I feel an unnatural force lift me up and drag me towards the now very bloody king. Blood blooms in spots on his shirt but he pays no attention to this. Instead he intently focuses on me. He is the invisible hand dragging me across the room.

I can see that Remme is surrounded by armed elves. He looks feral, his face splattered in blood, his hair askew. Claws dripping in blood. I am not sure who I fear more at this moment.

The king grabs my chains in his hands, and pulls me up to his face. This time, he speaks to me in English. “I guess I underestimated the importance of you. Which will make you an even more powerful solstice sacrifice.” I am so close to him, an inch from his chest. I can smell his blood. He discretely smells me. “You smell as if you hold magic. Yet, you look too human.”

I try to remain calm while I am thinking of ideas of how to get out of here. Quick and flexible thinking is critical as a middle school teacher. I balance the feasibility of a few ideas, some more creative than others.

The moment the king looks towards Remme again, as if to try to understand what importance I hold, I sling the chain between my wrists around his throat and yank hard. The king falls as I choke him and I go down with him. Some of the armed elves rush back to us and in this distraction, Remme takes the heads off of the others with his claws.

When one head rolls towards me, I vomit. Directly on the king. The slack I give allows the king to take a breath and I suddenly find myself flying. Just for a moment, before slamming into the stone floor. I lose my breath and it starts to go dark before I can breathe again.

Then the king puts his foot down on me hard, holding onto the chain that he used to effortlessly flip me over him. My body feels as if it is in a million pieces and my ears are ringing. Once I can hear again. The sound of screaming, screams of terror, has overtaken the room. I see another elf head thud down next to me. I see the feet of elves running away from me.

I look up and see the king’s face above mine. He is cursing at me and spits in my face. What a childish action. Then he stabs both of my legs. What the ... ? It is all I can think as the pain rips over my body. My vision is going black again. I can't see Remme. I am losing hope. I will die here. All for some stupid teenager’s emotional support water bottle.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I still can see the creature who plans on sacrificing me to his gods. Losing hope and control, all I am feeling is pain and fury. Then, a sharper anger rises from deep within me. If only I had still had those dinner knives to throw at him I think. Silly, but my mind is single tracked right now.

As if he sees my anger, he pulls up on those chains to make me suffer more. My arms groan as he pulls further than my joints allow, my hands open towards him due to the cuffs pulling up. I am losing focus of the world and can only see the inside of my mind. My cold, dark icy mind.

Suddenly the king releases the chains and stumbles back. I can see there is broken glass - no, ice shards - flying towards him. Some are already buried in his face and chest. He is in shock. I have no time to understand what just happened, if that was my doing. I roll myself ungracefully under a table. I keep crawling under the table, dragging my screaming legs, and somehow I disappear in the chaos of a snowstorm. A very violent snowstorm. A blizzard.

I am so angry at my situation. The pain begs me to just stop and die. It hurts so much. But I can’t. I can’t die here. I can’t die now. All I can think about is the flying ice buried in the king’s face. About the blood spurting out and dripping down on him. How did I do that?

I try again to create ice but instead of thinking about it flying straight, I send it into the blizzard that has formed in this room. As if this room was not a symphony of screams already, I hear piercing screams of pain.

Someone dives under the table right next to me, crashes into me.

“What are you doing?” He screams. Fear, anger, awe. All directed at me.

But I can’t crawl away anymore. I can hardly move or see. I stop thinking about ice and grab on to Remme. I don’t let go.

He moves out from under the table, carrying me in my arms, into the blizzard. We are in the eye of the storm now. It is quiet and warm here. Remme walks out of the grand chamber, down a narrow hall, no one stopping him.

He does not stop once we get out of the lair, until we are further in the forest. I am hardly aware of time. He takes off his fur cloak, wraps me in it, and tucks me next to him in some sort of sled. I don’t even care how we are moving or where we are going. I just know I can’t let go of him as my consciousness drifts.

“How did you get yourself tangled up with an alp king? I suppose you don't realize you were almost their solstice sacrifice.” He sounds like he is talking more to himself than me. I want to say something but I can’t. I’m not even sure this is reality or some horrible nightmare “It's ok. You're safe now, little ice storm.”