Winter took the time to freeze, and study the wonder of daily blessings.
Angie Weiland-Crosby:
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"This place…" he muttered under his breath, shaking his head as a chill that had nothing to do with the cold tried to settled deep in his bones. "It truly is strange."
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At one point, he crouched low, attempting to mimic their movements. He dragged his feet lightly across the snow, his posture relaxed and unthreatening. It was a clumsy imitation, but he hoped the gesture might convey that he meant no harm.
Ahead, a small group of the lizards materialized, their glowing red eyes locked onto him with an unsettling intensity—almost as if they understood him. But, just like before, the moment he got too close, they dissolved into the snow, vanishing without a trace.
"Why do you keep running?" he called out, his voice sharp with frustration. The words echoed briefly before being swallowed by the oppressive silence of the forest. No answer came. Only the cold remained, and the gnarled trees loomed above him like spectral sentinels, their twisted branches clawing at the dull, gray sky.
The forest offered no sense of time. There was no sun, no moon—just an endless stretch of pale, leaden clouds that bathed the world in an unchanging, suffocating light.
Despite their elusiveness, the lizards never truly left. Whenever he paused, they would reappear at the edges of his vision, silent and watchful. They lingered in the periphery, always just out of reach, like ghosts haunting his every step. He began to notice a pattern to their movements—a subtle rhythm. It wasn't random. It was deliberate.
A thought struck him, unbidden but persistent: Are they leading me somewhere?
He stopped walking and, for the first time, spoke with more restraint. "Are you guiding me?"
From the shadows, a cluster of lizards emerged, their translucent bodies gliding over the snow like whispers in the wind. They seemed to regard him with something almost like acknowledgment. One of them tilted its serpentine head, its red eyes glowing faintly, and then—it nodded. A slow, deliberate motion that sent a curious thought in his mind. Intelligent?
"Fine," he muttered under his breath, crossing his arms with a resigned sigh. "I'll follow you. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered, lingering like an unspoken warning. Right, he thought. Red flag.
The boy took the lizards' behavior as a sign and pressed forward, his steps crunching softly against the icy ground as he followed their lead. They guided him toward the flickering light deep within the forest, its glow faint but unwavering. A palpable sense of power radiated from the direction of the light—its aura impossible to ignore. And yet, who cared? Without a second thought or even a flicker of hesitation, he pressed on, his nonchalant demeanor completely at odds with the weight of the moment.
The lizards continued their peculiar dance, appearing and disappearing with uncanny precision. One moment, they perched on twisted branches, their translucent forms almost blending into the frost, and the next, they slithered onto icy outcroppings, their glowing eyes fixed on him as if beckoning him forward. He followed without question, strolling through the frozen wilderness as if it were no more threatening than a walk in a park. {AN: Motherfucker, it is not.}
Clad in a black shirt and blue pants, he looked absurdly out of place amidst the stark, frostbitten forest. The biting cold that clung to every surface seemed to ignore him entirely. The frozen wind howled through the trees, but to him, it might as well have been a gentle summer breeze.
Time blurred as he moved deeper into the forest. Minutes? Hours? It didn't matter. The further he went, the more surreal the environment became. The snow seemed to shimmer with an unnatural light, and the frost-covered branches above twisted into impossible shapes, as if the forest itself had been warped by some ancient force.
And then, as he crossed into the forest's innermost depths, the atmosphere shifted. It was as though the air itself had turned hostile. The cold intensified, becoming so extreme that it felt dry—an emptiness that stripped the world of any lingering warmth. This was no ordinary chill. It was the kind of cold that would freeze blood solid in seconds, the kind that would steal the breath from a person's lungs before they even realized what was happening.
The faint, flickering light grew clearer now, though it remained just beyond reach, elusive yet persistent. The world around him grew unnervingly quiet, the stillness so profound it felt alive. Even the lizards, who had been his constant, unblinking companions, halted their movements. They lined the edges of his path, their glowing red eyes fixed intently on him, unblinking and inscrutable.
The silence pressed down on him, heavy and oppressive, amplifying the faint sound of his own breath. He stopped walking, his casual stride faltering for the first time. He stood amidst the frozen tableau, surveying the scene.
The light ahead pulsed faintly, almost like the steady rhythm of a heartbeat. It seemed alive, a presence that beckoned yet warned in equal measure.
And beyond the frost and shadow, he could feel it—something was waiting for him.
As if realizing their eerie tactics weren't enough to deter him, the translucent white lizards launched their attack from every direction. But it wasn't the icy onslaught one might have expected—it was something far more bizarre. A sound-based assault erupted, waves of vibration cascading through the air, each one reverberating with destructive force. The very ground seemed to tremble under the weight of the attack, and the air itself fractured with an ear-piercing resonance.
In an instant, the boy's form shattered like fragile glass, shards flying in all directions, scattering across the snow.
Or so they thought.
Before the lizards could revel in what they believed was their triumph, a voice broke through the fading echoes of their assault—a laugh. The boy stood behind them, completely unharmed, a wide grin curling across his face. Arcs of electricity danced along his arms, crackling like miniature storms waiting to be unleashed.
The lizards froze, their glowing red eyes flickering in confused disbelief. The realization dawned on them too slowly—time they no longer had.
With a sharp crackle, the boy unleashed his power. Millions of volts surged from his fingertips, the lightning arcing toward the nearest lizard. There was no time to react. No cry, no futile struggle. Its body convulsed, then stiffened, before crumbling into a lifeless husk, charred black against the crystalline snow.
He didn't stop.
The remaining lizards, sensing imminent danger, began to scatter, some attempting to vanish back into the shadows. But they never got the chance.
The very air thickened, as though time itself had ground to a halt. Movement ceased entirely, the forest suspended in an unnatural stillness. Frozen in this moment, the boy moved like a force of nature, his hands crackling with lethal energy. One by one, he struck them down with precision, his lightning tearing through their fragile forms before they could blink out of existence.
The once-organized swarm descended into chaos. Some lizards managed to reappear on icy branches or tried to retreat into the snow, but it made no difference. His electricity found them all, each strike devastatingly final.
Within moments, the forest fell silent once more. Thousands of pale, translucent bodies lay motionless across the jagged snow, their forms blackened and lifeless. The pristine white landscape had become a macabre tableau, littered with the charred remains of the lizards.
The faint scent of ozone lingered in the frigid air, mingling with the stillness. What had been an ethereal, otherworldly domain moments ago now stood as a graveyard, a stark reminder of the boy's power.
As his gaze landed on that light, which was now red…
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