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[align=justify][color=white][size=8][font=verdana]Lauren's breath condensed rapidly in the frigid Arctic air, forming small clouds that floated up to join the feathery pillar of black smoke drifting up from what remained of his plane. He paced out a circle around the wreck, rubbing his gloved hands together and cursing loudly. The facts that he knew were not good; he was stranded, if he remembered the GPS system's last readout correctly, two hundred and fifteen kilometres north of the treeline, and at least two hundred kilometres southeast of Tuktoyaktuk. He had flown from Yellowknife to Tuk and Tuk to Yellowknife dozens of times- bringing goods, bringing people, bringing (slightly exaggerated) stories of adventure. He'd flown other routes dozens of times as well- Inuvik, Sachs Harbour, Ulukhaktok, even all the way to Iqaluit every now and then- he was, in short, one of the most experienced pilots in the North.
And what had brought ace flyer Lauren Damian Kedzierski down to Earth? Who knows? One second he was in the sky, making good time, and the next his plane had started to shake and the readouts had all gone bonkers and down he went. It hadn't been like anything else he'd ever seen in all his years of flying, but that didn't really matter now. What mattered was that now he was alone, in one of the most hostile environments known to man: the Arctic in winter.
He kicked at the snow in front of him petulantly and stopped to look at his burning plane. It was a small, utilitarian craft, easily doubling as a flying taxi or a flying cargo van; or it had been. Now it was pretty well ruined, laying on its side with its nose crumpled in the snow, one wing folded almost in half, flames licking from what had once been the main prop. He'd scrambled out as soon as he'd realized that he could (the realization that he'd been all but unharmed in the crash had been a shocking one), expecting an explosion, but the fire seemed content to burn steadily in the engine. It would run out of fuel soon enough, and then he could clear the smoke from the inside of the plane and get comfy.
He knew the routine. If he'd been carrying a scheduled load of goods and food, there would be searchers sent out for him as soon as he failed to arrive in Tuktoyaktuk tomorrow morning. But he hadn't been carrying a scheduled load; he'd been flying the empty plane to Tuk, knowing he could pick up some passengers there. It might be days before anyone realized he was missing, and even when they did, it was a very big tundra and he was a very small person.
"Fuck," he growled, stamping his feet in the powder. It had to be at least thirty below zero; that was the sort of cold that bit through the thickest of layers, and his down-filled, fur-lined, insulated parka was struggling to keep it at bay. His toes were already freezing in his boots. To the west, the sun was starting to set; his digital watch read 2:05 pm.
The smoke had cleared enough; Lauren didn't want to stand out here any longer, acutely aware of being the only living thing in a landscape of featureless white stretching for as far as the eye could see. He crawled back into the plane, minding the broken glass, and wrenched the door shut- the bent metal gave a loud shriek of protest. Knowing it was only going to get colder, he fumbled the spare jacket out from under the seat and pulled it on over his parka. This amount of warmth was just about adequate for his torso; he spread out the woolen Hudson's Bay blanket he kept for night flying and wrapped it around his legs, then wrapped his scarf three times around his face until only his eyes were visible. There. No need to leave the plane again until he was found. As the sun slowly fell behind the horizon, he fiddled with the radio, trying to raise a signal. It fizzed and popped pointlessly, and soon it was too dark to see what he was doing anymore and the rapidly dropping temperature forced him to stick his hands in his pockets. He leaned back in the seat and tried to clear his mind.
His glowing watch read 5:00 pm when he suddenly sat bolt upright, heart pounding. Had that been the soft crunch of a footfall, in the pitch blackness just outside his cracked window? Yes. There it was again.
He had to be imagining things. The only way he could be farther from other humans would be if he was in the middle of the ocean. He shuffled one hand out from under the blanket and reached for the hunting knife under the seat.
"Is... is someone there?" he whispered into the darkness.
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Okay, here's the plot: my character Lauren, normally an excellent pilot, has somehow managed to crash his plane in the far North. What happened? Well, this area of frozen wilderness is, in fact, haunted. Irritable snow spirits, implacable ice wraiths, vitriolic wind demons; if it's ancient, scary and powerful, it's probably got some influence here- and this time, one of them took offense to his presence and sent him crashing down to earth. His chances of surviving the night are pretty much zero- or would be, except for the fact that your character happens along.
Your character is a ghost. He or she (I don't mind which) died in a plane crash similar to Lauren's many decades ago and is now tied to the area, wandering and trying to avoid being noticed by something big and scary. So far, they've done all right. When they see Lauren's plane and realize that the person inside is still alive, they realize that he will suffer the same fate as they did unless they help. As a ghost, they have certain powers that have allowed them to escape the notice of the elemental beings, and now those powers will be put to the test.
So basically, this will be a supernatural survival horror romance. Yes, a romance! Your character hasn't seen another human being, let alone a living one, in years- they will definitely get very attached to Lauren ;] And yes, a horror as well- I want to make these elemental beings very big, very ancient and very scary. Please be advanced if you'd like to join; as long as you're able to match my posts in terms of length and write a character who isn't a one-dimensional stereotype, I'm good.
P.S. My faceclaim for Lauren is Mikkel Boe Følsgaard