SYND.

SYND. - Prologue

The winds of winter howled through the dense forest, tiny granules of snow swirling up from the earth, caught in the frosty breeze. The branches of the trees rustled and whispered to each other, the deep green of their leaves hidden beneath the white of the ice. The orange glow of the rising sun began to beam its way through, filtering between the trunks of the trees, against the morning blue sky. Despite the gust, it was shaping up to be a perfect morning for Charlie Harris to go ice fishing.

He hooked his pack over his shoulder again. It kept slipping off as he walked. Every few steps, he would have to stop and adjust it. It was getting really annoying. He couldn't complain though. His dad trailed behind, somehow carrying the rods and the tackle box and the lunch box. Although it wouldn't be lunch by the time they got to the ice. The sun would still be on its way up against the blue sky. It would be more like breakfast. So it was a breakfast box. He chuckled at that, his breath a cloud of fog in front of his face. His laugh echoed through the trees and against the wind. Not another sound to be heard. Apart from the snow crunching under his yellow boots. He had accidentally left his favorite blue boots on the patio overnight, and they had been sodden come morning. So he had to wear his yellow ones. They didn't have the little cartoon deer on them, but they would do the trick.

Charlie sniffed and wiped his nose with his mittens as he moved through the forest. He looked up. The trees towered over him, the sky almost blocked out by the branches of the great pines. The branches tangled together, creating shapes where he could look through and see blue against green. A square. A triangle. A funny diamond sort of shape."Watch yourself Charlie."He looked back down in front of him, his boots slipping a little on the snow. He had almost walked straight into a tree, its trunk wider than he was tall."Oops," he said with a giggle, looking over his shoulder. His dad laughed back and shook his head. "You're lucky we're meeting your uncle John there and not coming down from his cabin again."Charlie's uncle lived further up the road, in a wood cabin on the edge of the forest. It overlooked the lake from up on a ridge, one that he had almost tumbled down the last time, fascinated by a woodpecker that he had tried to get close to. He had not seen the crack in the rocks and caused everyone a great deal of stress. His dad always told him: don't look back, always look where you're headed, right in front of you and one foot after another. But he never remembered. He was far too curious to only look in one direction. Then he would never have seen the woodpecker.

Charlie swapped his pack to the other shoulder. The strap was beginning to annoy him. But he couldn't complain. It was filled only with a comic book, his bottle of juice and some candies he had sneaked in there, leftover from Halloween. Although he wondered exactly how he would sneak them into his mouth. Sitting there with his dad, uncle John and uncle John's friend Kenneth, everyone would see. He scrunched his hands in his mittens in frustration. He really wanted the caramel. He would have to eat it before they got there. Yes, that was it.Charlie looked back at his dad. He stepped over a gnarled root, lifting the rods and tackle box above his waist so they didn't get caught on the tree. He held the breakfast box in the other hand. Charlie knew there would be something delicious in there. It might be egg and bacon sandwiches, filled with ketchup and wrapped in tin foil. Or better yet, it could be his mum's homemade choc-chip and banana muffins. But the thought of them couldn't change his mind.Charlie turned to his right, his yellow boots moving quick across the white snow. He didn't have to run much. Just to get far away enough from his dad to unwrap the candies and swallow them before he found him.

"Where you going Charlie, the ice is this way," he heard his dad call to him. He looked back and could see him craning his neck to spot him through the trunks. His breath fogged. His boots crunched. His mouth watered at the thought of the caramel. He had come far enough.He stopped and crouched on one knee. He set his pack down and unzipped the front pocket, reaching a mitten inside to scoop out the candy."Charlie!"

He struggled to unwrap the red foil through the wool. He exhaled in anger and pulled off the mittens. His hands were cold in the breeze. It didn't matter. He got the caramel free and popped it into his mouth. He dropped the red packet on the snow. It stood out against the white. Charlie looked ahead of him. Something else stood out against the ice.A deep pool of red. Steam rose up from it in the cold. No trails lead to it, nor away from it. Charlie didn't understand. He looked around. Nothing. No injured deer. No injured anything. He looked back at it, fixated. He moved closer. A haze still floated above it. He thought he could smell it, almost like metal. Almost like the coins in his collection at home. A droplet fell into the pool, rippling the crimson. He heard his dad's frantic footsteps behind him and turned."Charlie, what are you...". His dad stopped dead in his tracks, trailing off in his words, his eyes fixed upwards. Charlie looked up.

A woman hanged above him in the trees. Her arms were outstretched, each hand nailed to a separate trunk. A rag blindfolded her, another stuffed in her mouth. Her face hung forward. Two deer antlers had been impaled into her head, blood dripping down her cheeks and neck onto her chest and breasts. The lines of red trailed down further. The woman had been cut in half at the torso, the laceration rough and jagged across her stomach. Her entrails hung down, swaying in the breeze, filling the pool below, drop by drop. Charlie froze. A shiver ran itself down his spine, though he didn't feel it. He didn't feel the cold on his cheeks. He didn't even feel his father snatch him up and drag him away. He could hear him yelling for help, his deep cries echoing through the wood. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight above them.

And the wind howled on.