Snow seems so carefree as each flake floats down onto the next to create beautiful white scenes. There I was again watching the snowfall, I was sitting on the stairs outside of the doorway into our cozy one-story house with my mother who was shoveling the snow. As I looked down at my small red hands I remembered I left my mittens at school, but my hands didn't feel cold. I held then up to the sky and watched as the snowflakes touched my hand just to disappear into water that instant, but the snow didn't bother my hands. "Mom, why aren't my hands cold?" I asked from the concrete doorstep. She looked up surprised and said "They have gone numb, now go get your mittens before you get frostbite. "
Numb... I thought
I woke up to the feel of ice water being thrown onto me and that ice chill racing all along my body before making a small pool on the floor. The water and air mixing along my skin made every nerve in my body quiver with chills, but I gave little reaction to this except to open my eyes and look through the hair sticking to my face to see the two men all in black.
The chills continued up and down me as the air flowed continually as if to urge it on, but I was fine. The first man was bigger and older than the first man although I could only see his eyes I could tell because they were hard and sure, while the second man had a cool look in his eyes but it still had that young excitement. Both were well built although the older one was slightly taller and rougher.
The second man shook me, probably because he thought from my reaction I was still unconscious. I looked up at the two men to their surprise completely calm, indifferent, and collected.
"What's your name?" the younger one barked.
There it was the tingling feeling of the cold taking over and freezing all of your nerves until there is nothing. No feeling. Just. Numb.
He slapped me across the face for not answering quickly enough, I guess. It did not really matter either way to me it was just nothing, but I complied anyway. I looked back at them through my hair with the same composure as before but this time the stare was empty like no one was home.
"Winter," I said innocently, "or at least that's what some call me." I shrugged and ripped my ankles out of the duct tape that held them to the legs of the chair in an instant. Before they even realized what happened I brought up my knees to my chest and shot them right back out slamming onto his chest and sending the younger one back onto the floor. As the older one approached me I tore the duct tape around my wrists which held my arms along the back of the chair. I brought them around to my chest and just as he got to close for comfort I threw a fist casually like it was muscle memory which hit him straight on the nose sending a spray of blood onto his face. He stumbled backward with the pain while clutching his nose. I stood up and felt nothing different.
I just saw the door across the room when the younger one stood up again after he recovered from my kick. He charged at me with his fists stretched out ahead of him. I just stood there seeing that he was obviously inexperienced. As his fist got close to me I caught it and ducked under him bringing his fist with me. His momentum carried him until he was almost tripped over me but I pushed up on his abdomen with my back from under him, letting go of his fist, flipping him over me and slamming back-first onto the floor. He was left lying on his back on the floor unconscious.
I barely slowed down before charging at the older one. I noticed I was slower than usual and wondered if they had drugged me. I jumped onto his shoulders wrapping my legs around his neck in a deadlock. He clawed at me to get off but my grip was unyielding. His face turned blue and he stopped fighting me before dropping onto the ground dead.
It wasn't until then that I noticed I was in a pink dress. I tried to remember what happened, but flashes of somebody else's life came to me instead. I had visions of memories from a girl named Elizabeth Vassey, daughter of the distinguished Vassey family. She was kidnapped and held here for a week before dying because of the cruel conditions, but why did I have a dead girl's memories.
Wait. I looked at myself in a puddle of ice water on the floor and didn't see my own reflection but saw the reflection of Elizabeth Vassey.
"Well isn't that just great."