Snow. It’s evil and cold. It holds footprints like a harsh and brutal memory and is stained with white like that of a painters hand. It’s everywhere and is slowly falling as the sun goes down.

Up ahead are trees with children building snowmen at the foot of them, smiles printed on their faces as their small bodies shiver from the sharp breeze.

Why? Why so happy?

My heavy legs began to slowly drag across the frozen terrain.

A warm stream of blood dripped from my hands to the ground. My legs were splattered with blood and my face was frozen with fear. I couldn’t think straight.

Why? What’s going on?

Tears welled up in my eyes and ran down my cheeks. My hands curled into sweaty fists. Why? Why can’t I remember anything?

This feeling was unimaginable. I couldn’t breathe. Pain strained my back while I struggled to keep standing.

A sharp, ear shattering pop came from behind me and a child up ahead screamed.

My vision started going blurry as if everything was a haze.

Pop, pop, the noise kept going on and red blood splattered from the wounds of the children, some pleaded for it to stop as others gasped for air. My body trembled as another pop brought me to my knees. My back was pulsing and my heart felt like it was beating out of me.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I looked down, clutching my chest, trying to remember how to breath.

All the children were on the ground, blood seeping into the snow beneath them. Fear was ripped across their faces.

Their eyes had gone cold...

I felt something trickling from my back like a spider. I coughed and out came blood. The snow before me was stained with red like a fully blossomed rose. My lungs tightened and my heart was slowly coming to a halt. The rest of my body fell forward.

The snow kept falling without a care.

Why? Why did this happen?

***

The crunching of snow carried someone to me.

Fear struck me, making my heart jolt . My body was still cold and in pain.

It was dark out and no stars twinkled in the sky to give me hope.

This is it. It’s all over for me.

I cursed myself, wishing I had just taken a different route home.

“Vlad!”  A voiced called. “I think we’re done here. Let's go before we’re caught.”

Sirens rang out in the distance but I knew they wouldn’t make it in time.

I couldn’t move.

A tongue clicked above me, mocking me. Giving me no reason to live.

Then a voice, but too muffled to understand what was being said.

It was like a whisper in the dark; a harsh poem to give an unwanted chill run down my broken spine.

“Poor girl must of gotten lost on the way home...too bad...wrong place...wrong time.”

The sound of a pistol being loaded came into earshot.

Someone tell me! Why? Why are people so cruel?

From above came the distinct click of the gun’s hammer being pulled back with no hesitation.

What gives you the right to kill innocent's,Strangers, Children!?

I gasped with what little air I could hold in my lungs, drowning in blood, snow and silence.

The only sound left hanging in the dark, dead night was a deafening, lethal crack.  

My soul, with the fragments of my skull, was left scattered in the reddened snow.

One thought now hung in the distance...

Has snow always been this cold?