Frozen Heart ─ [SOUL] ─ (FINISHED)

Frozen Heart

(Story of my new OC: Alice)

"Alice, cariño, you've got to understand... Wait, come back!" Mom said.

"No, you'll just justify it, you both are monsters!" I shouted, in both disappointed and angered tones.

For a little bit of contextualization, my mother and father had abandoned our dog, Fluffy, because he's been long sick, and they thought it would be the best option.

"We couldn't afford taking him to the veterinary! Do you ever think about us?!" My father angrily shouted.

"I DON'T CARE! We could have done something by ourselves, did you even bother to call someone or do a research? Of course not!" I continued the discussion.

"Guys, please don't fight! Everything'll be ok, estoy segura. We'll just go search Fluffy and..." She was immediatly interrupted by dad.

"We won't do any of that."

"But why?!" I said, in tears.

"It's too late, it's already done!" He said.

"I'M DONE! I don't want to be here anymore, I'll search him by my self, screw you both!" I said, collapsed into tears.

I opened the door got out as quickly as possible and closed it with a slam. They came after me trying to make me understand, but I just kept running. They didn't follow me anymore when I passed the neighbour's house. They just stopped, like they gave up with me. I was wearing winter outfit, which included a thick jacket to keep me warm and gloves to not freeze my hands, so I wasn't gonna have to worry about the freeze.

I desperately ran out of the neighborhood, I remember seeing my parents coming from the woods outisde here with the car, that was my only clue, it happened before the discussion, it must be where they left Fluffy. I was still processing the fact that they took that decision, in fact, I was processing everything that was happening at the same time. My head felt like it was going to explode as I was running.

Signs started appearing just as quick as I got out of the neighborhood. They seemed to say all similar things, if not the same. "Turn back", some said. "Danger ahead!" Some other said.

There were another kind of signs though, these red different messages, such like "You'll freeze." or "No turning back.", these signs seemed to be written with something between white and red, like light-brown, kind of redish. This was starting to creep me out, I was starting to question if I was doing the right thing, should I be searching Fluffy in my own? Should I have asked someone for help? Was Fluffy even here to begin with? All these questions plus all the processing of the situation was getting me to my very limits.

All this headache was interrupted by a sudden glimmer of hope: I heard Fluffy barking. I knew it was him, I just knew it, I recognized the voice, or, well, the bark. I instantly rushed to where I thought I heard it, it was pretty deep in the woods. While I was running, I felt like my lungs were going to explode, I was exhausted and cold, it was snowing as it was already december, in this time of the year it usually snows in our home, but the woods were always at a way lower temperature, almost no one had ever gone there this time of the year, and even less had returned, for what I heard.

The signs were repeating, and the trees started to have some kind of hand marks with the same colors of the written signs. I heard him again, but this time it was a scream. Whatever happened to him, it was bad. The deeper I dove into the forest, the more cooler it gets, even tho I was wearing my jacket and gloves, I felt like if I was all exposed to a zero degrees temperature, or even lower, how could this happen?

Suddenly, it became harder to move, as if my limbs were literally frozen. Something inside me started hurting so much it was like a living hell, I couldn't even walk without feeling that I could die at any moment. My lungs hurted, my heart was slower than usual, and againts all odds, the snow started aggresively falling, as if it wanted me dead, it made seeing anything ten times harder than before. I could barely breathe well, I felt how my legs and arms hurted like hell.

Suddenly, my legs wouldn't move if I didn't make an exaggerated effort for it, it hurted to breathe, I couldn't close my eyes, snow was getting into them. In a hope to move faster, I got off all my winter outfit, leaving me only with a shirt, my skirt and shoes.

Even tho I took off my jacker, sweater, scarf and gloves, it felt the same way, like they didn't make the difference. My body temperature would be around -12 by that point, which is impossible, but was happening. As I was walking through the snow, which seemed a storm for how it was falling, I tripped with what seemed to be a big rock, the strange thing is that it moved when I tripped with it, like if I kicked it.

I removed the snow over it, and the snow started turning into a redish color, it was something alive, or more likely, dead. I desperately cleaned the snow over it, hoping it to not be who I feard it could be, Fluffy. I got a relief when I saw it wasn't my dog, but the feeling of fear became much bigger when I discovered it was a corpse of a teenager, around two years older than me (I'm about 12), which was missing an arm that had seemed to had fallen off not so long ago before its death, he didn't get murdered, he has been frozen to death by the low temperatures. Now everything made sense, the signs, they were warning me. The dark redish color from the tree hand marks and the other signs, it was frozen blood.

I had to get out of there, but not yet, Fluffy was still here, but I noticed something... I knew he (the teenager I found dead) had died freezed, by the extreme cold of the woods, but it's skin tone... It was all pale, as expected, but as soon as I saw my own hand, I had to compare. My skin tone and his were very similar, I was all pale, so was this my destiny as well? Was I going to die frozen away in this woods?

And my over thinking was interrupted once again, but not by a sudden hope, but by an old friend. Fluffy appeared, he was under my hand, shivering and freezing.

"Fluffy..! Oh gosh, I'm glad you're ok..." I said, with a trembling voice, which either was by the happiness or by the cold. I noticed I could barely talk properly as well. I rised him and I started carrying him all the way back to... Where? Where was I going? I wasn't going anywhere, I was running in circles around the white woods, blinded by a giant white fog caused by extreme force that the snow was falling with.

Walking felt like hell, I couldn't move any longer than half a step without the infernal damage that the cold was causing to all my body, not to mention how moving any limb and joint of my body felt heavier than it had ever been. Fluffy jumped off my arms, falling to the snow, where he moved in circles for three seconds and lyied in te ground, falling asleep. Maybe we didn't have to get out of that woods, the cold was infernal, yes, but home felt unsafer. I sat next to him, feeling I could not feel any heat from his body, my temperature would be around -26. It was near, and just happened.

I felt how my heart just stopped beating.

It was completely frozen.

My heart stopped.