Winters Child

Prologue
If I had to tell my story, I dont think theres a clear place to start.
Perhaps, we could begin in the forests of my youth, where it was forever winter. I
was a wild one, a child of wood and bark. I dont really know where I came from,
but I dont think it matters in the grand scheme of things. As far as I know, that is
the only time I was truly happy when I was in ignorance: I ran with the wolves, I
sang with the larks, and I danced on the ice and that was enough.
I never marked my birth, so I dont know how old I am. Time wasnt a concept
that I understood, still dont not really. But I was somewhere in my
prepubescence. Things were welling up inside me like hot tar, sliding and
pushing through my veins like a force to be reckoned with. I hunted for more
than just food I hunted for pleasure. I took pleasure in dominating the weaker
forces of the forest, and elation in outwitting the stronger. I sharpened my skills
against anything the forest could throw at me.
Once, when the snows were still, I happened upon a strange creature covered
in fur. The mass of it so staggering that every time it put its paws in the ground, I
could feel the Earth shudder. It looked at me, through feral eyes and bared its
teeth rows upon rows at a time. Its snout was hideously pointed and matted
with blood from gorging on its previous kill, a smaller creature with dark, starry
eyes frozen in surprise and terror. The animal-monster smiled a crooked smile,
and behind its eyes I could sense intelligence. For the first time I felt fear. It was
like icicles crawling through my body, tinkling and making a most obnoxious
sound. It seduced me and whispered to me to move back. But at the same time
it froze me to the spot.
I could not tell you when the creatures of the forest began to turn. I knew that
over time, there had been a sour smell in the air, as if a sickness were
descending like a sheet overhead. This was the first time I had encountered its
results. And there it was, fearsome and large and hell-bent on the devouring of
all things. Smiling, crookedly. It reared up on its hind legs, let out a feral shriek
that tore through the air and through my very bones, and with a thundering
boom descended back onto all fours and charged towards me.
Du-dum, du-dum, du-dum.
The drums of its feet pounded in even rhythm. My heartbeat, erratic but
seduced, matched it in halftime. The air hummed with terror. All I could
remember thinking, at that time, was oddly of the splendour of the white sheet
that covered the ground. Soon the crimson blood that was inside me would
spread across the winter, and I would be like a rose in the ground. I saw the
image in my head and resigned myself to the forthcoming.
And that is when she came to me for the first time.
She appeared behind me I sensed her and yet I had no doubt who she was. A
tall creature, in white garments - Hair as black as night, face as pale as snow,
eyes as clear as day. She seemed to not draw breath but looked down at me, eye

over cheekbone and whispered in my head, in a language known only to the

deepest core of me.
Survive.
I dug my heels into the ground, with a vigour that welled from the deepest part
of me and braced myself for the impact. There it was, this black thing, raging
towards me jaw hanging wide open ready to engulf me, intelligence behind its
eyes rabid at the prospect of devouring one of my kind. And I hated it. I hated it
with all my might, with all the warmth I could feel from my centre and I wished it
dead.
Impact.
Beast and I entangled in a deathly grip rolled onto the ground. My hands latched
onto its jaws and pulled apart with a force I never knew I had. The intelligence of
its eyes confused at my sudden paroxysm of power and strength, began to
wildly will the beast into a fury. It scratched with its mighty paws at my hands
and arms but I would not relent. Blood running down my fingers where its claws
tore into my flesh, where its teeth bore into fingers as it tried to clamp its strong
jaws shut.
But in me, a silence. No shooting sense of pain at my mangled fingers and
forearms. Just stillness and hate, and the feeling of the womans eyes on me:
watching. I set into my sinews and with the strength of my mind, I tore the beast
apart from the jaw.
With its life snuffed out, it went limp in my hands and its blood oozed and
sprayed out onto the ice. I dropped its carcass, and around me I could see the
crimson spread outwards, feeding the hungry ground with colour. Behind me the
woman stood, towering. The corners of her lips edged into something of a smile.
She turned away and faded into the cold.
And I was alone, in my forest, which was drowning in blood. And I panted trying
to catch my breath and understood what had just happened.
That was the first of many times I was visited by Death.
*
I understood that day, that I had been taken hold of by the sickness also. And it
had turned me into something fierce and feral. The wounds on my hands healed
faster than they should have. And soon, all that drew breath began to cower in
my presence. Small creatures would scurry and hide as quickly as they lay eyes
on me. I began to become accustomed to the silence and the loneliness that
filled my days. I began to need food less and less, and hunt less and less, and
experienced the forest growing colder over the ages. Days went into months
went into years, and I grew ever stronger and ever more cold.
I learned more of the Gift Death had bestowed on me that day. In time, it became
apparent that I was the source of the cold, cold winter. I was the ice. The
strength I had experienced that day was not brute force, but I had actually frozen
the beast from the inside and then cloven it in two. I learned that, over time, my
body was freezing over and becoming harder to the touch, such that I could fell
trees with the swing of my arms. My sinews tightened and broadened as I

approached adulthood and time and again Death would visit me to witness for
herself my progress.