Snow Melt

A hand, dry and cracked, hovered before the boarded window. Come on, you bastard the man thought You have to open it. You have too. 

He stands with all manner of blankets and clothes draped around him, anything he could find in the family cabin to stay warm. It still wasn’t enough. 

It had been a hard and harsh winter and the thought of letting that angry air in must be why he shakes so. But he was cold all winter, he reasons, despite the fire and blankets all to himself, what’s a little more? Especially when he needs to leave as soon as he can. But there's still something within his being that he cannot shake. A primeval fear that sinks to his bones and sends them running. 

He rubbed the hooked scar under his eye, to remind himself. He has gotten at this very cabin. A strong log made structure that had been in the family for generations and each year they all wintered there together. One year, when he was still a boy, he had gone on to the roof just to play around. He was massively bored and any escape was a good escape. It was a simple slip that sent him down the roof face first, landing in a five foot snow pile. He would have drowned if his family hadn’t mobilized and dug him out. Afterwards they held him by the fire speaking to him in that loving, angry, relieved voice that elders often give to a child whose foolishness almost leads to their death. 

The man with the hooked shaped scar wasn’t meant to spend three months alone. But he did. 

He wanted to set out as soon as he could, as soon as the snow was manageable to go out and find them. He feared the worst. The horrible blizzard had hit earlier than predicted, it battered and damn near buried him during his trip to the cabin. But he made it. He had been so cold he couldn’t even remember getting in. Just waking up next to the fire. 

He didn’t leave the cabin the whole time but he knew, by god he knew, that wretched, freezing snow covered the whole house. Burying him in an icy prison that would have suffocated him, if not for the chimney. 

He needed to see outside, but his body stood there while his mind was buzzing in the piled up of thoughts.

But then, a chirp.

A bird, spring!

And before he could think anything proper, he lunged his hands at the barrier, pulling the boards free, until the shudders swung open. The light was blinding, the world a pure white. He averted his eyes in pain and then felt the chill that made him freeze. Though, it’s not the cold’s fault. Something about the outside makes him want to board the shutters agein and retreat into the corner.

But he had to look.

Slowly he turned his head, opening his eyes as much as the light would allow, until he looked fully out into the world. It was white, as he expected, with black bare trees shooting out of the snow beyond the clearing the cabin sat at the edge of. His nerves seemed to calm See, it’s nothing.  The snow must have been about three feet deep, he reckoned, not shallow enough to set out just yet. But a warm rain would take most of it awa- something caught his eye.

Just a little from the cabin, maybe twenty feet away, there was a spec of something. A little scar of grey poking out of the pristine snow, like a cyst. He didn’t know what it was but it sat there, glaring at him, mocking him. He knew that thing  was the point of his earlier fear and those lightning shocks of anxiety turned to needles in his veins. He shook now with a destructive energy. By god, he hated that thing.

What was it? It couldn’t be a rock, he would have noticed a three foot rock on the property before. He had gone to this very house every year and he’s never seen it before, not even during his trip this year. Something that large just doesn’t show up.

A sapling? No saplings end in points, this was too rounded. Questions swarmed around and around his head, as he stood there squinting at that foul object. 

The man with the hooked shape scar stood there all day and when the sunset, he stared until sleep was about to bring him down. His dreams were consumed by the object. In them he battered it, tore it, beat it and even lit it on fire, but nothing would destroy it. It sat there laughing at him in his own voice. 

He woke shivering. He heard the patter of rain, the first of the spring. He bolted towards the window and looked immediately upon the object. More of it was exposed and it did get wider towards the base. But not enough of it was exposed to make out what it was. 

There was something strange about it. The rain, instead of splashing up, hit the object with no reaction, like it was abordbing the water. Strange the man with the hook shaped scar thought Very strange

He seemed to forget his mission, the reason why he needed to look outside in the first place. All thoughts were consumed by the object and he continued to stare with a rising anxiety and fear as the rain slowly exposed more of it. 

It was rounded, of course, with a texture that must be similar to cloth, about the size of a small melon, he put together. The object seemed to end with a lip of sorts, and under it something else. It was black and stuck out in all sorts of directions. It looked… wiry almost. Like long fur or-

Hair

His world went dark and the man with the hooked shape scar exploded out of the door. He trudged through the snow not thinking of the cold or wet, just wanting to know who it was. Oh God, who had died?! Fear rose and sweeped him up in a storm and he made his way to the body. He dug at the base of the hair, trying to expose the face. A hat, dark hair, not uncommon for his family. The skin was leathry and gaunt and his hands felt like they were rotting touching the surface, but he did not care. 

He exposed the gaunt face, a face with dark blue eyes that bore a hooked shape scar just underneath. 

He froze. 

His soul exploded in a white hot fire and he lost all feeling. His vision seemed to blacken, yet his legs carried him back to the cabin. He slammed the door shut, fully weeping and shaking now, and dove into a pile of blankets. There he curled up, wishing the winter had never left.