It looks like a castle. Such were my words as I gasped at the mega-structure approaching me. Well, approach is a wrong word to use in this context, since the structure didn't move, instead I was moving towards it. I was in bus, though it was quite small compared to the standard buses I was used to back in the city. It was more like a larger van, a "traveller" as the local people might call it.
It was the descent. We were descending down the ever so great mountain of... I forgot the name. It was something about a bird, or was it an animal? My memory seemed compromised. Well, partly because of the fact that my eyes had landed on it. It was mesmerizing, hypnotic even. Like a maiden dressed in a white gown with snow covering her lashes. No. It wasn't a cover, they were snow itself. Yes. A bride. A deity. An existence greater than humans.
"WAKE UP!" The words rang through my ear. They were loud, very loud. As if to wake someone from a trance. I looked around. I was still on the bus. It seemed to have stopped moving.
"Well, you had me worried for a second." It was my dad. Perhaps it was the experience he had built over the years, or maybe because I was his blood. He could see right through me. A divine ability, it appeared to me.
"So, you like your new maiden, I take it." He said with a smirk. Yes. He saw through me again.
"What? No, I didn't think of this building as a maiden." I replied as if I didn't spend an entire paragraph describing what might seem nothing more than a snowy panorama to most people. Oh, how fragile was my ego.
"I never said anything about the building being the maiden." Oh no. I had blundered. I was no match for the old man. He seemed to have predicted each of my moves until now. No, he was the player and I was just a pawn in his game. I had let myself be played and there I sat beside him with the defeat he had just bestowed upon me. In his eyes, I was nothing more than a guy who fantasized about buildings; mere structures of concrete were enough to arouse me.
"What's with the grim face?" He asked, completely oblivious to my inner turmoil, or perhaps he was.
"You don't like your maiden?" He was aware of everything!
"Enough with the maiden thing, dad!" I retorted.
"My bad, you are just too adorable to not tease." He sure seemed to having fun, so much fun I thought he might explode. Satirizing his very own seventeen-year-old kid on his very first day to college, just what sort of sadism was this!
My first day. College. Anxiety. Excitement. Joy. A new stage in my life. I can be a new person here. No. I will become a new man. Confident. Bold. Forward. A sudden spark of life ignited within my body. I could tell; dad could see my confidence. He seemed proud. I stood up in a jolt, ready with excitement to unload my baggage. ACKKK! I hit my head on the rail of handbags at the top. It hurts. So much for a fresh start. Dad seemed to be suppressing his laughs. I didn't say anything to him.
I got off the bus. A castle. No maiden but a snowy castle. Yes. A castle beyond clouds. It was just like that. It was quite hard to believe such buildings were still being made in this modern age. Not that it had any sense of traditional architecture but the slanting roofs covered with powdery snow and the dense arrangement of various buildings seemed to give the impression of a residence of a monarch all the way back in the Edo period of Japan. This was to be my home for the next four years. I was excited at how my life would unfold in this new place. As we stood in front of the main gate to the campus, I took a deep breath. I took my first step in.
People. Lots of people. I can't move. My legs. They are shaking. This sudden unease. What's happening? It feels familiar yet, I seem to have no memory of it. My vision feels blurry. My stomach. It feels sick.
When we get sick, our body's immune system puts up all of it's strength to fight the foreign invader. All of it's strength. Result of which is the weakness we often feel while recovering or just after an illness. Needless to say, it causes a lot of strain for the body. To do it from scratch would be highly inefficient, so our cells remember the illness. Our body remembers our trauma.
Anxiety. Lots of anxiety. Cold. Cold gazes. They are looking at me. Smiles. Diabolical smiles. They are laughing at me. I'm being laughed at. A subject of joke. Fear. I can't. My throat feels dry. This is not possible. Please. Help. It's too much. I want to go back!
"I'm scared." I called out to dad. His hands were already on my shoulder like a warm embrace. He once again saw through me. You all seeing sadistic old man. He had a smile, a peaceful one for that matter, it wasn't like the rest. It was calming.
"This is your story, right?" He asked. His voice with warmth of the sun on a chilly winter morning. I could just nod. I could feel my body relax. Just his gaze was enough to have this therapeutic effect on me.
"Be its writer then. Let them laugh if they laugh at all at you. Each of them is being the writer of their own story. They don't seem to mind if they're being laughed at. Then why should you?" It doesn't work like that. I wanted to tell him but each of his words were spoken in such a manner that I could not help but reassure myself with it. I looked at him. I can do this maybe. And so, I walked towards the haphazardly made reception desk at the end of large central park of the sort with the hopes of a fulfilling college life.
How naïve I was.
It was the middle of the night. Well, it was 2:32 a.m. My room. Dad had left early in the evening, wishing me good luck as our final bid. I couldn't sleep. I didn't know the reason. It was definitely not that I missed dad. What am I? A grade schooler. In fact, much like dad said, I immediately found people I could relate with and vibe with. It wasn't difficult at all. By the time he left, it seemed I have known these people for ages even though we've met just this morning. My only roommate, in a room of two, was already asleep.
After spending another thirty minutes changing positions, flipping pillows, counting sheep and what not. I decided to take a "late night stroll" through the campus. I sneaked out of the room making sure to make no noises. Minutes later, I was out of my dorm. It was pitch black. Not exactly pitch black, but the white mountains which I could see in the morning had converted themselves into a pitch black canvas with tiny beads of lights marking places of residence of the locals.
It was quiet. Awfully too quiet. I started to walk without a purpose to different places wherever the trail running through would lead me. Even for its remote location, the campus was still quite well lit. I wondered how much thought someone had put into actually making this place livable. It was habitable, sure. But to come up with measures to transform this terrain of a land into an education hub, that must have required a lot of brains.
It was the park. A circular central park. The same where I was in the morning. I don't know why I returned there. I didn't want to come to this location in particular, though. I looked at my watch. 3:13 a.m. It felt different, though. The air felt heavy and there was this strange chilliness in the air. I was starting to feel uncomfortable. Then, I saw her.
Her. A girl. She was older than me, maybe by a year or two. She was pale. Very pale, in fact. As if her skin was trying to mimic the snow. The complexion of snow. A white gown adorned her. A dress for a wedding. A ceremony. And there she stood, the bride. Her long eyelashes shone in contrast to the pitch black background. The eyelashes. They glimmered and sparkle. They were made of snow. She seemed familiar.
"I-" I tried to call out. My throat hurts. I couldn't speak. Why? I got this strange metallic taste in my mouth. Like blood. It was blood. I coughed, the crimson liquid splurging out of my mouth. It didn't take me long to realise. My vocal chords. It was due to them. I tried to move. I couldn't. My limbs wouldn't obey. I looked at them.
Frostbite. A type of tissue damage that occurs when the skin and underlying tissues freeze due to exposure to freezing temperatures. There are various degrees of it. The most severe being when the tissue turn black due to cell death. If such a case occurs, the only course of action would be to perform an amputation on the affected limb. My limbs were black as charcoal. Not just my limbs, like a poison, the bite seemed to spread. It was reaching my torso.
Confusion. Panic. Death. I was about to die. She was still there. Her eyes were cold. My chest was starting to feel numb. I could feel the bite reaching my neck. What an ugly life. Such a sad end. I wonder what dad might feel. Not that I could comprehend much, anyway, now. It had reached my head. All that was left was my vision. Her eyes. The last thing I saw. They were cold.