Terror. A dimension mirroring the living one--but morphed to reflect the imagination of its Overseer. And the current Overseer... has refused to relinquish her power for centuries, tormenting her souls--"terrors"--into becoming... zombies.
Arielle f...
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Though the amount of piled up cars lessened, and the frozen decayed corpses were fewer and more spaced out, the temperature didn't rise and the eerie frosted fog didn't dissipate.
Arielle trudged along with Oscar, at times matching his pace and sharing the road with him, but sometimes preferring to trail behind him and sulk.
She'd never locate Jade in this arctic hell. Not that that was Oscar's fault; but she presumed Jade would be closer to Penelope's headquarters, and not stuck up north where few zombies converged. No, she'd be wobbling about in a city center, once submerged with fire but now clumped with snow and ice and enveloped in a grayish glow. Would Jade survive such a temperature drop? Would any of the zombies? Arielle wanted them all dead, but not Jade. She wanted to end her best friend herself; not find her rotted carcass in a few days, taken over by the cold.
She cringed as she waded past a bulky form of a creature—zombie or normal, she couldn't tell. Of course she didn't actually want to kill Jade, but she felt that it was her responsibility. Maybe that was why Penelope yanked her into Terror. For her to do the deed, to confront her fears—her dead best friend and the truth behind her demise—and have a lighter soul for it. But Arielle's soul wasn't going anywhere, was it? So why would Penelope wish to torture her?
What did I do to her that would make her destroy me like this?
Her teeth clattered and she stuffed her hands under her armpits. She'd thought several times of asking Oscar if they could link their arms, share each other's warmth. But he was on a warpath towards his vague destination, and hadn't slowed down long enough for her to attempt to talk. Her breath was ice, her lungs were ice, her vocal cords... ice. For her to be able to get a few words out, they'd have to stop walking. But then she'd transformed into a snow-man.
More ice.
As if hearing her internal wish for a reprieve, Oscar came to an abrupt halt and sat on the edge of the silver fencing delimiting the freeway from the woods. "I don't get it."
Arielle's eyebrows lurched up, but she winced at the pain the motion incurred. Every hair on her body had caked with ice and sudden movements were like ripping fifty band-aids off her skin. "Don't get what?" She laughed; a croaking sound that was far from pleasant, especially to her own ears. It was malicious, ironic laughter, and Oscar perked up and frowned at her. "What? I don't get any of this shit, so forgive me if I have no sympathy."
"What I don't get," he gulped, gritted his teeth, and rubbed his thighs to infuse some warmth under his jeans, "is why we're not making any progress." He shook his head. "We're heading north, away from Penelope, away from where I believed the danger was... but it's getting colder. Isn't it? Or am I hallucinating?"
"You're not." She hugged herself and hopped from foot to foot, keeping the blood flowing. She'd definitely noticed that the farther they walked, the more the glacial haze thickened. Her limbs had started off frozen, but still somewhat functional. Now all her fingers were numb, she'd forgotten she had toes, and she could have sworn her internal organs were icebergs. "But isn't that normal? You said it—we're heading north. Wouldn't it be colder up there?"
