Frozen Heart (Dark Side of Fairytales Collaboration)

Chapter Nine

ANNA AND KRISTOFF took a bit longer than they had expected but eventually, they reached Elsa's location. They arrived at the bottom of the North Mountain and Kristoff abruptly halted the horse and dismounted.

"Are there wolves again?" Anna inquired.

"No. But this place here... it's empty."

Anna pans her eyes to the open area of a spacious snowy ground. Nothing was out of the ordinary except the ominous feeling she felt since their arrival. While her companion stood in astonishment, Anna happened to have gazed upon what was ahead and caught what she pondered as a flawless staircase made of ice.

"Look! Kristoff!" She urged the horse to move towards the staircase.

"It's a castle made of ice!" Kristoff exclaimed. His eyes confirmed his weird behavior in the empty space below. She turned the village into an ice castle!

Anna put on a small smile, beguiled by the creation of her sister. They ascended the stairs. Upon reaching the ice door, Anna turns to Kristoff. But before the former could even deliver her reason, he preceded her, "I know, I know. You want to speak to her alone. I'll stay here and guard in case the duke's men arrive."

She smiled. "Thank you."

But as Anna proceeds to knock on the door, her knuckle suddenly froze in the air as memories of their childhood flashes into her mind. She gulped before taking a breath in. Now is not the time for my hesitations.

KNOCK! KNOCK-KNOCK! KNOCK!

Her knuckle did four knocks using the same pattern as she always does. In an instant, her heart thumped and she felt like it fell on the floor when the double ice door cracked open before her face. She was taken aback.

"Ha! It opened! That's a first."

Anna advanced inside the ice castle. The outside appearance was dazzling and captivating enough to awe people but seems like not everything beautiful on the outside could also be said the same on the inside.

If it was other people, they'd have run away in a panic already, screaming in horror.

For who wouldn't?

The very walls of that castle had frozen corpses inside whose faces are covered with red ice crystals.

Anna scoffs and utters in utmost sarcasm, "Was she fed up with spikes and diminished them by just using normal ice crystals?"

"Indeed."

The voice startled Anna. It came from the stairs.

Anna lifted her eyes and the sooner she meets the new version of Elsa, her jaw dropped open.

"Elsa! You look beautiful!" she effusively complimented.

The queen thinly smiled, her heart was warming up that Anna complimented her dark appearance, maybe because all the spikes on her face disappeared at that moment.

"Really? I don't scare you?"

"What? Scare me? Why would I be afraid of you? You're my sister."

A tear glided down Elsa's cheek and instantly froze. But instead of greeting her sister with open arms, Elsa returns upstairs.

The confused Anna bravely followed her. The second floor of the castle looked even more disturbing for the rest of the bodies of the villagers were decorated there. Anna merely screeches when she came close to a wall and gets face-to-face with a corpse inside it.

Not only was that the most alarming part; the flawless floor actually contained women and children, curled up like fetuses, faces all covered in red ice crystals. Anna then noticed and realized that all the corpses decorated on the walls and pillars were all men.

Anna's reflection was interrupted when Elsa spoke to her. She was standing by the balcony door, distant from her. "Anna, you have to go now before anything bad happens to you."

"What? No, Elsa, I'm not leaving without you," she firmly declared. "I told our people that I will bring you back."

"And why would I want to return? For what? To be executed? You saw what I did back there! I literally set off an eternal winter everywhere. Do you really think that our people would still welcome me back after I killed their families?"

The princess was taken aback when Elsa's eyes glowed as she uttered those words. Apparently, Elsa too was shocked to see how fear registered on Anna's face.

Anna refused to accept it. She too saw Elsa's blood-red eyes during their confrontation with the duke. But she turned a blind eye. She suppressed the truth by thinking that Elsa would never harm anyone.

"So, you are afraid of me."

"N-no, Elsa. I---"

"Just stay away from me!" she bellowed.

The princess was stilled. She promised herself that she would bring back Elsa and she was not going to give up!

Despite her fear, Anna stretches her lips and smile. "I-I'm not afraid of you, Elsa. And I w-will never be afraid of you. I-I just want us to be together again."

"Can't you see? We can't! Not when I'm a monster like this."

"That's not true! You're not the monster here!"

"Yes, I am," Elsa admitted. "Whatever you'll have to say will do nothing good. I've made up my mind, Anna. I will end everything here before my frozen heart takes everyone in the kingdom."

Anna's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "F-frozen heart?"

Elsa apologetically nodded. "It's my heart, Anna. Fortunately, I was able to step out before she could do anything. I can't stop her from taking more lives. She's always hungry and I can't control it. She wants more human warmth."

"Elsa... I-I'm confuse."

Suddenly, Elsa began to scream before she could even answer and she held her head. She felt excruciating pain from underneath her skull as though something was emerging from it.

"Elsa, what's wrong? W-why are you screaming?" The terrified Anna rushed to aid her sister but was pushed away before she could even come close.

"Stay back!"

The ice crystals and spikes reappeared on her head and face, her eyes turning blood-red. When she turns back to Anna, her demeanor had changed.

"My dear sister, do you still think we're beautiful?"

Anna was dumbfounded. "I-I don't understand."

A playful grin plastered on the queen's lips. "A pleasure to finally meet you, Princess Anna."

"Y-you're---"

"Elsa's dark side? Her frozen heart? Indeed... and my name is Queen."

|||

Voxciera