Crimson Snow

Sensitive themes warning: Contains description of death and self-injury.

Fighting to keep going, the snow crunches under her bare feet, sending icy shivers down her spine, but she barely takes note of it. The footprints she leaves behind turn visibly red, slowly dragging on proof of what she had done. She is wearing a white satin dress, sticking to her skin like an unwanted embrace she can’t escape. It’s wet, and the freezing air turns her breath into fleeting clouds, escaping from her blue-tinted lips, and her toes are icicles threatening to stop functioning, but she must go on, must keep searching, must find him.

The sharp wind howls through the shaking leaves, as the full moon shines a dim light on the scene, hardly illuminating the path.

Something creaks.

Is there anyone here?

She knows they will be looking for her again, trying to keep her inside, away from him. They claim she’s gone crazy, but they’re wrong, they don’t understand.

With chattering teeth and watering eyes, she goes on. Must find him, must find him, must find him. Every larch looks identical, every path is snowed in, and in every direction she looks, it’s the same infinite abyss of ice. Yet, she knows where to go, for she has walked this path a million times. It didn’t use to look like this. It used to be so pretty here, only every time she returns the woods grow colder and the snow falls higher. She’s grown taller since then, too, but it makes no difference to her.

Sometimes, she can hear his voice, his laugh. She can still see the glee that used to sparkle in his eyes whenever they used to play catch. The birds and the trees had always seemed to laugh with them, casting a golden, youthful aura over them that tasted as sweet as nectar.

“Wait up!” her voice echoed through the forest, giggling as she chased after her brother. It was a sunny and happy day, their parents were out buying food on the market and they used the opportunity to play in the nearby woods. She had put on her nicest dress because it made her feel like a fairy in the comfortable, white fabric, and left her shoes behind in the house, for it was a warm day full of joy, and the ground was soft and gentle on her skin. The leaves rustled quietly in the wind as if trying to tell a story, and the forest river they were heading toward bubbled as if it felt the children’s joy.

“Catch me if you can!” he called, and she followed his voice through the always thicker growing forest, unable to see him anywhere. But she trusted him, and he trusted her, and they knew that no matter where one went, the other would follow.

She doesn’t pay any attention to the stronger growing wind, she’s almost there. The closer she gets to the creek, the redder her hands turn, staining her skin with the blood of her guilt. She wipes them on her dress without looking.

The water is entirely frozen, but she’s here now, and everything will be alright. He will be free soon.

She kneels down on the icy surface that is barely strong enough to carry her whole weight as it quietly cracks beneath her, skin scraping over it. The snow around the river bed is nearly entirely crimson, painting an artistic picture of the pain this place carries for her. Blood is forming trenches in the water, and she starts to scratch the ice, she must get to him.

Something made a noise over there by the fallen tree, is there anyone here?

Her eyes dart as she scans her surroundings, but it’s all the same familiar eternal winter. It’s getting harder and harder to see in the dark every time she comes back. Somehow, the moon never gets brighter, never changes its dim light. The wind is biting into her eyes sharply, and she is shivering all over her body, but she directs her attention back to the frozen water and keeps scratching.

“Where are you?” she shouted. No response came, but she could hear him giggling and laughing. “Come on, we have to go back soon!” she called out for him, but he kept running, and she kept chasing. His footsteps echoed through the forest, and suddenly the air felt colder, and the birds fluttered away as if scared by something hidden in the depths of the woods.

She knew he was headed toward the river because that was where they had agreed to play today, and it was fun to imagine crossing it. She’d fantasized about it with him before; jumping on one stepping stone after the other, trying not to slip on the wet surface, making it all the way to the other side. She was the one who had suggested coming here a while ago, and it had taken some convincing, but he had finally decided to come with her.

He was still nowhere to be seen.

Then, he shouted her name, briefly, before a splash of water interrupted him; and she ran toward the river as fast as her short legs could carry her, just in time to watch his head disappear under the surface.

The birds and the trees didn’t laugh with her then, they wept when she cried and they trembled when she screamed for help.

He’s there, he’s right there. This time she didn’t come here in vain, her heart starts beating faster by the second she sees his small body under the ice, and her lips quiver, she feels like she can’t breathe. The calm creek under the ice is turning into a vicious red stream, and with a clenched jaw, she keeps scratching at the surface desperately, her fingernails turning painful and bloody.

Blood is rushing in her ears, her body is violently trembling to keep warm, but she can’t give up now. So close, so close.

It hasn’t been winter for very long, but for her, it has been a lifetime, and she is used to the cold. Her eyes are focused on the water under her, ignoring everything else, even the slowly cracking and creaking ice.

“You’ll be free soon,” she mutters with her last remaining strength. “I’ll get you out of there.”

And she keeps digging and scratching, but she can’t free him from under the ice, for the snow around the riverbed is pure and her dress is clean and he is long, long gone. It’s as close as she will ever get to him when the ice finally gives in and she falls, swallowed by the darkness of the water and nobody will come to free her.

The only hint that’s left of her are the traces of bleeding fingers scraping on ice.