The Sound of Silence(20)

He rose up, dissolved into the clouds. The road became steep and rugged and snow gathered in heaps, which almost made him crawl. Amid the clouds, roaring, rolling, and weaving a compact net around him, he heard the hollow blow that passed through his cheek.
He kept on climbing in near unconsciousness. Every step he moved forward was accompanied with every inch the chill invaded his marrow, that dragged his memories out of his mind. He began to forget, about everything in the Land, about the crowd at Pop Street, balloons above Electronic Square, the oak nearby Classics Villa, about the curious boy, about even himself, the shepherd.

Level after a level, bit by bit, was he still climbing mechanically, to the height that even the clouds could not stand, that thus faded away by little and little. To him, time only belonged to the world far below his feet, while everything was eternal here, with eternal wind blowing that never ends, with eternal mountain stretching that never ends.
Finally.
He mounted onto the summit.
There was nothing for him to climb, only boundless platform. Snowflakes whirled through his shoulder, and the ground was gray and white.