Ghost Hunt: The Forest of Blood and Snow

The Truth Within the Snow

Mai felt her whole body shiver in the freezing cold air. It felt cold and wet around her. She gasped as her eyes fluttered open and her mouth filled with the crisp cold air, making her cough and her throat hurt.

Mai spoke, struggling through a cough. "Oh, no! Please not this again! I don't think I can take much more of this!" Her mind flashed with the dreadful memories and pain as she relieved her earlier encounters through her dreams. She shook those terrifying moments from her mind as she tried to focus at the situation at hand. Mai looked around and noticed that, that dreadful forest was in the distance and she was nowhere near it, but it looked like she is in a blizzard.

"Don't worry Mai, daddy can't get you here." A young female voice spoke from somewhere in the hailing snow. Mai immediately jumped to her feet when she heard the voice of the girl. There, standing in front of Mai, was the ghost of the little girl with pigtails and blue fading eyes. Her entire body shimmered and disappeared slightly before reappearing as the girl shifted her footing in the snow but it didn't leave any prints. Mai took in the young girl before her; she wore a long white nightgown and there was some dirt smudges on her gown.

"Daddy?" Mai finally dared to speak. The cold air hurt her throat, making her gasp her question rather than saying it. The girl looked up at Mai and nodded sadly.

"Before I tell you about...my father...I need to show you something about him...before he went crazy. Promise not to interrupt, lady?" The young girl asked bluntly looking at Mai with an irritated expression but it softened as Mai nodded. And so she began.

The snow around them disappeared and the scenery changed before her. She looked up to the girl and realized that she wasn't there anymore. She turned around and watched.

"Daddy, Daddy!" The young girl called out to her father as she ran to him, throwing herself at him into a warm hug.

"Asuna, come here." Her father, a tall man with short trimmed brown hair, hugged the girl and scooped her up into his arms. His wife, a woman wearing a light purple skirt with a brown top, was standing next to him smiling and pointing ahead. They all looked forward smiling and a photo snapped.

'Click!'

Then the snow fell from that night sky. A blizzard plunged the happy family into a cold darkness. December had come bringing a blizzard in its wake. Asuna saw snow for the first time and ran outside to play while her parents were sleeping. Asuna giggled as she scooped up some snow and tossed to the ground. She smiled and fell to the ground waving her arms and legs trying to make a snow angel. It then became too cold for her to handle. She turned around with a smile plastered on her face. It fell as all she could see in front of her was snow. The view of her house was now gone. Hours later, Asuna struggled to find her home and wound up in the forest near her home. She coughed and coughed as the cold air hit her young lungs. She found a hollowed out tree and dragged herself towards it. She crawled in and fell to the cold snowy ground and coughed and coughed. She never moved from that spotted as her life slowly fled from her.

"Asuna! Asuna!" Her father cried as his feet shifted through heavy snow searching for his only daughter. She was his very life-more important to him than his lonely wife that he married out of guilt. She was the world to him, the only person that gave him meaning and now...she was gone. He searched for his daughter till the sun came up. He had a shovel with him in case he found her...dead. He cried and cried as he sat down in front of the fireplace. His wife came down stairs and patted him on the head.

"Come now dearest husband, we can make a new child. One who isn't so spoiled and loud! Maybe a boy, like we always wanted, right?" Those words from his wife were like venom in his ears. He picked up his snow covered shovel and hit his wife upside her head.