The Snow That Night

Prologue -- Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time.... 

Hold on, don't all of our stories start with 'once upon a time?' Maybe it's time to change it a bit. Then again, 'once upon a time' is the best way to start a story, isn't it?

So once upon a time, there was a small village amongst the high mountains and the deep fog. There lived a group of mysterious people, the Prophets. They guided the villagers into today's peace and harmony. Although the village had known about the horrible wars going on outside the village, away from the high mountains, they decided to completely ignore the inhumanities in the outside world.

Well, today is the once in a life time ceremony to foresee who will be the next heir. Heir, being, king of the world, or you could say, the Chosen One, or whatever you may say. The one with the power to shake the world, to strip it of its powers, or even, destroy it. 

There's more to it of course, the heir must go through the series of tests before they can claim the world, 

The Prophets gathered at the peak of Mt. Snowcap. Mt. Snowcap is the series of mountains and the hills that surrounds the village, providing safety. Although it is called Mt. Snowcap, the weather there is unpredictable. Sunny one second and pouring rain the next. It is the one thing that the Prophets couldn't foretell.

They all stood around the well in the middle of the peak. As if waiting for something to happen.

It started snowing. The puddle of water also seemed to react. Colors blended in, becoming more vivid, until the full reflection of the sky appeared.

Nothing happened.

It was just a reflection.

Does that mean there wouldn't be an heir anymore? Or is it just that their chants aren't working? Or maybe even they're slowly losing their powers?

They're wrong.

Now, if you look at the reflection one more time, you could see the wind blowing the clouds away, uncovering the perfectly rounded moon. 

The moon looks just exactly as always. Big, round, yellow, like any other time they hosted the ceremony.  But that's just the real moon in the high sky.

This ceremony isn't like any other ceremony.

Because in the reflection, the moon is red.

The kind of red that seemed to be able to dye the world into the colors of hell.

It also seems to be affecting the falling snow.

Which turned bright red.

Bloody red.

 ......

Yes, a bloody moon and bloody snow could be quite a twist to the ceremony. The last time something like this happened was just about 100 years ago.  It was a special case back then; the prophecy had been announced that there will be more than one person fighting for the power. In the end, both sides had terrible losses and died along the battlefield. Ironically, both candidates were fighting with bear arms and accidentally stepped on a bomb that took both of their lives,

This event was known as the 'Family Feud', since they were both the descendants of a wealthy power. The 'Family Feud' had caused what was a city back then to shrink to a village, and amazingly the mountains that surrounded it had somehow closed around the small village now over the years, rounding it in just the right amount of space.

What's the difference with the images was that the moon only looked bigger in the reflection 100 years ago; the Prophets had never seen something as to the color change of the moon.