inFAMOUS: Winter Solstice

Chapter 5

On our way to Kuo's place, Cole had tried to call her many times. Not once did she pick up. It wasn't like her not to answer, neither was it part of her character to sleep in after sunrise.

Coming up on the door of her apartment, Cole knocked and called her name. There was still no answer and no noise came from inside.

"Maybe she's not here," I proposed.

"Where else would she be besides church?" He clicked a button on his phone and it rang a few times through the speakers. After a few moments, her voice mail engaged once again. Cole groaned and hung up.

I pitched another idea. "Taking a shower?"

"No. In places like this you'd be able to hear the pipes anywhere on the floor." He raised his fist to knock again and seemed to stop with a thought. "And she covered up the window in her bathroom, you know that right?"

"No harm in asking," I shrugged.

Shaking his head he knocked again. "Hey, Kuo! You in there?"

When no answer came again, he reached for the knob of the door. He froze and a shocked expression came upon his face. "Whoa..."

"What?"

"It's cold... Almost frozen."

He took his hand away and I placed my fingers on it. It was as he said. Had it been any colder ice probably would have started growing on it. "Glad I didn't stick my tongue on it..."

"There's definitely something wrong." Cole tried to turn the knob, finding it to be locked. Then he tried ramming his shoulder into the door but it stubbornly refused to budge.

Looking down, I found something just as disturbing as the frozen knob. "Look there, on the floor."

From beneath the door, ice had started to crawl into the hallway, like fingers clawing out of a cage.

"...Shit. That's not good."

Now he took a step back to kick the door down. This time it gave way without dispute.

Inside, Kuo's apartment was completely frozen over and the temperature had seemed to have fallen into the single digits.

"Damn..." I marveled. "Kuo took the Christmas thing a little too far, huh?"

Cole ignored my comment and searched the place for Kuo. We found her in her bed, still and undisturbed.

"Kuo, you okay?" He shook her shoulder trying to wake her up. When she didn't respond he called her name again, turning her to face us.

She wasn't sleeping. But she wasn't dead either. She breathed in uneven shivers, her eyes closed in clear struggle. Kuo being cold was completely unusual, as her natural body temperature had dropped since she had gotten her powers to the point it was easy to mistake her as being dead.

Cole placed the back of his hand on her forehead and said, "She's burning up."

"You mean she's sick?"

"Looks like it, but it's not the common cold." He tried gently shaking her, trying to snap her out of her spell. Nothing he tried worked. She was oblivious to our presence, like some kind of dementia. "What's wrong with her?"

I looked her over. She reminded me of Cole back when he had first gotten his powers—laying in a hospital bed coming down with a fever and shivering before going into convulsions that sent lightning flying every which way. Scared the living hell out of me and Trish. After that he died...but only for a few minutes—just long enough to make us believe he was really gone.