Suteta - (Akatsuki fanfic)

Prologue

"M-mama...? Mama, w-where are you?" The toddler cried weakly as she clutched her teddy bear for warmth.

Since today was supposed to be the last warm day before the snow, the girl and her mother planned on spending it together. On their way home, her mother ran ahead and she couldn't keep up, soon left behind in the middle of nowhere. Did her mother even realize she wasn't with her?

Where am I? She had been walking lost and scared for hours, calling for her mother and getting no response. Snow had been falling for so long it was up to her waist; and she wasn't nearly as tall as other kids her age. It probably wasn't as cold to her as it should have been. For the most part she couldn't feel the cold like she did at first. There was a word she once heard used for describing not being able to feel anything, but she couldn't remember it right off.

The forest had become dark and bone-freezing cold and the light clothing she wore wasn't helping her either. Each brush of it against her body only seemed to make her even colder. So much so her tears began turning to ice crystals.

A patch of ice hidden beneath the snow caused the toddler to slip and fall backward. Her head met something hard and she let out a weak yelp. She rolled to her knees then frantically scrambled for her stuffed toy in the thick snow. Its absence quickly caused her to shiver violently. Once again she held it tight, but the warmth that had been there before was gone now, drown by snow, and it wasn't coming back.

It was getting darker and the girl felt light headed. Leaning against a tree she sank up to her neck in the snow and curled into a ball, not knowing of the consequences of resting in such weather. Before it got completely dark she saw something red dripping on her arm, briefly warm before becoming crystals of ice. And it specked the snow from where she previously hit her head. What was it?

Now she couldn't even see the glint of the snow before her. She held a hand in front of her eyes, and she didn't even see that. She shook her head, trying to shake away the strange dull pain. But it only made her tired. The toddler curled even tighter, pulling her knees to her chest. She could barely feel the plush of her teddy bear brushing against her face with the snowflakes clinging to the fabric. She closed her eyes and slowly fell asleep. She could only fight it back for a minute. It wasn't long before her mind began blurring and erasing thoughts, as well as the image of her mother darting ahead and not looking back as her small daughter cried out to her. ...Mommy...c...come back......