The King of Arendelle

Bedring (Pt. 1)

For hours... days... weeks, Jack was trapped in his own twisted limbo.

Darkness swallowed his body alive. Blades of ice ate away at his skin. His wounds tore open.

Again. And again. And again.

He would see the snow charging towards him like a wall of darkness, first eating his wife, listening to her cry out for him before it took him too.

Jack had never felt the snow's wrath. He had no control over the ice for the first time and was at nature's mercy. It felt like having a house dropped on him when it took him. Then rolling. Tumbling. At one point, it felt like he was flying—that was because the snow had swept him off the side of a cliff. Had it been a few feet higher, Jack would have perished right away. He was being cut by debris and it was the broken branch of a tree that ripped his thigh open. He was under the snow, being dragged down the mountain at full speed for three full minutes.

Suffocating, bleeding, being thrown around violently like a ragdoll. At one point, his own cloak got tangled around his neck and began to strangle him. His leg and chest were gushing blood; Jack had thought he'd seen how much a human could bleed without dying when he'd been stabbed, but he was mistaken. He left a sea of red behind him.

When the first branch had ripped open his thigh, Jack was in too much distress to realize and he didn't recall the pain. When the second branch impaled his chest, he remembered it well.

It hurt. It hurt so much. It would never end.

Finally, after an eternity of reliving the terror and suffering, everything began to slow down until all was still. The snow that had Jack in its clawed hand began to loosen and float into the air. Jack thought that he too was floating.

Everything was dark. Everything was cold... How did he know?

His powers were fading. The snow that was evaporating before him was his own power. Like it had the night he became a guardian, his skin began to feel numb, the wind cut through his face and fingers. His white hair became chestnut, and his eyes went from blue to brown in a single blink.

When he looked around, everything was murky. The blood from his wounds was floating above him in clouds of crimson. He was beneath the frozen pond. It was dark. It was cold. He was alone.

This must be death.

Where was his father? Was Elsa there?

If he was supposed to be a guardian, was this how he was to be initiated into the immortal realm? In the loneliest way possible? Without telling his loved ones goodbye? Why did it have to be so painful? The edges of his vision began to go dark, and feeling his body finally relax, Jack was ready to let go. Looking above, through the ice was the distorted image of light beckoning him... Was it the Moon? The Sun? Heaven?

No... it was life.

Where his daughter and son were. His mother. His sister. His wife.

There was still a chance. Although his body was in agony and he could barely move, Jack thrashed his limbs manically to try and swim upward. He felt death dragging him, the hands of skeletons and fearlings trying to keep him from reaching his family.

Elsa. Agnes. Nicholas. Sophie. His mother. Everyone.

No, I can't leave them! Let me go! He tried to scream, but his mouth was clamped shut. He couldn't hold his breath for much longer. He swam harder, harder, limbs cutting through the water like glass.

Let me go! He tried again, but his mouth wouldn't move. Let me go!

In a flash, but what to him felt like slow-motion, Jack had broken through the wall of ice. First, his fingers reached the surface. Then his hand. His arm. Until, finally, his upper body came crashing through the white like a corpse rising from the dead as he made a desperate leap for air. For life. He still couldn't scream, he was still bleeding, and he was still alone. The corpses below continued tugging on his legs.