still, “Ste, Quit messing about, we’ve got to keep moving if we want to make it there and back by nightfall.” he shouted back. Ste wasn’t listening; he was still standing looking off into the white ice desert. “What are you looking at, what’s up?” he asked.
“Humans have been here, you smell that?” asked Ste, “its fumes from one of their trucks. And those tyre marks up there.” He said pointing at an ice road heading towards the mountains.
“Your acting crazy, humans come down that road all the time. It’s probably one of those three hugging activists or researchers, we have to keep going” said Asda getting impatient now. “Come on, we’ve got to get moving.”
“Umm ok, you’re probably right, it’s nothing” Ste said warily. “Let’s carry on then.” The two penguins carried on, it was almost getting dark now. The sky was getting darker by the moment and the atmosphere colder too.
“I see it.” shouted Asda, pointing towards a small hole in the ground. He tucked his iPod away under his fur, neatly wrapping the headphone wires around it.
“Right, I’ll go down first and see if there’s any fish and then come back up for you.” ordered Asda, diving right in. Ste took out his iPod and put some Lordi back on, “Hardrock Hallelujah”, his favourite song. Not noticing the truck parked up behind a pile of snow near him, Asda was still down under the ice, “What’s taking him so long.” wondered Ste, still oblivious to his surroundings. Then suddenly, the sound of a rifle rippled through the vast empty land of ice.
Asda emerged some time later, “Right Ste, there’s plenty of fish down there. Let’s go.” said Asda joyfully as he got out. He looked around for Ste, there was nothing but white for miles around. “Ste?” he said worryingly. Right below him Asda noticed some red thick substance, poked it with his flipper. “Looks like blood” he thought. “What had happened? Where was Ste?” now almost scared. He walked over to a patch of snow where he could hear something, “Hard Rock Hallelujah, Hard Rock Hallelujah”. On the ice was Stes iPod - he never went anywhere without it.
