CRACK! The ice beneath my feet slowly began to break apart, making one long broken line before spreading off into many little fractures in every direction. My eyes were frozen and locked staring at the ice, refusing to move along with the rest of my body as the intense frozen fear began swelling up inside of me. I was too scared to think-too scared to move-and oblivious to everything else around me. 1,000 feet out and about to die.

Barely an hour before, we were fine. My friend Kyle and I were just chilling in his basement, listening to My Chemical Romance and watching Family Guy. We felt an inkling of hunger, and we decided to set off to the nearest fast food restaurant with $20. We saw the lake before us, and instead of just walking around it, we decided to take the quicker and more exciting route of walking straight through the frozen wasteland.

It went well at first, a few slippery moments here and there. We made it about half way through the lake before the ice seemed to become thinner and more dangerous, however we ignored the signs of tiny cracks in the thin ice and continued onward.

"Are you still sure about this?" I asked Kyle.

"Yeah, come on, half-way there," he replied back. That's when I heard the foreshadowing Crack!

After what felt like a lifetime, but in truth, it was just a few seconds, my sense started to return to me, and slowly I lifted my left foot and placed it in front of my other foot, trying to move out of this spot, but the moment my foot touched the ice, a loud crack screeched against my ears and then it was completely silent except my heavy breathing. Then, with a shattering of ice, I fell through, followed by a loud splash.

My hands were raised above my head, my lungs filled with freezing water, and I began sinking like a broken ship. I was too cold to move, and I felt as if I was being pulled under the water. Struggling, I tried to swim to the surface but I only sunk deeper. Death's scythe seemed to have rapped itself around me; I wasn't ready to die, not at 12, not ready to give up my life yet. Then, a strong hand wrapped a firm grip around mine and pulled me up, straight out of the water.

Life slowly returned to me as I coughed out the icy water and took in sweet tasting air. But, I very well knew I couldn't rest just yet, the ice was still breaking. With no other options, my friend and I began to sprint at full speed. Every step was followed with a crack, and with every crack was followed by either a splash of ice falling into water or shattering ice.

Life at the moment seemed surreal, like something from an action movie or an old Super Mario video game! We were jumping from ice block to ice block, barely making it off each on as they kept breaking apart, one by one. I jumped over a block of thick ice, Kyle jumped over an open space between two ice block. We kept on running, moving as fast as we could to avoid the breaking ice falling just a few feet behind us.

Nearly finished, land was there. We both jumped onto a large ice block at the same time. It sloped down, starting to fall into water, pushing up a 7 foot tall block of ice, straight out of the water. There was a wall between us and freedom. With nothing left, we bull rushed towards it. In a football tackle position we slammed straight into the ice, shattering it into millions of shards. The ice shards were spreading through the air either cutting our winter clothes or our bare flesh. Through the ice we landed, face first, into a large pile of snow. Safe at last.

"Let's…never do that again dude…" Kyle told me.

"Yeah…it was fun though…" I replied with a smirk, "and at least we're alive."

"Yeah…" Kyle said, followed with a moment of silence as we pondered what just went on during the lake, running for our lives.

"Did you feel the rush from the adrenaline?" I asked him, curious if he was feeling the same excitement and fear as me.

"Yeah dude, we should do something like this again!" He laughed, "but not as dangerous…or stupid" We both laughed and then rested on the snow, before quickly getting up and escaping the area when we heard the police come near the lake, the warning sirens in the distance, getting louder and louder as they closed in.

We silently, but quickly moved as fast as we could to get to a nearby hill that provided a good hiding spot till the police started walking around. Hearing the crunch of snow beneath heavy boots, we ran towards a near bridge, crossed under it, and continued to run as fast as we could, away from the Frozen Hell.