Protoanemonin

You were always considered an odd child, whether it was by your peers or by your family members. Not odd in the sense that you were inherently particular or peculiar; you weren’t quirky and didn’t love to style your hair in ways that no other child would be caught dead in. You were the type of odd child that favored watching spiders spin their webs instead of playing kickball with all the other children. Enticed, you would watch as the spider of the day wove and weaved its way from the middle of its web to the outer wings. It was in the midst of creating a true masterpiece.

When the creature was finished, it creeped its way back to the middle. Caught in a stump, the spider would stop for a minute and consider your prying eyes with slight interest, going rigid. Your enchantment faded slowly as the spider stubbornly remained immobile. When your annoyance peaked, you would pluck the spider from its place and stare as it curled into itself. It was pretending to be dead! How coy! You smiled at the feeble attempt at retribution. You held it between your forefinger and thumb, careful not to damage it. You were the kind of child that pulled the legs off the immobile spider and dropped its limbless body in the dirt as the bell rang, signalling the end of recess. You were the type of child that enjoyed inflicting pain on others.

Allow me to explain further.

When you were born, the doctors were concerned by your lack of noise. Unlike most babies, you did not cry immediately after entering this world. You were shockingly silent. The doctor in charge ordered the nurse in his care to stroke your feet which caused you to gurgle and hiccup your first breath. Their concern only grew during your first few weeks at home since you would not communicate your needs to your parents. They would use a strict schedule when they bottle fed you but you made no attempts to remind them if they lost track of a few minutes. Your room was lit dimly for when you woke up during the night but your insomnia wasn’t complained about.

By the time you were two, your parents had just about given up teaching you how to speak. You had visited your nervous doctors, gotten recommendations for various speech therapists, but your parents hadn’t seen any changes. Your mother and father began to fight more, blaming each other for your irregularities. You’d watch them fight, raise their fists at each other, and drink away their troubles over a bottle of gin. They weren’t bad people just misguided ones.

By the time you were five, your parents decided to beg the speech therapists to stay during one of your meetings. The therapist, whose name was lovingly engraved in your memory as Marla, accepted and sat your parents in a side room where other doctors would come in to check on your process through the 2-way mirror.

You knew the difference by now. Marla would lead you to a room and excuse herself for a few minutes, allowing you to do your work. Each room had a mirror and an amazing assortment of puzzle games, board games, and spelling corners. You scuffed the slippers on your feet over to the mirror and glanced at it, tilting your head. You lifted your index finger and pressed your nail against the glass and analyzed your reflection. There was no gap between your actual nail and the reflection. This was the sign of a 2-way mirror. If there was a gap, then it was a genuine mirror.

You decided that you would need to be on your best behavior today.

Marla came in with an assortment of objects, which you offered to help her carry with a curious tilt of her head. She shook her head with a small smile on her face and thanked you earnestly. She left them on the small table in the middle of the room and sat down on the floor beside you. “Hello, Frisk. We have a lot of activities to cover today, are you ready to start?”

“Yes, I’m ready,” You answered neutrally much to the shock of your parents on the other side of the mirror. Every word was said without fault, every activity and puzzle completed with little to no struggle, every letter constructed carefully, every word written properly. You had even learned sign language which you preferred using with the young therapist.

“You have a very smart child,” Marla confessed once alone with your dumbfounded parents. “They speak very clearly and communicate thoughts with ease. We have even gained an early start on their education. Frisk seems to love math, they’ve already memorized their multiplication tables until the number eleven! They have such an amazing capacity for knowledge at such a young age!”

“That’s incredible,” your mother mumbled, a frown creasing her face.

Marla seemed upset by this reaction. “I would’ve told you sooner but you haven’t attended an open session since Frisk first began their meetings.”

Your father was just as shocked as your mother as he stared at you. You flipped through a child’s book that had been left by Marla some time earlier, seemingly unaware of the conversation at hand. “It isn’t possible.”

Your mother looked at your father and back at your therapist. “Frisk hasn’t ever spoken a word to us. They hardly listen when we engage them into a conversation! It’s like they aren’t really there!”

Marla attempted to calm down your upset parents as you gazed up from your book with a lazy smile. It had been a good game, but now you would have to change your tactics. You had never felt any urgency to socialize with any other human unless it benefited you. Communicating with Marla felt like the best option to convince the scientific world of your normalcy. Marla gave your doctors peace-of-mind and she gave you space to explore anything you were interested in. You had learned some basic astronomy, math and science. Marla had also expressed interest in teaching you how to speak Spanish and French. She let your mind expand without all the necessary questions that came with it and you greedily consumed the knowledge with a ferocity you never thought you knew.

You had abandoned the use of your voice completely around your parents. Their hopelessness around you made you feel oddly satisfied. Something about watching them scramble only to have their shoulders slouch in their self-pity after their efforts weren't returned made you feel much better about yourself. They assumed you detested them. That would have to change.

After that meeting, you started to acknowledge them little by little. Since they were only starting to learn sign language, you humored your naive parents by speaking softly to them at times and correcting their errors. They had started to get used to your chime-like voice. Then, you started to toy with them once again.

At the age of six you took up archery with a plastic bow and arrow set they had bought at the dollar store. Your father jeered whenever you managed to hit the plastic target tacked onto a cork bulletin board. Your father had rigged the clothesline to hold it up and since the mechanism could be lowered and lifted naturally. You appreciated your father’s work. The fact that you could act genuinely around him made it so much easier to start resenting your mother. Your mother who, other than doing the housework and keeping an eye on your schoolwork, didn’t do much to sustain your interest.

After you expertly shot another arrow into the circular target, you grinned while your father clapped appreciatively and commented about how they should invest in real lessons for you. You let your eyes wander over to the window in the kitchen that overlooked the backyard. Your mother smiled from that window and seemed to return to washing the dishes.

 You carefully took out another arrow from the little shoulder quiver your father fabricated himself off of some tutorials he had found in an archery handbook for beginners. You stuck the end of the arrow onto the cord and rested the arrow on the shelf before drawing the cord and arrow back as far as you could. You held it there against your anchor point, which was right above the corner of your mouth. You placed the point of aim higher than the target and spun on your heel to face the window. You released the arrow and smirked when it hit the window with so much force that it startled your mother and stuck to the pane. Since it was a suction cup arrowhead, the arrow remained where it was. Your mother glanced down at you in horror and your face blanked by the time your father approached.

“Frisk! Are you okay? What happened?” He asked as he took your shoulder in his large hand. Crocodile tears brewed in your eyes as you sniffled and murmured about how you slipped.

He smiled softly and hugged you. “It’s alright, honey. Go inside and clean yourself up. I’ll be right behind you after I get that arrow down.”

You nodded and made your way inside. You passed your mother who was opening up the patio door. She glowered at you as you entered but you didn’t acknowledge her presence at all. She stalked out to talk to your father and you made your way to the sink. You picked up a wet rag and wiped your face. Once finished, you peaked through the window to see your mother gesturing wildly with her arms and your father sighing deeply.

Once you started school, everything went downhill for your family. You threw tantrums around your mother that abruptly ended when your father came home, you made yourself sick after some meals in order to make it difficult for your mother, and you screamed whenever she tried to carry you. Soon enough, you got bored and your throat went raw.

“That child hates me!” You mother screamed to your father after drinking a little too much wine with a few ‘friends from work’ around the dinner table. Meaning that your mother was fighting for a new position at her workplace. You refused to engage in any sort of exchange with the older men and women, ignoring their efforts with a hostile glare and a half-hearted grunt. She drank more and more as the night rolled on so it wasn’t a surprise that she broke down in front of her workmates who have now deemed her mentally incapable of taking any more responsibility at this time.

“Frisk doesn’t like new people! You know that!” He shouted back. “You know how they act when they’re uncomfortable! You never told your superiors that Frisk is anti-social!”

Your mother sobbed loudly, “Couldn’t it just be normal? Just once? That thing is out to get me!”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Your father bellowed. “That thing is our child! I love them! If you have any issues with Frisk, you bring them up to me. Now, I’m tired. I’m going upstairs to sleep in the guest room. Don’t follow me.”

Your mother screamed and yowled the entire night before the front door slammed behind her. She took the car. You knew because you could see the headlights shining through your thin curtains. You shook your head solemnly. Drinking under the influence is a no-no.

At school, it didn’t make a difference. You acted up there as much as at home. You never got punished, mind you. Your intelligence level was so high that teachers were convinced that you could attend honors courses by the time you reached the first grade. Kindergarten was a gateway into organized education so it was obligatory to attend. Your father still drove you to visit Marla who still taught you about anything that peaked your interest. By this time, you were reading more chemistry textbooks than you were chapter books. You were too much of a realist to find enjoyment in fantasy fiction which seemed to be in style for children your age.

Your intelligence gave you an advantage over the other children. One incident that proved that to you was when you convinced Martin Clint that touching an exposed light bulb was a good idea. The bulky six-year-old jolted back in shock when the bulb burned his fingertips and he cried boisterously. One of the monitors came in and took the child over to another table to treat the minor burns. The boy squealed on you quickly and you were sent to your main teacher, Mrs. Einsfeld.

Mrs. Einsfeld had a mole on her cheek that was the size of a dime. It was so distracting that I stopped my description on that alone. She sat up straight and looked at you with as much seriousness as she could muster.

“Frisk, we have been getting a lot of strange confessions from the other children in your class. One said that you put a frog in their lunchbox, another said that you kicked a soccer ball in his—” She paused, collecting her bearings, “—‘personal’ areas. Now, we also have this incident to tally up as well! Is there any reason why you might be acting up? Is everything okay at home?”

Huh? “What do you mean?”

“Well,” she started. “Children have a tendency to act up when something is going on at home. You know you can talk to me or any of the other teachers if you have any issues, Frisk. It’s our job to help you!”

You hung your head, considering the idea and concealing your determined poker face. “Mommy and Daddy fight a lot. They scream and throw stuff. I-I know that it’s all my fault. They always yell about me. My mommy calls me ‘that thing’ and my daddy defends me. I hate it!”

Mrs. Einsfeld, being a mother of two, hugged me tightly. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m so glad you told me!”

You were thankful that she gave you an opportunity! It wasn’t such a big lie after all. Your mother smashed a couple of plates during a fight earlier that week! This was just getting better and better!

Mrs. Einsfeld pulled away to look you in the eye, “Have they ever hit you, Frisk?”

You gasped in mocked shock and shook your head quickly. Mrs. Einsfeld said that she needed to keep a closer eye on you for now on. All you needed now was a little more…convincing evidence. No child would willingly talk about their parents abusing them! That was far too unrealistic. When you got to the solitude of your room, you started your work. Your mother and father had gone to couple’s counseling. They had left you a sandwich on the counter and a simple note to be in bed by eight.

Now all you needed to do was beat yourself up a little. So you approached your bedroom wall and lifted your fist. Then, you quickly shook your head. No, any injuries that seem like you defended yourself will seem uncharacteristic. You walked over to your bed frame instead and held your breath as you lifted your leg slightly and rammed it into the bed’s leg twice. You swore and clutched at the area. You got up slowly before making your way downstairs to the kitchen table. You pulled out a chair which was quite high for you and jumped onto its seat. You released a breath you didn’t know you were holding before you swung back and forth, causing the chair to topple backwards. Your back hit the back of the chair hard. You rolled out of that position and started whacking your arms with closed fists until you saw the knuckle marks turning a gruesome red. Pinching and pulling at the skin near your collar bone, chest, and hips came next before turning to your home’s staircase.

You laughed. There was no way you were going that far! You could do some irreparable damage! Instead you climbed up the stairs and ran into your room. Then, you got on your bed and rolled right off of it. Okay, to be honest, you found that much more fun than harmful. But there was still an area on your stomach that had managed to get hit hard enough. In the midst of falling, you managed to pull some of your sheets off the bed as well. After you managed to untangle yourself, you stumbled over to the bathroom. You picked out two facecloths and drenched them in water before dripping them over the tiled floor. Then, you wrung them out, one at a time, letting globs of water fall to the floor. Once you were done, the bathroom floor was like a regular slip’n’slide. You walked out to end of the hall and took off like a bat out of hell. It had the desired effect and you fell quite comically, landing on your chest and bracing yourself with the back of your arms.

You rested there for a long time, crying softly. You were winded. It had hurt but it was self-inflicted. It was for a much bigger plan. Right now, your body was trying to stop the internal bleeding. The pain would fade soon. You sighed shakily and got to your feet again, ready to eat supper and go straight to bed. It didn’t matter if it was only six o’clock. Your limbs trembled from exertion as you cautiously made your way down the stairs. You plucked the sandwich off the counter and internally cringed when you saw mayonnaise. You hated plain old mayonnaise. You much preferred ketchup or mustard.

You walked over to the living room and switched the television on. Bugs Bunny was on, easily getting around Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck in the Hunting Season short. It was one of your favorites. When you finished the sour tasting sandwich, you switched off the television and returned to the kitchen to put your dish in the dishwasher. You went back upstairs and cleaned up after yourself in the bathroom. After that mess was sorted out, you made your way into your bedroom and flicked on your night lights so you could navigate through the dimly lit darkness. You found your bed and lifted your pillows to pull out your pyjamas. You quickly stripped down and threw on your pyjamas before climbing lazily into bed, further musing your ravaged sheets.

Two days later and the bruises were only getting darker. You had noticed that the teachers were paying more attention to you during breaks and daycare activities but you hadn’t made any attempts at exposing your injuries. Seeing them darkening all over your body heightened your resolve. Today was a pedagogical day at school so you were alone with your mom. Your mom was working from home today and your father was heading to the office for the day. He would be back around four o’clock.

You sat on the second step on the staircase and watched as your father ran like a chicken with his head cut off for around fifteen minutes. Then he stooped down to your level and kissed your forehead.

“Be good for Mommy, okay? You know how much stress she has been under.”

You nodded your head and it was at that moment that your mother appeared. Your father watched her expression as she stared at you carefully. “Good morning, Frisk.”

You tilted your head towards her slightly but still said nothing to her. You could tell that it got on her nerves. You spoke to your father constantly but seemed to have no voice when she approached. She had tallied it up to you being an odd child.

Your father left and your mother settled to watch her soap operas on the living room couch. You prepared some cereal and waited until it got soggy. It was always at its best when it was soggy. When you were finished, you drank all of the milk in your bowl and left your bowl and spoon in the sink. So you stalked up to your room to change into a faded blue long sleeved shirt and a pair of baggy jeans. You had taken your bath yesterday so you only needed to brush your hair and teeth this morning. Afterwards, you lounged around in your room and shot arrows at the ceiling before jumping on your bed to pull them all off. You didn’t want to bother your mother today. You were getting bored of her reactions.

You lost track of time and soon it was time to eat lunch. Your breathing hitched as you got up the wrong way, sending a shock wave of pain throughout your body from a sensitive cluster of bruises. With a sigh, you got yourself up and headed out of your room and down to the kitchen. You watched as your mom stirred a boiling pot on the stove.

“Do you want some Alphabetti?” She asked almost mechanically. You nodded and voiced a little grunt of approval before sitting on the chair that you had previously knocked over. This was so that your mother didn’t notice the wooden leg that was now loose because of the hazardous fall. She turned off the pot and poured some of the pot’s contents into two bowls.

When she placed the bowl in front of you, you spared a look inside at all the noodle letters floating to the top. Your mother brought the bowl to her mouth and started to slurp down everything in it. As an impressionable child, you felt it necessary to copy everything she did and ended up spilling the whole bowl onto yourself, the table, the chair, and the floor. Your mother gasped and you hissed as the hot soup made contact with your skin through your thin shirt.

“Frisk! Damn, you can’t ever just remain clean can you?” She groaned as she picked you up. You squealed and thrashed around as she did so but she plopped you into the sink before you could start screaming. You were quite a small child and the fact that you normally threw up after your mother fed you had helped your frail frame.

She left quickly to go get a clean rag and some new clothes for you and it was at that moment that realization dawned on you. She needed to take off your clothes. She would see all the bruises that you had inflicted upon yourself. You hesitated. This wasn’t going according to plan at all. You needed to upset her further. You reached over towards the stove which was located beside the sink and pulled the pot off of it just as your mother came into view. She paused and her eyes widened. The white carpeting was starting to look like a very bad idea.

“Don’t. You. Dare.”

She rushed forward and you overturned the pot. The soup sloshed over the sides and onto the carpet, forever staining it. She paused and something seemed to possess her for a moment because she stomped over to you, snatched you from the sink, and threw you against the adjacent wall. When she came to her senses, the deed had already been done and you stared up at her with emotionless eyes and an arm bent at an odd angle.

“Ow,” was the only sound you uttered.

 The trip to the hospital was not a pleasant one. Your mother had forgotten all about your new set of clothes and drove you there with a shirt stained with sticky soup on your chest. She had tried to apologize but you remained eerily quiet. Your plan was going faster than scheduled, but you would deal for now.

Upon seeing your arm and the guilty state of mind your mother had, the nurses had isolated you from her in order to get the entire story. After being asked a series of questions concerning your arm and the bruises that they saw, you said that you had fallen down the stairs and were very clumsy at school. They didn’t seem entirely convinced but after examining the x-rays, they came to the conclusion that the fracture was minor but you would still need a cast. Once the cast was made and set, the nurses gave you strict orders to not get it wet.

Your mother came in not long after that. The medical professionals looked at her seriously during this time, taking in her disheveled appearance.

“Frisk told us that they fell down the stairs and broke their arm, is this true?”

“Y-yes,” your mother agreed. “It was so shocking…”

The doctor in charge nodded apprehensively. “It must have been. But the bruises all over their body are inconsistent.”

“Bruises?” Your mother whispered traitorously, glancing over at you wearily.

“Because of the inconsistency of the child’s injuries and the possibility of a longer time frame of injury, we have no choice but to notify social services. They will send around a new counselor who will routinely check the house and talk to Frisk as well as you and your husband. We cannot overlook this.”

Your mother hadn’t spoken about the incident until you got home. Your father raced to the door to greet you but upon seeing his child in a cast, he turned to your mother for an explanation.

“I fell down the stairs,” You told him quickly as your mother floundered. You turned to your mother as you said the next part, “Mommy found me and brought me to the doctor. Right, Mommy?”

“That’s right.” She glanced at you curiously.

“Alright, I have supper just about ready. I’m glad you’re okay, Sport.”

Your father bent down and hugged you, awkwardly avoiding your cast. He kissed your forehead, got up, and returned to the kitchen. Your mother, on the other hand, leaned forward into your personal space.

“What have you got to gain, you little brat? What do you want?” She growled as you tilted your head.

“I want everything. If you aren’t careful, Mommy, I’ll just go to the doctor and say that you hit me. You raised your hand against me. I can easily turn that into my advantage. I’d stay quiet if I were you.”

She tried taking your quiver and bow away. She also tried keeping you away from Marla but every time she tried to pull a fast one over your head, you rubbed your cast threateningly and shook your head. Suddenly, you would be pardoned. You were even allowed to eat cookies before bed.

It got even better once the counselor started visiting. You were on your best behavior as long as your mother hadn’t done anything to piss you off. Your father remained oblivious to your behavior but watched over your mother more often. Your mother went out to drink more often.

Your mother tip-toed around you for several years after that and your parents had another child a few months after you turned seven. Your father was unsure about keeping his daughter, knowing how your mother seemed to be ignoring you consistently, but you warmed up to the little girl quickly. It had also helped that your mother now had someone in the family to bond with. You carried the baby everywhere and took care of her. This charmed you father and disgusted you mother, who did everything to act as a third party whenever you were around the newly-born Clementine.

When you were nine, you found Clementine crying over your shared hamster’s cage. Your family had just gotten the little critter but the toddler overfed it causing it to kick the bucket way too early. She told you that in a desperate attempt to right the wrong she had committed. Little dead Delilah the hamster was then taken out of the cage by your hands and left on the floor for your mother’s new cat, Whiskers, to come and take. Clementine acted well; so well that their mother had sent the kitten back to the shelter. It seemed a little bit of oddness ran in the family genes.

When you turned ten, you’re father decided to leave you and the toddler alone for a minute to work on the car while you mother worked outside on the lawn. You ran out of the house, dressed clad in your pyjamas and urged your mother inside. She rushed in when she heard her daughter screaming.  Clementine was clutching her eye in a desperate attempt to stop the pain. Beside her, a bottle of drain cleaner poured itself out on the kitchen floor.

“What did you do?!” You mother screeched as she attacked you, violently shaking your shoulders. Your father ran in and separated you two, urging your mother to call for an ambulance.

You sobbed as your father took your sister into his arms and rocked her, trying to calm her while she wept. The three-year-old was taken by ambulance and your father allowed your mother to stay with the child.

“Frisk, what happened?” Your father asked you as you rode in the car.

“D-daddy. I-I didn’t know. She told me her eye was itchy s-so I told her to wait beside the sink while I-I got a rag. Then, I don’t know! She started screaming and I ran out and her eye was—”

“Damn it! You’re mother must have left out the drain cleaner out after she cleaned the damned sink! I knew having another child was a bad choice!”

He confronted her at the hospital but she screamed about how she put it back up into the locked cabinet. The only ones who knew how to unlock the cabinet were your parents and yourself, not that they knew of course. Some nurses had gathered to try and aid both your mother and father. Once they had calmed them down enough, they told them some grave news.

Clementine needed to have the eye removed.

“W-will sh-she need to get a glass eye?” You asked softly, curiously. Your mother, who was seated beside you, turned you and smacked you across the mouth with her ring finger. Shocked, you immediately pulled out of the seat and ran towards your father, who took you into his arms. The nurses gaped at the whole scene. One of them was calling child services.

“I-I didn’t mean it,” your mother stated, looking one of the nurses in the eyes. “I-I love my son!”

“Stay away from him from now on,” Your father growled as a response. “I should’ve known when you had the cast, Frisk. I should’ve known.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Daddy,” you moaned as tears started to spill down your face again.

Your mother was sent away or at least you didn't see her anymore. Your father became a depressed alcoholic. He couldn’t take care of you both on his own. He quit his job and sold the house before sending you and Clementine to a foster program. Your life was spent in foster home after foster home until Clementine was adopted by another family at the age of four. She now enjoyed wearing her eye patches more than having the glass eye in. She complained that it wiggled too much in her socket. On the day of her adoption, she gifted it to you and you lifted your finger to your lips in a signal for her to hush and she nodded. A promise that would forever be kept between the two siblings.

“Never tell anyone about what happened to your eye, alright? I’ll know,” You swore to her and she nodded apprehensively.

“Promise. I will never tell anyone what you did to me, Frisk. Mommy’s in trouble because of that and you could get in big trouble too! As long as you never tell anyone what happened to Whiskers.”

Oh, Whiskers. Thank you for being a twelve-year-old’s easiest piece of blackmail. You had convinced Clementine that if she even thought of telling anyone about how you tried to clean her eye out with the toxic fluid, she would get in big trouble for killing her hamster and sending their kitten away. You loved your naive sister immensely.

“Good luck out there, Clem. Do better than I will.”

At the age of fourteen, you left your newest foster home during the night after stealing the family’s rainy day money. It wasn't hidden very well. It was located in a wooden cabinet. All that was needed to complete the heist was a chair. Your knapsack was packed with a change of clothes, a rain jacket, a water bottle, and a peanut butter sandwich. You made your way to the local train station and you payed the fee for a ticket on the earliest train. The ticket lady waited with you until the train came late at night. She left two hours after her shift actually ended and you were grateful for that. Sitting alone was unsettling.

You got on the train and sat in the booth furthest away from the door. You told an attendant that you were riding until the end of the line and asked if you could be woken up when the train got there. The man lifted his brow and nodded his head slowly before checking on the rest of the passengers. You shut your eyes and fell asleep to the gentle vibration of the train cars.

You awoke to someone gently shaking your shoulder. “Hey, kid. Your stop’s up. Are you sure you don’t want to ride back with us?”

You shook your head and dazedly got to your feet. The train hissed to a complete stop as you did so. “Kiddo, this place is practically abandoned. At least let us bring you back a stop or two.”

“This is where I want to go. I’ll be fine. I’m meeting someone,” you lied. “If anything, I’ll wait until the next train comes back.”

The train attendant sighed but allowed you to get off, opening the car up. With your bag slung across your shoulder, you watched as the train retreated slowly back into the woods. A little path pave the way down a mountain into what seemed to be a tiny village.  You followed it, a frosty breeze causing your teeth to chatter as you pulled on the hem of your striped sweater. Little golden flowers wilted under the weight of the early morning frost that had settled over them, causing them to be more of a sickly cream color. They shivered as the wind gusted by.

Once the village was sprawled out in front of you, the first thing you noticed was the graffiti. Houses and shops were tagged in bright reds and greens. Even the boarded up windows seemed to have these splashes of color. The original paint was starting to peel from the foundation of each house, making them seem decrepit and chilling. You looked at the path below your feet and saw a message inscribed in the dry earth.

Follow the path to the mountain.

You knelt down and followed the inscription with nimble fingers. It had been carved in so deeply that the tip of your finger vanished beneath the dirt. You brushed the dirt off your knees as you stood and continued to follow the path that winded through the town and into a meadow of frozen flowers framing the edge of a woodland trail leading further up the mountain. The flowers broke like shards of glass underneath your sneakers.

Your trek in the woods was deathly silent. The only sounds that could be heard were the wet squelching sounds of your sneakers in the mud. Not a bird sang, not a tree rustled, even the woods had been abandoned years ago. There was a few inclines that you didn’t allow to discourage you. It was a mountain after all. The trail you followed could also be quite narrow, especially when you reached a very rocky pass that circled around an unstable cliff. Hugging the side of the rock, you shimmied your way across the path, missing your footing once and quickly recovering. The further you climbed, the colder it became until you could see your breath coming out in puffs and the ground beneath you froze. Snow fell in a lazy rhythm but you knew that the weather patterns could be extremely unpredictable at such a high altitude. You needed to find shelter. Your sandwich would keep you satisfied until you found a maintainable food source and if you found a cave with deep enough recesses, you could find fresh water. You could hear a water source nearby but the sound was tampered with by the increasing strength of the wind. It became harder and harder to breathe with every step you took.

Soon the snowfall turned into a frenzy. The flurries stuck to your clothes in clumps and started to dampen your sweater. You picked up your pace and found a small opening within the rocky wall of the mountain. You quickly hid inside and sat yourself down on the cold dirt. You took a moment to examine your surroundings. There were no bears in this cave, only one human and a beetle that crawled across the space in front of the human in a drunken fashion.

You opened your knapsack and took out your sandwich and coat. You placed the coat over your shoulders and snapped the ziplock bag containing your gourmet meal open. You dug your teeth into the sandwich, ripping a bite off of it, and chewed noiselessly. The peanut butter stuck to the walls of your mouth but that was the joy of peanut butter. You found and sipped at your water bottle as you ate. Once you finished, you got up, shrugged the jacket off your shoulders, and walked out of the cave to enjoy the waves of snow under the dawning, snowy sky. You explored the area surrounding the cave, being careful not to stand at the cliff’s edge but you were curious. Something was calling you over. You walked over solemnly and gazed over the edge, leaning forward in order to see what might be at the bottom. The shift in your weight caused the edge to crumble under your feet and your loss of balance, causing you to pitch forward and fall off the rim. You screamed, your arms jutting outwards from your body to slow your fall. You were going to hit the ground stomach first. There was nothing you could do.

Reluctantly, you accepted your fate. You went still as you fell through the air. In the midst of falling, you felt something tug at you. You felt weightless for a moment, almost like you had stopped falling before your heightened sense of panic caused you to black out.