Finding Finn Reed

I

I've seen the same man die over a thousand times. I've memorized the exact time and the exact way he dies. There hadn't been a single moment where I gave up, where I decided to just quit. Regardless of how many times I failed, I found him. The phenomenon I called Time Hopping all began when Finn Reed died.

Rainy winter had swept through the town of Intemilly. For the past three years, Intemilly only felt the cold breeze, and nothing more, yet it was the most beautiful thing to touch the forsaken town. I would look out the window, and see nothing but a thick blanket of frost. I would look up at the sky, and see that the sun had abandoned it's post, and in it's replacement, water droplets would fall and freeze before touching the ground. If I looked outside long enough, i'd be mesmerized by how many frozen droplets hit the floor.

I had grown accustomed to the coarse frost that blanketed Intemilly. When the eternal winter began, most of the townspeople evacuated, and went on to warmer towns. My parents were among those townspeople. "Melanie, why on Earth would you want to stay here?" my mother asked. With not much thought put into my response, I said "This is home". And it was true, the cold town of Intemilly was my home. I'd never been outside of the town, but my father told me of other towns, in other worlds. As a child, I dreamt nothing more than to go and visit the other worlds. But growing up and realizing I had to stay, that dream, like Intemilly, froze up and was lost forever. I grew attached to the small town, and everything in it. But the one thing that kept me from leaving, was Finn Reed. The day we met, was the day I had become eternally bound to Intemilly.

It had been roughly a year since the evacuation. Crisp winds were still dancing through the streets, and frozen rain pricked at the air like glass. I lived in the center of Intemilly, in a studio apartment that stood a hundred feet from the ground. I was fortunate enough to live on the highest floor, where you could see the entire town through the window. One fateful night, I happened to be looking down at the town through the giant window that stood across from the entrance door. The snow had never looked so soft before, it coated the streets with a silky appearance. Everybody had been in their house, except for one person. I pressed my hands against the cold window, and glanced down at a nearby park. A tall figure stood there, still as can be. This had stirred my curiosity, nobody was allowed to be out at late hours because the snow storm was at its strongest. However, I ignored regulations and decided to go see who was out so late.

Despite the many layers I had worn, the snow still cut like glass. My apartment wasn't that far from the park, and it was fairly easy to get there. The only challenge was getting there without freezing to death. White lights were hung everywhere, around the trees, on buildings, and through tunnels. The lights always illuminated the town. I followed the lights that led straight to the park entrance. The park was surrounded by a lot of trees and frozen ponds, and through all of that, stood the still figure. The snow had come down hard, and it was difficult to make out the figure. I kept walking, until I was roughly a couple feet behind it. An impulse shot through my body, forcing my arm to slowly approach the figure. But before I could touch it, it spoke.

"The snow has never looked so soft" the figure said. My arm staggered back in surprise. The blurry figure spoke in a faint and dulcet tone, that somehow made the park echo, despite all the snow falling down. "Aren't you cold out here? The storm is coming down pretty hard" I said, nearly shouting over the wind. The blurry figure slowly turned around, and suddenly, everything around us looked illuminated. I paused for a few moments, to get a good look at who I was talking to. The figure was a tall man, who to my surprise, wasn't wearing anything warm. The man before me, bare as can be, stood roughly at six feet, who in comparison with a five foot girl, was a giant. He stood straight, and was very thin. His brown hair seemed to coordinate perfectly with the harsh wind, and his brown eyes pierced into my own.

"This place never feels cold" the man said as we exchanged a smile. "Oh yeah, why's that?" I asked. The man looked around, examined the park, and looked back at me saying, "It's too beautiful to hurt me". His words stuck to me for a long time. I always thought of the snow as being beautiful and painful at the same time, and now it's as if the snow had never looked so nice. For a brief moment, the man looked warm. Whether it had been an illusion, or the real thing, it struck me in awe. I took a step forward, but the man began to walk away, taking the illuminated hue with him, and leaving the harsh snow winds behind. I knew that if I didn't say anything, I would never see him again, so in urge, I yelled out my name, "Melanie Abner!". I paused, in hopes that there would be no silence, and suddenly I heard his voice answer back. "Finn Reed" he replied, and proceeded to walk away. Almost instantaneously, from that day on, winter never seemed to bother me.

After that brief encounter, I saw Finn again, and again, and again. It felt like an event every time. I slowly grew attached to Finn, and he became my bestfriend. There wasn't anything I didn't know about him. Like me, he was an only child, and his parents were also among the townspeople that evacuated. He lived on the outskirts of the town, completely opposite from my apartment. He enjoyed collecting gems from other towns, in other worlds. He told me a story about his visit to another world, and how different it was to ours. "There was less gravity on this planet than ours, and crystals grew in trees" He'd say. Everything Finn said had an impact on my life, because before Finn, it was just me. My own thoughts, my own feelings, and my own experiences. But with Finn, my thoughts became his thoughts, his feelings became my feelings, and our experiences grew together. Finn and I were inalienable, whatever I did, he did.

My life with Finn was about as normal as any other normal life. We lived together, we ate together, and breathed together. Intemilly felt less cold with him. But the day I lost Finn, was the day I met the void.