HOME
[hom] noun
a gathering place for FAMILY to join together in laughter. the one place you will always be surrounded by those who LOVE you. a place or feeling of BELONGING.
the frosts - the story of a family ripped apart. the story of two teenag...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win." - Stephen King
❆❆ ➳ ❆ ❆
The silence was deafening.
The shackles rubbed his ankles raw, the metal biting at his skin. The floor was cold and hard, but he was already accustomed to it. His body was numb. He could feel himself slipping away into oblivion.
Jack wasn't sure how long he'd been chained up. Minutes. Hours. Days. Time seemed to stand still in the dungeons of the Witch's castle.
The two boys sat on opposite ends of the cell. Jack fixed his gaze on Edmund, who refused to meet the older boy's eyes. They hadn't spoken a single word to each other since Jack was chained up, only minutes after Edmund.
Jack wondered if Jadis would enlist him to do her dirty work. If she would force him to be as cruel and heartless as he once was. If, as the price for his failure, Edmund would die at the hands of a boy not much older than himself.
A part of him still reasoned that as the right thing to do.
"Why did you do it?"
Edmund tore his eyes away from the ground, meeting Jack's glare at last. He seemed startled by the question, as if he'd expected the silence to last forever. "Do what?"
Jack rolled his eyes, exasperated at the boy's ignorance. "Why did you come here?"
"I was tricked."
Edmund let his gaze fall back to the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest. He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, keeping his face turned away. He hugged his legs even tighter, though Jack wasn't sure if it was to keep warm or if it was the only way he could convince himself he was still there. That it was all still real.
Perhaps it was both.
All at once, Jack saw the truth. He saw Edmund for who he really was. He wasn't someone who deserved to die. He wasn't a traitor. He wasn't even really a bad person.
He was just a boy.
He couldn't kill Edmund. He wouldn't. He would honor his promise and protect the boy with his life.
It was the least he could do.
Sighing, Jack slowly slid over to Edmund until the two boys were side by side. He tentatively reached his hand out towards the younger boy. When Edmund didn't recoil, he wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer. It was an act that both boys would normally have found quite undesirable.
But in that moment, neither of them cared.
"I promised your family that I would keep you safe," Jack whispered, "And I'm making that same promise to you now."
