The mountain had no mercy that year.
Storms had torn through the Himalayas early, icing over the ridges that usually stayed climbable until late spring. The air was sharp, thin enough that every breath carried a whisper of warning.
Daniel stood at the base camp, boots buried in a drift of snow, staring up at the white monolith that blotted out half the sky. He had dreamed of this climb for years, tracing routes on maps, watching videos of others who had reached the summit. But now, standing in the shadow of the real thing, every video, every book, every late-night plan seemed like a child’s sketch compared to the vast, brutal wall in front of him.
He pulled his gloves tighter. His hands were already sweating.
“You’re staring at it like it’s a monster,” said Mei, his climbing partner, stepping up beside him. Her parka hood framed her face, eyes narrow against the cold. She carried herself with the calm of someone who had done this too many times to waste energy on fear.
Daniel laughed nervously. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s just stone and ice,” she said, as if that were comfort enough. “The real mountain’s not out there.” She tapped his temple through her glove. “It’s in here.”
Daniel frowned. “In my head?”
“Exactly. And if you don’t climb this one first, you’ll never touch the summit.”
He wanted to protest, but his breath caught in his throat. Because she was right—he could already feel the mountain inside him. The one made of panic, images of slips and falls, of ropes snapping and bodies vanishing into crevasses. It loomed larger than the snow peak above them.
Mei studied him, then said, “Tonight, before we start the ascent, I want you to practice. Not knots. Not ice axe swings. Practice seeing.”
“Seeing what?”
“Yourself,” Mei said simply. “Moving through the climb. Not falling. Not freezing. Not panicking. See each step, see the rope holding, see your body obeying. Visualization is rehearsal. If you rehearse fear, you’ll perform fear. If you rehearse success, your body will follow.”
Daniel looked back up at the mountain. The wind shifted, whipping snow into his face. He shivered.
And he wondered if seeing himself succeed could ever outweigh the certainty of seeing himself fail.
The tent walls shuddered all night in the wind. Sleep came in fragments, like glass splinters—too sharp to rest on, too scattered to gather. Daniel lay on his side, staring at the faint glow of his headlamp, breath clouding in the thin air.
His mind betrayed him with endless rehearsals of failure. He saw himself dangling from frayed rope, saw his grip fail on the ice axe, saw Mei shouting his name into the abyss as snow swallowed him whole. Every vision felt too vivid, too possible.
A hand tapped the side of his boot. Mei’s voice, low and steady:
“You’re awake.”
“So are you,” Daniel whispered back.
She unzipped the tent flap just enough for the moonlight to spill in. Her eyes gleamed like black stones. “Good. Time to train.”
Daniel sat up, confused. “Train? In the middle of the night?”
“Exactly when fear is loudest,” Mei said. She handed him a flask of tea, steam rising like a fragile signal in the cold. “Close your eyes.”
Daniel obeyed reluctantly.
“Now,” she said, “picture the ice wall tomorrow. Not the fall—don’t let that movie play. Erase it. Instead, draw the scene you want: your axe sinking clean into the wall. Your boot finding a groove. The rope steady between us.”
He tried, but the images slipped like water through fingers. His chest tightened. “I can’t. The other pictures keep coming.”
Mei didn’t scold. She sat closer, her voice anchoring him.
“Then change them. If you see yourself falling, rewind. Imagine the grip holding. If you see the rope snapping, picture it whole. Every time your mind shows you failure, redraw it as success. Over and over. Until the new version is stronger.”
Daniel swallowed. His palms sweated despite the cold. But he tried.
He saw himself swing the axe—at first, the vision cracked and broke, showing him plummeting again. He forced it back. The axe bit. His boot planted. He forced the rope to stay taut, to hum with strength.
Minutes passed. Each image fought him, tried to betray him, but slowly, stubbornly, the pictures shifted. The wall of panic began to fracture.
When he opened his eyes, Mei was watching.
“Better rehearsal?” she asked.
Daniel nodded, surprised at the calm that had crept into his chest. “Better.”
“Good,” Mei said. She zipped the tent shut again, curling into her sleeping bag. “Remember this tomorrow. We climb the mountain twice—first in here.” She tapped her temple. “Then out there.”
Daniel lay back down, the wind battering the tent. For the first time that night, he didn’t see himself falling. He saw himself climbing.
The storm arrived sooner than expected.
By midday, the world was gone—erased in white. Sky and snow merged into one blinding void. The ridge ahead was invisible, and every gust of wind shoved Daniel sideways as though the mountain itself wanted him gone.
He froze. His boots sank into powder, his axe quivered in his hand. Panic crashed in like an avalanche—he saw it all again, not with eyes but with mind’s cruel clarity: his body tumbling into nothing, the rope swinging free, Mei’s silhouette shrinking above as he disappeared.
“Daniel!” Mei’s voice was a thread in the storm. “Don’t look at the white. Shut your eyes!”
He obeyed, squeezing them shut. Darkness came, but the panic stayed, scraping at his ribs.
“Picture it,” Mei commanded. “The ridge. The steps. You’ve already drawn it—use it. What do you see?”
Daniel’s breaths came ragged, but he forced the rehearsal back into focus. He imagined the ridge as it had been in yesterday’s brief clarity: narrow, yes, but solid. A line of ice screws like breadcrumbs. His axe biting in, the rope pulling steady, his boots finding rhythm.
The vision wavered, nearly broke apart. His pulse thundered, drowning it.
“Again!” Mei’s voice cut through, steel in its calm. “See yourself standing tall. Rope tight. Axe biting. Step. Step. Step.”
And slowly, like a film reel dragged from fire, the picture returned. He could see it. Not the storm, but the path. Not his fall, but his climb.
Daniel opened his eyes into the blinding white. The ridge was invisible—but inside, it was clear. He moved. Axe, step, breathe. Axe, step, breathe.
The rope between him and Mei hummed with tension, then steadied. The whiteout howled around them, furious that its illusions had been replaced.
By the time they reached the next anchor point, Daniel’s whole body shook. But he was still upright. Still breathing. Still climbing.
Mei clapped his shoulder. “You didn’t follow the storm. You followed the vision.”
Daniel leaned against the ice, gasping. “I thought it was impossible.”
Mei’s smile was small, fierce. “That’s why we rehearse the possible.”
Hours stretched into something longer than time. The climb became mechanical—axe, boot, breathe, repeat. Every muscle screamed, every nerve threatened mutiny. Yet Daniel found himself returning again and again to the images Mei had taught him to hold.
Each time fear clawed in with pictures of failure, he rewound. He redrew. He rehearsed success until it overpowered collapse. The mountain inside him was louder than the mountain outside, but it was also one he could shape.
At last, the storm’s grip loosened. The sky broke open just enough for the summit to appear above them—sharp, crystalline, impossibly near. The sight should have given Daniel strength, but instead his knees buckled. The final stretch looked vertical, merciless.
“I can’t,” he croaked, sagging against the ice. “Not anymore.”
Mei crouched, her eyes level with his. “Then don’t climb it yet. Picture it first.”
“I’m too tired to imagine.”
“That’s when it matters most.” Her voice softened. “Close your eyes.”
Daniel obeyed, half from faith, half from desperation.
“See it,” Mei whispered. “Not the fall. Not the slip. See the axe biting true. See your boot holding. See me ahead of you, rope steady. Now—see yourself at the top. Standing. Breathing. Alive.”
At first the image was faint, smudged by exhaustion. But as he held it, it sharpened: the crunch of ice underfoot, the ache in his arms that meant he’d made it, the horizon exploding open in every direction. He saw himself raise his arms, not broken but whole.
A warmth bloomed in his chest, strange against the cold. His body was still weak, but the picture carried him.
When he opened his eyes, the summit no longer looked like death. It looked like the scene he had already rehearsed.
“Again?” Mei asked.
Daniel swallowed hard, nodded, and lifted his axe.
The mountain groaned under them, the wind clawed, but he followed the vision step by step, as though he were simply acting out a story already written.
The last stretch felt like walking through glass. Every movement cut, every breath burned, every second stretched into an eternity. Yet the vision pulled Daniel forward, one rehearsed motion at a time: axe in, boot firm, rope steady.
And then—suddenly—there was no more mountain above him. Only sky.
He stumbled onto the narrow ridge of the summit, knees buckling, and dropped to the snow. The world erupted around him—peaks like teeth tearing into the horizon, clouds rolling beneath as if the earth itself had been turned upside down.
Mei joined him, breath misting in the icy air. She grinned, her eyes shining despite exhaustion. “What do you see?”
Daniel’s chest heaved. He wanted to say the mountain, the sky, the endless blue. But that wasn’t the truth.
“I see… what I already saw last night,” he whispered. “The same picture. Only now it’s real.”
Mei nodded, kneeling beside him. “That’s the point. You climbed it twice. First in your mind, then in your body.”
Daniel pressed his gloved hand into the snow, grounding himself in the moment. The mountain hadn’t spared him. It hadn’t grown easier or smaller. But inside, he had drawn a horizon he could reach, and then he had walked into it.
As they began their descent, Daniel turned for one last look. The summit stood behind him like a crown of ice, indifferent, eternal. But inside, the rehearsal remained—an unshakable proof that he could redraw fear into possibility.
The mountain outside would always be there.
But the horizon within—
that was his to carry forever.