Frozen

I hated it.

All of it.

The cold, white material that floated down from the sky in little flakes, eventually nestling into piles in which their insignificant souls become parts of. Only for the piles to be destroyed as little children jumped into them with expressions of glee plastered across their faces.

It was difficult, to say the least, to watch such happiness radiate from the playing kids. I had been one of them, everyone had, at one point. I had fond memories of building snowmen and having neighborhood snowball fights back when I was younger. I recalled times when my sister would tackle me, sending me flying into the fluffy stuff. Then she would throw buckets of snow onto me. At the thought of my sister, my smile faded, and I pushed her out of my mind.

No, those times were over.

I glanced over at a toddler, who was sprinting - speed waddling would be a more accurate description - only to trip over a frozen chunk of ice. He burst into tears, instantly smothered by his mother who cooed reassuringly. On my right were a pair of siblings who screamed and giggled loudly as they threw snowballs at each other. None went anywhere near either of them, and a single one landed by my right foot. I stared at it, glum. Then I stepped on it and snuffed out its soul.

I was on the peak of a small hill and now, I looked down the snowy slope, the view of a massive frozen lake sliding into my view. It was beautiful, but hideous. I could see tiny figures skating across the icy surface, others sledding and sprinting across. I hated it all. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them, I was no longer on the snowy hill.

Instead, I was on a flat slope, still looking across a frozen surface of a large lake. I looked down. I was no longer 24. No, now I was back in the body of twelve year old me. Oversized mittens engulfed my hands, and a beanie threatened to collapse over my eyes. When I realized where I was, I let out a sharp, painful gasp. No, no no no, I muttered to myself. My voice was squeakier than I remembered.

From behind me, a voice shouted my name. "Jake!" My knees almost buckled when I saw the source. It was my sister. She had been 22, at the time of the accident. Her blonde hair peaked from beneath her puffy hood. She was wearing overalls, and her cheeks were flushed red from the cold. Her mouth was twisted into her signature mischievous grin. Her piercing blue eyes glinted with happiness and she rushed towards me, her arms outstretched. 12 year old me let out a screech of joy.

I could do nothing, as my sister tackled me into the snow, laughing holding me tight. When I tried to open my mouth to speak, I found I couldn't. In fact, I couldn't move anything. This was a memory, one that replayed itself in my mind constantly, on a depressing loop. Now, I was experiencing it, in a first person POV, like a live action scene.

My sister's face was close to my own, and she gave my forehead a quick kiss. I heard myself giggle as she reached out and gave my nose a quick tap. She helped me to my feet, lifting me onto her back. We ran over to the lake, my happy cries accompanying our stumbling run to the ice. My sister slowed down, sliding to a halt as we reached the beginnings of the lake's surface. She let me down onto my feet.

Then, flashing me that stupid grin, she had sprinted onto the ice, laughing and spinning. I simply watched her, my eyes wide in amazement. I stood there, motionless, as my sister performed a series of spins, and when she came to a stop, she looked me with an expectant smile on her face. I clapped until my numb hands throbbed painfully.

But as I was giggling and clapping, there had been a quiet crack. One that I had barely heard, and had thought nothing of it. A crack, that eventually led to a series of louder cracks, all of which I could hear. But I did not move. I tried to move, but my feet were planted firm into the snow. There were more cracks. These, my sister could hear, who looked back at me curiously. My twelve year old self pointed at the long crack, that seemed to be speeding towards the center of the lake, where my sister stood. I saw as her eyes began to widen. I tried to open my mouth to scream at her, but nothing happened. I was stuck, unable to do anything as suddenly my sister disappeared as the ice beneath her exploded into tiny fractions of ice.

Only then, could I move. I ran onto the ice. I sprinted over to the hole that had opened up in the lake, careful not to slip. I was twelve, naïve and clueless, but I knew two things: my sister did not know how to swim, and she was several times heavier than me. I saw her struggling, her head peaking above the ice intermittently. She let out choked gasps, and she reached out her hand, which I grabbed. Her soaked digits slipped out of mine, and I could do nothing but scream for help and try to get a good hold on my sister's hand. I had cried and cried, trying to reach for her hand which slipped repetitively. At one point she had found a grip on the ice around her, but had slipped back. I reached down and managed to slip my tiny fingers around her hood. I pulled insistently, crying and slipping. I would have fallen into the water beside her if I hadn't lost grip on her hood. I screamed as my sister slipped back beneath the water. I did my best to grab anything that broke the surface, until eventually, nothing did.

Twelve year old me sat back and let out another painful scream. Only then did my parents, both together at the time, came rushing onto the ice. They both had horrified expressions on their face.

"Where's Katie?" my mom cried. Now, I could hear the grief in her voice, something I had not heard at the time. I pointed, sobbing, at the hole. My father dove in without hesitation, and my mom pulled out her phone and her phone beeped three times.

The next few hours were a blur. I could not remember much. Only the sight of my father being pulled out of the water, his arms wrapped around the limp body of my sister. The sounds of sirens, crying, and shouts were overwhelming. The scene in front of me faded.

When the black disappeared, I still was not back in my own mind. Rather, I was still twelve year old me, but several hours later. Now, I was seated on a wall bench at a hospital, with my mother's hands wrapped tightly around my own. Tears speckled her eyes, and she looked down at me, sorrow evident in each tiny tear drop that splattered onto my arm. I did nothing.

A doctor stepped out of the room Katie had been rolled into, and he had a grim look on his face. He gave me a nod, and turned to my mother, whispering something in her ear. She collapsed onto the bench, her mouth open slightly. I looked at her with an sudden feeling of surprise.

"Mom," I heard myself ask in a quiet voice. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Mom?"

She simply looked back at me with blank eyes. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the doctor. His warm brown eyes glanced down at me. He gave a quick nod to a nearby paramedic, who ran over to my mother, checking her pulse. The doctor turned me away, and led me into Katie's room.

What I saw made me want to cry. I remember being confused and scared, at the time. But now, as I looked down at Katie's frail body, with tubes and wires going this way and that, my 24 year old heart broke. I reached out with a tiny hand and let it rest on Katie's cold arm.

"Katie?"

My sister looked down at me, a sad smile on her face. "Hey kid," she rasped. She tousled my hair weakly. "You doin' okay?"

"Are you going to be okay?"

I saw a tear make its way down Katie's right cheek. "I'm going to be going somewhere safe," she replied. "Somewhere where nothing can hurt me."

"Where?" I asked, alarmed. "I don't want you to leave."

"You'll come here one day, too. And we'll see each other again."

"But I don't want you to go anywhere!"

"It's okay little guy," she tried to smile, but it broke. "I'll wait here for you, all right?"

"Is Dad going there too?"

Katie shuddered. The doctor beside me went and checked a small screen beside her. "Yeah, he's going to come with me," she croaked. "We'll both wait for you."

"Will you ever come back?"

I got a few tears and a sob in response. "No," she said. "But you'll come to us, so you don't need to worry."

"Is there hot chocolate there, where you're going? Like how you make it?"

Katie nodded. "All the hot chocolate you'll ever need. Hot chocolate even better than mine."

I gave her a skeptical look, and she managed a quiet laugh. Then she fell into a coughing fit, almost choking. She inhaled loudly with a gasp. "It's almost time for me to go, little man," she said. "Go say bye to dad for me."

The doctor looked at me and nodded. I went to the door, giving my sister a sad glance, "Bye, Katie," I said. "I love you."

Kate gave me a tiny wave and let out another broken sob, and then the doctor closed the door behind us. He led us down a little bit farther down the corridor. I looked back, and saw that the bench my mom had been sitting at was now empty. Then the doctor opened another door to my left, and we stepped in. My father lay there, coughing and shaking. When he saw me come through the door, he halted.

"Hey Jakey," he coughed. He tried to smile.

"Katie said you guys were going somewhere," I replied.

He nodded, now crying for some odd reason. "It's going to be okay."

"I know. Katie said there was a lot of hot chocolate up there." I said with a smile. "What about mom?"

"Mom's going to stay here, with you, all right? I promise."

I nodded, and my dad fell into another coughing fit. A nurse beside him gestured at the doctor, giving me a pitying look. The doctor nodded and pulled me out of the room before I had a chance to say goodbye. He sat me down at the bench where my mother had been.

He began to talk, but a loud buzzing sound had filled my ears. I looked at him curiously, and said I couldn't hear. But he kept talking. And then, the scene faded to black once more.

The black disappeared, and I found myself in a small room. I looked down. I was still twelve, but I could tell this was several months after. I was sitting before a man in a beige coat, with a balding head and a black beard that was speckled with short gray hairs. He sat before me, a hand on my shoulder, talking. But I could not hear what he was saying. I interrupted him.

"Where's Mom?"

It turned out that she too, had left for this special place. She had not stayed with me, like my dad had promised me. In fact, she left the same day that my sister and father had. I looked at the man in front of me and started to cry.

"I want them to come back."

The 6 words echoed painfully in my head, until everything faded.

Not even the best writer would be able to explain to you what I saw next. In the following ten seconds, hundreds, thousands of pictures flashed in my mind, like a massive flipbook of memories. And indeed, that was what it was. Every fond memory I had had with my family appeared, each with astounding detail. A picture of my parents planting kisses on opposite sides of my face, one of my sister tossing me into the air, several videos of me taking my first steps, and hundreds of photos and clips of past events. And I simply watched, my mind racing with emotions, ones that I could not explain nor experience again. After a while, the pictures disappeared, and everything went black for the final time.

When I opened my eyes, the light blinded me. I was back. My face was matted with tears, and I suddenly felt horrible. I also felt... relieved? For years since Katie's death, I had blamed myself. Berated myself, tried to make myself feel as horrible as I possibly could, shaming myself for being unable to save Katie that day. And indeed, it had succeeded. I had been a broken soul, one that even my therapist admitted was fractured. But suddenly, that blame had disappeared. I was left with a feeling of sorrow, of course, but now that shame had transformed into a comfortable emotion, one that I found difficult to describe with words.

My stomach heaved as I tried to get in some air, and I stood there, my mind reeling. I would have collapsed onto my knees if it weren't for the chair behind me, which I leaned on for support. My eyes were glazed, blank and unexpecting. They wavered, on the brink of flooding with tears, but I blinked them away.

Then, I gently lifted myself from the chair and glanced at the lake before me. I clenched my teeth and started down the long slope that led to the lake, bumping into the occasional child or parent who glanced at me angrily. Several people watched as I continued my way down.

Eventually, I reached the beginning of the lake. I simply stood there, for several minutes. My biggest fear, ever since I was twelve, had been of snow and ice. But now, I stood before one of the largest frozen lakes I had ever seen. My hands shook, and I could no longer feel my legs. So I remained still, my heart racing and my mind threatening to explode.

I remembered my sister's words that one night.

"You'll come here one day too."

She had been right. One day I would. One day we would all be together as a family again.

But that day was not today. Not tomorrow, nor a week later. No, I would see them again when it was time for me to meet them once more.

But that was not now. I narrowed my eyes at the sky, feeling lighter than I ever had in a very long time. For the first time in almost a decade, I cried tears of joy. With a grin on my face and tears streaming down my cheek, I let out a shout of happiness. A shout of freedom. One that signified the beginning of the mending of my shattered soul.

And with that, I sprinted onto the lake.