Reborn

4 - An Ancient Evil

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Panting, Elsa ran up the gates. She stood there for a moment to catch her breath. Running a hand through her mostly dried hair, she frowned.

Images were flooding through her mind. Memories coming back. Memories of what happened when the wave knocked her into the sea.

Why did I suddenly lose my powers? And, I thought mermaids didn't exist. Why did one appear to me? Why did it touch me? And what the heck was that picture I saw of my mother in a storm? What the heck was those other images?

Pushing open the castle's gates, Elsa ran through the courtyard, throwing all royal protocol to the wind. She wanted to go see Anna and tell her what happened out at sea. Sprinting up the steps, she suddenly remembered something.

It was the sixth anniversary of her parents death.

The mermaid had shown her an image of her mother during a storm.

Was I seeing the storm out at sea that killed them?

As she opened the door and entered the palace, she suddenly had a sense of foreboding. Something wasn't right. She shook her head. You're just being silly after what just happened, she scolded herself.

A scream pierced the air.

Shrill.

Full of terror.

And she instantly knew who it belonged to.

"Anna!" she gasped and ran up the stairs. Fear for her sister propelled her forward. Where is she? What's wrong?

Someone burst out of a room, yelling Anna's name.

Kristoff.

He caught sight of her. "Elsa, have you-?"

"No, I haven't," Elsa replied. "Do you have any idea where she is?"

He frowned as he tried to remember. "She said something about the attic earlier." Before he finished that sentence, Elsa had turned and began running up the stairs two at a time. Her earlier sense of foreboding intensified as her mind conjured a million of possibilities in the space of a second of what could possibly have happened to her little sister.

Reaching the attic door, Elsa burst through it without bothering to stop.

Panting, Kristoff came to a stop beside her. "Anna?" he called out.

Elsa felt a chill in the air. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep warm.

A lantern was hanging on a hook. It's flame was still burning brightly, lighting up the attic. It was eerily quiet. Not a sound or any other sign that somebody had been up here in the last little while. No footprints in the dust on the floor. Nothing except -

- for the the small wooden box lying on the floor, appearing as if it had just been dumped there.

Elsa bent down and tentatively picked it up, taking in the carvings of Arendelle and of her and Anna when they were little girls. "What's that?" Kristoff asked, peering over her shoulder.

"Something my father had made for me and Anna when we were little," Elsa said softly, her voice full of awe as memories filled her mind. Taking a deep breath to focus, Elsa looked around the attic again. "Anna? Are you in here?" she called out. Her voice echoing around the attic was the only response. Part of Elsa began to wonder if this was some sort of sick joke that Anna was playing on them with Olaf. But Elsa immediately dismissed it. Anna and Olaf would never play this sort of prank on them. Ever.