Frozen Fragile Fragments

Chapter 1: Frozen Among the Ivory Plum Blossoms

Why was there a plum blossom tree?

    A young man's thoughts mingle with the quiet atmosphere, completely unspoken. The back of his clothes soaks in liquid from the frigid, mushy lake water under him. Like small hands, the icy water steadily climbs its way up, sending a chill down to his bones.

    Why is it so cold?

    A sigh struggles to escape the boy's lips as his breath turns into a white fog of condensation before his eyes. Though to the boy, it adds nothing to the scenery before him. The sky above holds layers of nothing but clouds in which the clouds tell a forecast of nothing but relentless showers of soft snow.

    Snowflakes flit through the air, falling onto the eyelashes and the tip of the boy's nose. At first soft, before they melt into the skin, paralyzing anything their tiny, frosty hands touch.

    Along with the snowflakes, ivory plum blossom petals float around the sky as they fall, gently laying down around him.

    Where am I?

    The young man tries to move only to feel numbness take over. Now unable to move, he has only the slight movement of his eyes and peripheral vision to take in what is around him.

    White.

    Nothing but endless white invades his field of vision. From the left, white. On the right, White. Above is nothing but white. Even the fallen plum blossoms are white. Everything around him is empty of color, a field of white save his being, which is now almost entirely submerged by the cold, slushy water from below.

    The sound of an ore dragging a wooden boat through icy waters drifts into the young boy's ears from a distance. The movement creates an echo of sloshing water as it becomes the only other sound filling up the frozen air.

    Unable to move, the boy waits for the approaching intruders.

    The sound comes to a stop as the boat slows down near the young man's body. Two figures peer at the boy from above, staring down at him, yet his attention is elsewhere.

    Now in frustration, a sigh freezes in his throat, the coldness freezing everything in his body. His mind becomes entirely lost in his thoughts.

    How did I end up here?

    As those thoughts sink in, the complete loss of sensation from the chilling of his body fully sets in. Now heavy with frost, his eyelashes become too much, and his eyelids slowly close.

    Everything white becomes black.

********

     Light invades the darkness as a young man wakes up from his deep slumber to the loud sound of banging.

    "Khachi!" a young female whines as she bangs on the door to the boy's bed-chamber. "You were the one that wanted to come here in the first place. So, why am I the one waking you up?"

    A yawn escapes Khachi's mouth as he sits up to stretch. Pulling the sheets back, he climbs out of bed. Walking over to the wardrobe, he grabs a light blue shirt and green cargo pants. "Because you, Yesui, are an early bird, while I'm not," Khachi yells over his shoulder as he quickly shuffles to change clothes.

    The young woman rolls her eyes from outside the door as she examines her watch. "Hurry up. The rest of the crew is waiting for you outside." Yesui shouts before turning to leave. The remaining words, "per usual," carry the rest of the message to Khachi's ears without being said.