The wind whistles in my ears, shaking the trees surrounding me with a violent intensity as I run home. Home. I thought I would be there by now.

A shiver jerks my body and I pull my arms firmly around my chest. The toe of my boot jams into something, and I’m lying face-first in the knee-high snow. The wind fully knocked out of me, I pull myself to a kneeling position, coughing and sputtering all the while.

This was not the plan. I meant to be home hours ago. Back before it started snowing. Back before the sun started sinking behind the trees, the blackness of night hanging in the air like a well-meant threat.

I didn’t say no though. I can never say no.

Especially when it comes to him.

He’s always had me, but I don’t think he’s ever fully known.

I’ll never let it go because I’ll never learn.

Wolves howl in the distance, the only motivation I need to scramble to my feet. It’s difficult keeping my legs from embarking in an all-out sprint, but I’ve already fallen once. Slow and steady is the only way to go unless I want to dance with the possibility of a broken ankle.

“Almost there,” I whisper to myself. At least, I think I’m almost there. I thought I was almost there fifteen minutes ago, but I have yet to stumble into the clearing cradling our cabin.

I push down the gnawing feeling growing in my stomach. Lunch was hours and hours ago, but it’s not hunger I’m feeling. No, it’s the empty, fluttery, biting inner storm of fear. Fear of being hopelessly lost.

The wind picks up, funneling through the trees and striking me hard on my back. I crouch down to escape being knocked over. What a disaster. If only I had-

If only.

Two of the most bitter-tasting words in the whole world.

I place my hands on the ground in front of me. The snow is less deep here. My fingers effortlessly burrow through the snow until they reach the frozen-solid ground. It’s smooth. Too smooth. Scraping away at the snow, I find a thick layer of ice. This isn’t the ground at all, but frozen water. Addie’s Pond. I must have accidentally stumbled off course when I fell.

The wind swirling around me is louder than any thunder I’ve ever heard, and I burrow my face into my sleeve. Instead of bringing warmth and feeling back into my skin, my wool sleeves are coated with ice and snow, further numbing my face.

“At least I know where I am,” I say through chattering teeth with every ounce of confidence I do not possess. “At least I’m not lost.”

I don’t feel comforted.

“A fire will be waiting for me at home,” I mumble through trembling lips while standing and dusting as much snow off my mittened hands as possible.

I start back the way I came and then freeze. My eyes squint, trying to right the illusion in front of me. My footprints hang around like a temporary souvenir of the evening’s journey, but they’re not alone. Another set of footprints lace my own, weaving around in drunken circles, lines, and skids. 

Another heavy gust of wind catapults at me, carrying with it a sharp cry for help. I spin around and around, head jerking this way and that. I must be mad. “Help!” comes the nearly wind-drowned cry again, and I’m certain it’s not my imagination.

For a split-second, I’m torn. Home is so close. More than anything, I want to be home. I can’t leave someone out here though. I know I can’t before I even know I can’t. My mind was made up years before this moment. I set out farther across the pond towards the noise.

“Help! Help me! Somebody help me!”

As the voice becomes more and more frantic, I start to run. I trip over my own feet, slipping and sliding and planting into the snow once more. The calling turns into a scream, and I crawl and crawl after it until I’m able to regain my bearings well enough to pull myself back up.

The screams echo through the frosty evening air, bouncing off the icy trees, so it sounds like a choir of anguish in every direction. I don’t know which way I’m supposed to be going anymore, but I must keep trying.

All at once, the screams stop.

My pace slows until I’m standing still, listening intently for any noise that might give me a hint as to where the troubled soul is now. Besides the wind, there’s no sound to be heard.

I hold my breath and cock my head. There. A faint crunching sound. It’s coming from-

Something wraps around my leg, clawing at my skin through layers of clothes, violently snatching me to the ground. It all happens so fast; my hands don’t have a chance to break the fall. My nose tingles and throbs from the impact. I try to yank my leg away, but it’s stuck. I blindly reach behind me to pry it off and gasp when my hand comes in contact with another human hand.

Before I have time to react, my assailant is  pouncing on my back and clamping a hand over my mouth. I try to scream despite it, but my throat is hoarse and raw. This can’t be happening to me. Things like this don’t happen to me.

I feel myself being dragged farther across the pond, but my weak, shaky body can’t even try to fight or run. It doesn’t even matter what my intended destiny is; my own heart is going to kill itself with the way its beating. Death could be in the air as surely as the clouds from my breath.

What do you do when your nightmares become your reality?

How do you prepare for something so utterly unpreparable?

The dragging at last stops, and for a split-second I’m free. I leap to my feet, but a blow to the left side of my face knocks me down again. A pair of hands rolls me over twice, summoning a bout of nausea and lightheadedness.

And then, for a flash of a second, I see a familiar face looking down at me; a grin as eerie as Earth’s darkest day.

A pair of painfully, yet wonderfully, familiar hands are rolling me again, and then that feeling of when you’re walking down a flight of stairs and suddenly miss one, as I slip off a ledge. Icy water engulfs me, and I sink farther and farther down. Frantically, I try to swim back to the surface, but my arms are as numb and limp as two pieces of rope. They won’t cooperate. I don’t know what to do.

What do I do?

What do I do?

What do I do?

My heart is surely about to break out of my chest from the rhythmic intensity. It’s dark down here; I can just make out the shapes of my arms trying their hardest to propel me to the surface. Colors don’t exist in this world, but I can feel my skin turning a chilly blue. It must be.

It feels like years before my almost-useless arms come in contact with the solid block of ice over the pond. Even in their flaccid state, they didn’t let me down, and for that I am grateful.

I press my mouth up against the ice as hard as I can and gently splash the water around it. I’m able to get a couple of good breaths in the tiny created gap before water splashes up against the ice and into my mouth. The thick, gritty taste of nearly frozen turbid water numbs my tongue. My irritated throat demands a series of coughs, inviting unwanted water into my body.

I try to get more air, but I can’t get enough. The water is relentless. I beat on the ice over my head as hard as I can, but it’s too thick. I don’t even feel it cracking. The hole has to be here somewhere. I drag my hand against the ice, swimming as hard as I can, searching with my eyes for any sign of light.

I don’t know if you can cry underwater, but I am. I can’t find the hole. I’ll never find the hole.

The sounds of the underwater nothingness is deafening. A colony of bees has traded wings for fins. I’m certain my ears are becoming eternally useless from the noise.

I’m coughing again. I’ve never drowned before.

I’ve never drowned before.

This is what it’s like? This is what it is?

What a lonely way to go. I never wanted to be alone. Not really.

I shouldn’t have stayed.

What if Penny has a nightmare tonight? Who will hold her hand? Lay with her until she falls back asleep?

I can’t do it. My body bursts and the dam breaks open wide. A wet, sloppy hand smashes into my face, into my mouth, my nose. Breathing out or breathing in, I can’t tell anymore. Am I breathing at all?

My insides are fire; my body is the icy forest.

I can’t stop coughing, or trying to cough. The water keeps pouring in, and I feel every drop.

My arms and legs belong to someone else now as I sink into the darkness. The pond bottom is a magnet, the mud quicksand. My feet will touch it soon. They will.

I feel it deep in my body. The black water is my blood, my brain, my lungs.

I should have stayed home.

Lydia is coming over tomorrow afternoon.

If only…

I only wanted to be there. I only wanted to be known by you.

I was only ever thinking about you, you know.

I only wanted-

—- A short story written a couple of years ago within a thirty-minute time slot with the writing prompt ‘Frozen;’ newly edited a tiny bit to echo recent experiences and revelations. (Still in disbelief that Disney didn’t contact me to write on what I’m sure is their interpretation of this very story.)

 

*******

 

I’ve been drowning in all my dreams lately, tasting the water as surely as the kombucha I’ve been drinking every morning, finally waking after it’s all over to a dull ache in my lungs. If dying in your dreams is bad luck, then I have the worst. They’re not nightmares though. I don’t wake up scared, just pensive. Filled with an inner tiredness that sleep won’t cure.

Most of my first drafts are dark, moody things with sketchy endings. It’s where I gravitate; where I’m most comfortable and fulfilled.

In my own life, I’ve developed a personal judgment test on the things I’m willing to consume from others; be it movies, shows, books, whatever. And that test revolves around the concept of redeemable qualities. Basically, an honest self-evaluation of why I’m consuming any given thing, particularly if it has more adult content than I’d prefer. If the consumable thing has legitimate elements that I’m getting something positive from, then I’ll be more lenient. If I can’t find enough of a redeemable quality to it, then I’ll waste my time elsewhere. It’s a system I’m comfortable following.

Because of this though, it has pulled my own writing into question. It’s something I’ve thought heavily about over the past few years. I find redeemable qualities in it, but then, I know the intent behind it, the inspirations. The characters are dear friends of mine, and I live in their worlds. I don’t know if there are truly redeemable qualities to them, or if it’s all too morbid, grotesque, and/or disturbing. The kind of thing you read and then wish you had never wasted your time on. You get to the ending, scowl, and say, “What the heck was that?”

I’ve mostly been trying to change the endings on most things. Making the hiding metaphors and lessons a little less hidden. I look for the good in everything, the ‘thing to take with you moving forward’ messages in all I write, not because I need them, but I worry others do. Maybe I’ve been told to “Just think happy thoughts” one too many times to be under the impression that other people are as engrossed with the grotesque as I am.

It’s not creepy, horrible, and scary from this side of the road, but rather elegant and beautiful when you get comfortable around it. It’s not malicious or devilish, but just a part of life. Even the most beautiful flowers wilt and die, and it’s just as much of a part of the story as the time the beautiful bride walked down the aisle carrying them.

I’m still insecure about it though. Really insecure. Is there a big enough place in literature for violent worlds without happily ever afters? Is the nitty-gritty a positive? Are there still redeemable qualities woven into unhappy narratives?

I don’t know.

I don’t know.