A Twisted Story

In Mount Inse winter seems to always be around. It's around the base of the mountain however, where two siblings live by a lake, surrounded by a wintery tundra for half the year. The siblings in question are a little girl named Anastasia and her older brother named Theon. Anastasia likes going outside and drawing the winterland scenery, as well as playing around in the snow in her free time. When she is not doing that she likes to cozy up a blanket against the fireplace with a book. Theon as the elder sibling goes out for supplies to the nearest town when available, although he does prefer hunting near the area, especially when winter hits. When he has any time for himself he likes to spend it with Anastasia, whether that is by playing with her or reading a book along with her, the two siblings tend to get along well.

On such a fateful day, we can see Anastasia outside drawing and taking in the beautiful scenery in front of her. It was probably the last snow of this season and she wanted to preserve this beautiful scenery. Although she couldn't wait till spring and summer rolled around when she could finally swim again in the currently frozen lake. For now she would settle on drawing and sketching the snow covered lake and trees behind it.

While she is focused on making this image perfect and permanent, she doesn't realize that a fawn has made the fateful mistake of confusing the icy lake for snow covered ground. It is only after she takes another look to make sure she gets the details right, when she sees this young buck about to make a life taking decision. She is frozen in awed as she watches the buck wobble to the middle of the lake on unbroken ice. That is until the ice underneath the buck's hoofs starts cracking.

All Anastasia can do is watch in horror as she hears the crackling of ice and a big splash of water, followed by smaller ones. All of a sudden she can feel the adrenaline in her body as she is grabbing a sturdy fallen branch nearby and making her way to the splashing body of the young deer on slippery ice. She doesn't even remember when she made the decision to leave her spot at the front of her home to go save a deer. As she is coming closer to the hole, she has to make an even bigger effort to keep her footing as the darkened ice is more slippery with water on top of it.

Finally she is able to use the branch she carried all the way there and use it to let the buck have something to cling to, and use it to climb out of the icy waters. However what Anastasia fails to realize is that the sound of cracking ice is not only coming from the deer trying to escape death but that is also coming from beneath her feet. As the buck finally manages to get out of meeting with death that day, and make its way to the forest. However as Anastasia soon realizes, she may not have the same luck as the buck. As she decides to start making her way back the cracked ice beneath her feet gives out and she plummets into the dreaded waters.

As she feels the icy water tendrils starting to wrap around her and sink her down even further, she thinks of how she got here. She was just drawing the lake in all its beauty as the last snow fell gently around her, how she hoped that by the time she finished it, her older brother would be back from going out to find food for them, just so that she could show him her latest piece of art.

Theon...

She needs to get back to him and show him her drawing. She can't let him down by not being there with her latest drawing when he comes back. She thinks of how sad he would be when she is not there with a new sketch to show off. That's when she starts feeling her lungs burning and a headache starting to form from her lack of air. As her body finally reacts to the cold water that is surrounding her, she tries to fight off the dark icy tendrils of water and swim to the top. As she nears the surface she can see the light that is just out of her reach. Her hand finally breaks out of the water and she is able to frantically grasp at some ice to pull herself up enough to take a quick breath before she plummets back into the water. She can feel her body starting to slow down and feeling heavier, almost as if she was filled with lead. As she is quickly being surrounded by darkness she puts all her energy into raising her hand above the water and clinging to the branch.

Theon is making his way back from the woods carrying a small deer he found halfway dead and decided to take it out of its misery. He is delighted that he won't have to go out for a few days to get more food and that he will be able to spend all of that time with his little sister. Being able to admire her as she pokes out her tongue when focused on her drawings or how her eyebrows scrunch up when she can't get a small detail right. He can't wait to see her proud face when she is done with a drawing and is showing it off to him or that smile and shine she gets in her eyes when he praises her for her amazing work.

As he finally spots his home, he squints to try and see if he can spot his little sister waiting for him. However as he gets closer he can't help but feel a small twinge of worry fill him, as Anastasia is nowhere near her usual spot. He thinks she might be inside waiting for him since it did get colder. Alas that is not the case when he is at the front of his home and sees her materials sprawled out in a mess around her usual spot, with Anastasia nowhere to be seen. As he starts to frantically look around for her, he can't even hear the deer dropping from his shoulders over the hammering of his heart that has now filled his ears. As he looks across the lake he sees a darkened spot in the middle of the ice with a branch nearby.

He is slowly getting closer as he can feel his stomach filling up with dread. He is careful on the slippery ice as he gets closer to the now revealed hole. That is when he finally sees a pale hand clinging to the branch he saw earlier. He hurries his careful advance to the gaping hole in the ice to see that the hand is attached to his little sister, Anastasia.

Afterall death can be unpredictably early to his meetings, and he decided to kill two birds with one stone on that beautiful day.

Authors Note

This is a story that wrote for my English Class in 2022. I deemed it good enough to decide to publish it.