Reborn

23: Winter's Land

Breaks:

[L1,2 or 3] represents the beginning of a flashback to one of Elena's past lives. There is more than one past life, which is why I have put up the numbers. Though, these memories are usually told as she sleeps and Elena herself cannot remember them.

[/L1,2 or 3] represents the end of a flashback to one of Elena's past lives.

[P] represents the beginning of a retelling of a memory in Elena's current life.

[/P] represents the end of a retelling of a memory in Elena's current life.

~3~ is just a time skip

A/N: My birthday is coming in a few days, so this one will be posted a little early. However- more fluff! Well, after the heavy beats anyhow. Speaking of which, if you guys want to go back to read the memory in full- the rest of it is written in Ch.7 "Amongst You". Enjoy the story!

_

To this day I was still haunted by the aftermath of my first use of portals. It'd been a terribly painful experience to recover from. Even everything that had led up to it.

[P]

A cloud of breath puffed before me with every exhale I made. My skin was numb from the cold of the air. Snow crunched under my feet with my every step.

Desperately I looked at the snow-covered bushes that grew between the trees, trying to find anything that looked familiar. Nothing stood out.

My hands curled up at my chest as I continued on, slowly and uncertainly. Where had the others gone? They'd said that they wanted to play, even appointed me as seeker- a very important role for the game- which wasn't something they'd normally do. Mommy had told me to not be bashful about joining in on games with the others and then they asked me to play.

Of course I accepted.

After I had counted as high as I could- which I could proudly say was actually much higher than anyone else had counted to- I'd set out to search. Hours had passed and now the sun had set. Darkness had begun to creep over the forest and still no one was found. I didn't want to give up, this was the first time they'd invited me to a game and actually played with me for a while before I was asked to be the seeker.

Time however was not on my side. My giving up finding everyone wasn't a choice anymore. I had to get back to Mommy's hut before dark.

Except nothing was familiar. I didn't know where I was. How far in the forest had I gone? Surely it couldn't have been very far as I hadn't seen any of the trees that had been marked with the end of the village boundaries.

A sound caught my attention- a crunch of snow that wasn't mine. I turned in its direction. Through the darkening shadows cast from the thick canopy above I couldn't make out very much at all.

"...hello?" I called out softly, hesitantly. Somehow the air around me seemed dead all of a sudden. It was just as bitingly cold as it had been all day, yet something about the forest suddenly felt off. It made something inside me want to find a place to hide out for the night and stay very, very still until whatever it was had passed.

It felt like something was watching me.

"A- anyone there...?" I asked again, voice dying out at the end as my throat closed up. Body refusing to make any more sound. Instead I listened. Listened hard for anything that could give whatever, whoever, was there away.