Alone in the Snow

A chilling wind that the toughest men fear; the stinging of a million tiny, icy needles that relentlessly strikes the unfortunate who have found themselves trapped in this frozen emptiness. Directly in the center of this disastrous and unforgiving wasteland is a child, a young boy only 7 years of age.

Nobody had believed it at the time, but the horrors of nuclear winter had finally become reality. In its most initial stages, it had been tame to the point where the ones who could not find refuge in a bunker had not frozen up on the spot, but it was devastating nonetheless. Down below, mothers scream for their children; they had clawed and fought to push through the enforcers to be locked above with their children, but to no avail. Many had already found a way to commit suicide, convinced that their own flesh and blood had been left to die above. Amidst the chaos and tears, one mother sits in the cold stone corner, clasping her hands tightly to her soul.

The situation above is no better, but it is a lot quieter. Many already lie in the icy snow, their eyelids too frozen to even move before their last moments ended. Faint coughing and crying can be heard from every direction, but the stinging shards prevent any visuals on the doomed. It is in this chilling hell that the 7 year old boy lies. He has no specialties to him, and has nothing but his strong resolve to reunite with his mother to keep him alive and warm. He has no idea where he is, and as far as he can tell, there is no place he can reach before his untimely demise.

There's no giving up for him though. One of his arms has already lost all feeling and had gone numb, so he grasps it tightly with his other and begins to drag himself forward. Using his legs for momentum, all he can do is push his half dead body through the barren climate. Discouragement and helplessness quickly enters his heart after one of his legs loses purpose as well; how long would it be before the rest of his limbs were dead?

An icy shard strikes the boy's face and his mother below feels a fragment of it as well. She quickly snaps her hand to the pain and realizes that tiny drops of blood were trickling down her face. One would be worrying about what had happened, but she was smiling- she had her connection finally made.

Both arms are useless to the boy now. Using the last of his energy, he turns himself on his back to spend his final moments on the Earth that man had destroyed. He felt like crying, but it was too cold, too frozen. He proceeded to close his eyes when a faint light entered his vision; a glimmer of hope. It could not speak nor move, but in that instant the boy once again felt warmth. His limbs moved, and a surge of strength entered his living corpse. With the needles pelting at his skin, the boy slowly brought himself to stand and limp towards the light.

The temperature was a chilling 78 degrees below zero Celsius. No human should have been able to move by this point, let alone walk, but this boy had life. He was dragging his body that could no longer be described as "living". A mother's love is a powerful thing indeed, and from it, a supernatural phenomenon was occurring. This boy was the last living soul on the surface of the planet for an entire two hours, and the undying relationship behind the parent and her child had pushed him to walk the entire time.

The time is now 2:32 AM- 2 hours and 32 minutes since the harsh winter had hit. Even with the warming light, the boy's vision is fading; he's in his true final moments. Upon one strong push of his body over a large hill, his stiff body mercilessly tumbles down it to the very bottom. At the foot of a nearby bunker a single enforcer takes notice of the persistent child and runs into the sleeting blizzard. As quickly as his freezing body will allow, the enforcer tightly grasps the child in his arms and pushes back into the bunker itself.

Down below, it's undoubtedly the mother herself that jumps at the enforcer's current possession. She softly speaks to her son who had overcome the impossible, but there is no answer, no response. The only thing on his face was a warming smile, and in his hand, a tiny light.

Two soliders walking guard duty, one motions to the other and he offers a cigarrette, they begin to talk and their mood darkens as the one speaks of them!
"I heard they don't really exsit, that they're ghosts who walk among us, past special forces guys who died in battle yet they're souls can't rest!"
Naw man, I heard they're so good at what they do that they leave no trace of ever being there!" The two soliders continued to talk until there sergeant arrived and bellowed;"Let me set you boys straight, these ghosts are real and pray like Hell you never meet one, cause the Reaper himself goes with them!" they shudder and continue onward...
Miles away a terrorist cel busies itself with making bombs, and planning strikes, there leader is uncharalistically nervous as he was known for being flamboyant and eager in battle. His second asked what was the matter? He looked and said; We only just were activated, the former cel which had acted for so long here was suddenly destroyed, and yet no trace of their killers was found like spirits had come in the night and took them!" he brushed past the man and walked outside into the night. The moon was full and he stayed under the awning, peering into the desert...the he saw a flicker! Grabbing his binoculars he stared and froze in fear! There a few hundred yard away he saw an apparition, dressed in rags blowing in the breeze, it's eyes glowed red and the terrorist leader saw Death approach him grinning maniacally then he saw nothing, as dud his entire cel!
When the soliders found the headquarers they where awed by the sight, bodies were everywhere! And the only thing that stood out was a scraweled "6" on the far wall.. Only a few mused to it's meaning, but nothing certain was found out!

The Ballad of Silhouette

He was born in a dirty bathtub
Under a flickering light,
In a cold Chicago tenement
One cold December night.

His mother sold her body;
She'd nothing else to sell.
They gutted the tenement later
To build a new hotel;

They gutted his neighborhood later,
The streets where he would play.
His mother gave him all of this,
And then gave him away.

In school, he learned to never learn
To think he had a chance.
In prison, he learned to never lose
And never meet a glance.

And afterwards, for many years,
He lived as he had learned.
He kept to his own business,
And saved up what he earned,

Until he grew much older
And tired of fruitless pride,
And died without a family,
And little else beside.

---

A ghost is not a nightmare,
A vision, or a threat;
A ghost is just a memory
A place cannot forget.

The moment when some creature learned
The meaning of "unfair;"
The moment when a life went wrong
And faded in despair.

If ever, in Chicago,
You happen to remember:
It's Grant's Hotel, room one-six-five,
The seventh of December.

You'll hear a newborn crying
Through dead hours of the night,
As he's born in a dirty bathtub
Under a flickering light.

The Brother Leader sits on a honey yellow Ikea sofa, reading. Sometimes, especially just before dawn, he asks if his train has arrived.

The debris of a MacDonald’s dinner lies crushed at his feet. In between the wrappers, his legs shuffle against empty bullet casings, safety pins and used condoms.

Sometimes he reads till the words begin to blur and warp, twisting into a tableau of insane images on his head. When his men cut the lights just after sunset, he holds his book open so he can remember the page. He would like to read it on the train. Outside, the pop and click of gunfire echoes through the windows.

“How long more?” he asks again.

In the dark, he imagines he’s on the platform, waiting for the last train to take him away from all this chaos. He imagines the firing outside is nothing more than the patter of a thousand passengers’ feet and the occasional explosion simply the arrival of new trains.

But no, not yet. His train has yet to arrive, his men say.

He waits. He watches the window, a square open to the sky in the morning. Outside, the clouds have the colour of sewerage. Soon, his men will have to light the candle stubs. Someone will have to find more food. Someone will need to stand at by the window. To watch if the train’s coming.

The Brother Leader does not shout orders. Instead, he eases into the sofa. He closes his eyes. The whoop of rocket fire breaks the stillness of his thoughts. Dull gunfire, once sporadic, has now become a steady rhythm, like raindrops on the awning of his tent.

And then, he hears it. Clear as ever. The music of brakes against metal, the symphonic whistle of an engine, an orchestra of departure.

He gets to his feet. The Brother Leader checks robes, makes sure his golden pistol is tucked fashionably into the holster at his right ribcage. He worries about his open book. So he takes the oiled-blotted McDonald’s wrapper to mark where he’s last stopped. Page 261. He picks up his three bags. He heads towards the door.

His men stop him. There is no train, they insist.

“You cannot hear it?” he says. “The train is coming. I must not miss my train!”

One man even goes to peek out through the window to check. Something bounces off the walls, and he falls to a ground, a wet red rose blooming from his forehead.

He watches his men scramble around the room. They issue orders to everyone else, load their weapons and disappear into the various rooms. He waits. They’re wasting my time, he thinks. The cough of rifles fills his ears, but it cannot displace the inevitability of his train, sliding to a stop, brakes on full, passengers disembarking, doors opening.

The Brother Leader walks to the door. He would like to take a good first-class cabin with a bed and preferably without any idiotic companions on his long journey. But before he can open it, his men seize his arms and his luggage. Against his will, they guide him away from the door.

“My train!” he yells. “Where are you taking me?”

They say something. But it’s cancelled out by the roar of a rocket bursting through the wall. Smoke studded with embers blocks his vision. His men lead him to a car. They tell him it will take him safely, to his train.

“Yes. Thank you,” he says. “Meet me at the other station.”

The driver takes off. The Brother Leader rests his head on the leather pillow and flicks the air-conditioning vents in his direction. He closes his eyes again. He thinks of the first-class cabin waiting for him, the parquet flooring and the champagne nestled in ice. He imagines scenery scooting past, like now, his kingdom unfurling before him in a motion-picture daydream.

But wait. Instead he hears, brakes blowing and the tripping wheels on the track. He hears the electric buzz of its signals. He hears the horn, louder than ever before. He hears his runaway train, screeching out of control, getting closer and closer. Trembling, he peers out of the window. He expects to see a charging locomotive.

But no. He sees the rocket just as it hits.

END.

Power

Darkness was surrounding me. Every thing was black even myself, my mind was in a total blank and incapable of retiring the only memory that I had inside of me.
In a second my foot started moving whiteout my command. I Started to feel the cold floor invading my delicated feet with fervor.
“I-I Shouldn’t have done that”
I talked with my trembling mouth, everything was starting getting darker and darker, the impossible is always possible. With a Slow movement, and delicate like a plume I started to envisage the dark roof, And then.
I Felt in the floor, the image of that green eyes was fixed in my mind. I Start to look in my right hand, its was completely black, What was that, I started to thinking, my mind was in panic.
Echoing in front of me was the sound of feet walking thought my direction, I panicked again, I could feel just one thing:
Fear.
My body was immerse in fear, the fear that could suppress the guilty, the guilty of having blood at your hands.
“Are you tired of the Cat and Mouse game.”
The voice in front of me talked, with a tone that could conquest any human.
“Let's start the real thing right now.”
Her tone changed, it was more serious now. I don’t know why but, I just wanted to laugh like these cliche villains in comics.
“Heh”
I tried to control myself. But now with this green eyes in front of me was just impossible.
“So you agree with me?”
She smiled, with a little bit of a sarcastic sauce I may say. The floor that supported me disappeared in the cold wind. She was right I agree with her. That lovely look I could just spend days looking at her eyes, even when I’m falling like that, falling to the glory.
“What is now?”
I asked to her, even if he was nowhere to be seen.
Nobody answered.
I Stopped falling, my head was hurting.
“What was that.”
I keep questioning myself, I couldn’t remember nothing.
“Where am i?”
Again nobody answered.
I Started to look in the ground, but the dark light wouldn’t help, everything was dark, but darker then the normal dark. But something was different, even if I'm at a dark, unknown place, I wasn’t with fear, one of the most normal feelings at this situation. Could I have stepped in another level?
Then in front of me I saw a light in the middle of all this darkness, and with my right hand I started to try take it.
I was happy, happy like nobody, the ritual have been a success, not to everyone, only for me.
My hand started to glowing when it started to get closer and closer, and then the trial have come to a end, the continuous loop have been broken and I have be able to get it, fuck the blood in my hands the guilty have been overcomed again, by the power that conquered my body, now devil please take me, I’m your only and faithful servant of the one that have overcomed god.

Before we got together to form our team, we had no prior experience at all. We had no experience, no knowledge, no skills, and no tools. We didn't let that stop us, for even though we had nothing at all, we had passion. Yes, we had the passion for Ghostbusting. Well, all of us except Yar, who we had to reject when we found out that he was actually interested in making clay models of ghosts (Ghost Busting) rather than exterminating ghosts, but that's another story for another time.

We started out small. Our first base was a fireplace, which was dirty but spacious (vertically), and had a tendency to leave us soaking wet if we forgot to replace the lid when it rained. The rent was cheap (for some reason nobody wanted to live in a fireplace), but we had no jobs and no income. Things were quickly turning for the worse, until we received our first big order. It was to retrieve some treasures located deep within a haunted castle.

Though we were roaring to go, we weren't that foolish to attempt such a major undertaking without any preparation. We sought out a wise guru, who was famed for his exorcism skills, or so he told us. He gave us special eyedrops made from animal tears, which allowed us to be able to view the spiritual dimension. Then he left us with a single piece of advice, gleaned from his many years of wisdom.

To beat supernatural, you must be supernatural.

It was a very unhelpful piece of advice.

After our comprehensive preparations, we made several attempts to storm the haunted castle. The first time went terribly poorly, due to faulty equipment. How were we to know that rosaries and prayer beads were ineffective? We went charging it like fools, and charging out like cowards. Pathetic. Our next attempt was drawn from several educational training videos on the subject of Ghostbusting; we acquired "Photon Packs" from a salesman who, incidentally, also sold laser pointers. Assured of our success we made our second assault on the fortress. Though we still failed I felt that we had improved somewhat in our escape maneuvers. It was not our fault, for we had been cheated by the cunning salesperson, who clearly sold us pirated versions of "Proton Packs".

Eventually we found some weapons that were effective. They were in fact SUPER-EFFECTIVE! But even then our mission completion rate was zero. Somehow, storming the ghost base with super-soakers full of blessed water did not work. We made it inside for about 20 seconds, but then every spook started to attack us and we were overwhelmed. We did manage to kill some spirits but what use was it? Somehow they knew we were coming.

"I know!" said Noge, who was the wisest of us. "It's so obvious!” he then exclaimed. "They knew we were coming because.... they recognized our faces! We had invaded the castle so many times that they knew it was us! How dumb were we? We should have put on disguises so that the ghosts would not know it was us."

It was such a thoughtful and insightful idea that we decided to approve his plan then and there. The very next day we had readied ourselves with splendid and cunning glamors that hid our very identities. Best of all, the fake glasses and mustaches did not cost us very much at all. "I'll go in first to test my theory." Noge said confidently as he strided across the drawbridge.

"OMG hax0r! Maphaxx!! Imba!!!" he screamed as he came running out a mere few moments later.

How could this plan have failed? Even I would have been unable to pierce past the veil of the superb disguise. Then suddenly I had a revelation. THE KEY IS TO BE SUPER-NATURAL.

Ghosts are everywhere, it is true. Even with the greatest firepower in the world, it is not possible to defeat all the cursed spirits before succumbing. In a straight up conventional battle, being outnumbered was a given. Therefore an offensive approach was stupid and frankly suicidal.

A better approach was needed. To correct our strategy, we went for special training in an acting school. After several weeks of intensive, life-threatening study, we leveled up and were now confident of success in our ghostbusting operation.

We strolled into the castle at a leisurely place. Nothing happened. A few more confident paces. All was going well. Chatting nonchalantly along the way, we proceeded onwards into the heart of the fortress. We encountered no resistance.

You see, the key was to behave as if nothing was going on, as if we saw no evil. We had to act natural.... SUPER NATURAL!

Yeah, the entire story is based on one lousy pun:heh:

Must get away, must get away. Have to keep running, running, always running. Can't let them catch me. Losing strength, can't keep this up much longer. Run, Anemi, run. They're closing in, closing in. Coming closer...
and then everything went black.

…

Anemi had been starving for most of the cold, harsh Gaussian winter. As a lone wolf with no pack to run with, she had to fend for herself. That was life, she always told herself, but that didn't make it any easier on her. She was weak, ever so weak, and she needed to find someplace to rest and find food. That was no small task, as food was scarce and most of the good shelter was taken by wolf packs, those wolves with mates, companions, and cubs. Pack life...Anemi knew nothing of it. She had seen packs of wolves, but she was born alone , abandoned by her mother before she even opened her eyes, and one did not simply join an already formed pack; so she had struck out alone, stumbling blindly into the world. It hadn't been too hard at first, but when winter came, so did trouble. The snow fell hard and fast and prey scattered. Two-legs went after lone wolves for their pelts with dangerous pointed sticks. She had only seen them, and never encountered one. Until...
– – –
One day Anemi was out, searching for any prey that might be hiding under the cold ground or in caves. Suddenly, she heard a noise and froze, listening. The noise became clearer and closer until she saw them. Two-legs. And this time, they were after HER. They yelped to one another and ran after her. Every fiber in Anemi's body screamed RUN! She did as her instinct told her, and ran as fast as she could away from them. But she was weak and struggling, with little fat on her body and little strength to keep her going. She couldn't run forever, and eventually she collapsed.
…
Shhh, young one. I am friend. They will hurt you no more. I have driven them away. Those you call two-legs.
Anemi heard the voice speaking to her in her mind. It was two-leg, but also like wolf. Anemi did not know what it was but the voice somehow calmed her, and she for some reason trusted it. Then she felt a tingling sensation, starting from her muzzle and moving through the rest of her. What is this?She wondered.
I've healed your wounds, little one. You were grievously injured and would have died from them soon. Now you are safe once more, so take this time to rest.
the voice was oddly tender.
But who are you? Anemi inquired.

My name is Aleia. I am an elf, but I can communicate with and heal animals. It's a gift I've always had. You need not fear me, for I am friend. Now rest and regain your strength. I shall stay here until you are well once more.
Anemi obeyed, closing her eyes and drifting slowly to sleep, soothed by the reassuring touch of Aleia's mind.

Whydunnit?

Blooming wildly on the edge of this precarious bluff, the springtime forget-me-nots sway willingly to the fierce downdrafts, holding firmly onto their roots. The golden sun rests like a harsh spotlight overhead, intensifying every earthly color from the grass sprouting up from the thick snow. That morbid, two-day snowstorm had finally stopped, giving me a whirlwind of relief. I've covered my tracks meticulously so that no physical entity could have had the chance to even lay a finger on me. The hotel was far off into the distance, so luckily a projectile is impossible to deduce. Closed off from the world, the sealed coffin was ready as it was meant to be ages ago. A red ornamental curtain was anxiously awaiting to fall on my stage as the faint sound of icy waves crash down beneath. I walk behind that small one-roomed cabin on the edge of the bluff.

How long ago was that incident?

Four years, fifty-two days, twelve hours, three minutes and ten—eleven seconds ago.

I put my pocket-watch back into my coat next to Sgt. McLine's slightly used pistol and the carefully crafted bottled message. This coat must look ridiculous! I laugh to myself as the wind pushes me towards the edge. A fleeting thought drifted back to my consciousness, that Death and all her wisdom visits in this moment now of noon, just as she did with all the other hotel guests. A visage not of skeleton nor a ghastly spinster, but something of irony; A glowing, youthful face. She floated above in that space disconnected from this world, slowly descending from the heavens. The immediate area around her bent and twisted as if she was a magnet pulling matter in. The smirk on her face made her look even more child-like than before. She was now at my eye level, with stern eyes focused at me.

"...Are you ready for oblivion? The deal has been made, you know! Although you've really surprised me! Haha!!"

The shrill laughter pierced the atmosphere. I grinned back at her, attempting a forced chuckle.

"Hehe. You know I'm always a man of my word!"

“Wonderful!” *clap* *clap* “Like I've said, are you ready to step into oblivion with me?”

She may have seemed foreboding, but I no longer questioned it for my sanity is also something under scrutiny. It may also help to add that she's visited me on a numerous of occasions. My psychologists wouldn't like her one bit. Having only a long black cloak and blue hair, she seemed extremely unnatural to this world. With that, I can't help but to think there's some sort of familiarity to her... Those last thoughts were unusual, because I know exactly who she is. Maybe those thoughts are the ones I want the examiners and detectives to think? Forgive me as it is hard to align my thoughts correctly with no sleep for the past two nights. I call her by name.

“Sure Antoinette, can I finally rest now?”

“Yes, I believe you've suffered enough. You did great, surpassed everyone's expectations in my plane of existence!”

“....At what cost, though?”

“ Shh, you've suffered enough. Rest your head now. I love you,

Daddy!—”

The waves came crashing down, swirling around me as that reverberated sentence shakes the earth. The spiraling water turns a crimson red. Flooded by emotions and long repressed memories, each gush of water hits me with stronger currents. The figure of Antoinette vanishes along with the rest of my vision. I suddenly recall the day she died, how those people stood around and didn't—didn't even bother to help! And her murderers! I waited until the very end to kill them, those wretched bastards, for a painless death without the torture of emotional tension wouldn't do anywhere near the justice! Saying a hotel is haunted really does wonders on the psyche, that is where I have created the ghost of my daughter, and her revenge, even against me, for neglecting her that day! She will do impossible murders, one no person on earth shall ever believe. Something like a real life And Then There Were None! This shall be and is the plan of November twenty-first to the second!!

The bloody waves cease, my mind strains as I try to gain control of the situation. I'm still perched above on that bluff, the sharp wind still hitting me; the flowers still fluttering and whatnot.

The curtain falls.


Afterthought:
Retrospection is always great for moments like these, the perfect plan went perfectly! But perhaps something about this perfection irritated me. It literally made me sick down to the fibers of my existence. Even if this funereal went accordingly, I've already thrown up twice over that cliff for some reason. I'll just brush it aside. Torment until the end I suppose. I'm tired of trying to understand my feelings, disgust is all I can muster at the moment. I hold onto death's hand, and enter the phantasmagorical plane of possibilities. To perplex the astute with notions of the supernatural, to make someone believe in more than what is, to give life a deeper meaning! I ask Death one more thing, and that is if my revenge motive seemed believable enough, because I'm desperate for a real one. She never really responded as we walked in this dream-like state. Even if this euphemism that I hold in my hand may be crushed, perhaps I just desire someone to understand who I am, and what I've been through; throwing this heart of mine into the infinite sea as I finish down scribbling, and walking back to that cabin, locking the door and windows...

Almost wishing that I would never think of something so grimly again.

—Cullen P. Rith