Gale of Memories

Chapter 16: The Enemy Within

Chapter 16: The Enemy Within

The next memory abruptly came in, and it didn't look like a good one. For one, Jack was holed up in a cave somewhere, with a nice blizzard raging outside. For another, he was clutching his staff and his head rather tightly.

"Jack? What's wrong?" Tooth asked, concern lacing her voice.

"Go Away!" Frost growled out, glaring at a figure standing in the storm beyond the mouth of the cave. Their features were indiscernible in the thick wall of snow.

"You came all the way out here to Antarctica so I wouldn't hurt anybody? Ha. That's cute." The figure's voice was cold and somewhat familiar. It tickled the guardians' minds.

"Who are you anyways?! Why are you in my head!?" Frost cried out, frustrated.

"In your... head?" Bunny had a sinking feeling that that village did more damage to their Jack than they first realized.

"Haha... But you already know, Jackie." The figure stepped into the cavern, and the Guardians couldn't help but gasp in surprise.

He looked like a mirror image of Frost, but instead of white hair, it was black flecked with ash grey, and his eyes were a deep, haunting red that glowed like embers.

Jack sighed, resigning himself to the Guardians learning of him.

"I am Jokul Frosti." He grinned.

"Wait... Jokul... isn't that what some cultures call you?" Tooth puzzled.

"I'm nothing like him." Jack spat quietly.

"J-Jokul?" Frost repeated.

"Yes... I suppose you could say I'm you."

"What, like a split or something?" Frost obviously hadn't been serious about his comment, but the grin that came from Jokul made the white-haired boy startle. "Y-you mean you're seriously a split personality?! I'm really that crazy?"

The Guardians shifted uneasily.

"I'm a bit more than a simple split, boy. I'm your darker side. The side of you that enjoys what you do—killing, reaping, watching that village burn."

"That voice was you!" Frost realized. "That... the fire...?"

Jokul grinned as he formed a flame in his hand. "You mean this?" He shoved it closer to Frost, who flinched away from the heat.

"But I'm winter... No part of me should be able to control flames!" Frost protested.

"I puzzled over that, too, for a little bit. But you know what I realized? That place... that town we burned to the ground... it had a magic of its own—which is why you were corporeal there. In your moment of grief and anger, you absorbed that magic, creating me. And that burning anger and hatred that you harbored towards those villagers? That's what I was formed around. You can go around and pretend to be Mr. Innocent, but I'm the proof that you aren't."

"Y-You're wrong! GO AWAY! I don't WANT you here!"

"And yet you've been begging for companionship for nearly three hundred years. Now that it's finally here, are you really going to shove me away so easily?"

"I'm not like you! I don't take pleasure in watching people suffer." Frost bit back angrily, as ice crept out from his bare feet.

"And yet, you still watched that village burn, didn't you? You let children burn without a second thought."