Red On A White Canvas.

Jean woke up in the morning to white. The village had been covered in a blanket of snow, thick and deep. She stood outside, shivering slightly - not just from the cold, but excitement. The breeze cut through her like a knife, but she slipped on her red mittens and stumbled onward through the snow. It tripped her up frequently as Bailey, her ironically golden and summertime looking dog, leapt enthusiastically through the snow. Jean laughed and watched as Bailey’s fur practically turned white. He, like Jean, had always loved the snow. He was a carefree dog that would spend hours running through the snow like wind.

    They followed the empty roads out to the empty grass. Children ran through the fields, hurling snowballs at one another, laughing and screaming. Parents walked their dogs, watched their kids. It was rather disappointing how little people came out to frolic in it - after all, snow wasn’t particularly common here.

    Jane laughed as she slipped on the icy ground by the road and tumbled backwards, landing in a heap of snow on her bottom. Bailey to the rescue, he hopped over to her and encouraged her to get up. With a gloved hand, she swung her long scarf back around her neck, adjusted her hat, and raced him. Bailey was most definitely faster, but entertaining him was always enjoyable. The woods near her house were perfect for walks, but today, it was a deserted wonderland. 

Until. 

Jean plummeted head first into a snowman and toppled over, again. Rubbing her head and grumbling, she stood slowly, assuming Bailey had run ahead. “Who builds a snowman out here?” She grumbled, and got her bearings. She glanced behind her to see Bailey sitting in the snow, his back to her and his head reaching down. It was odd for him to stop running so abruptly. He barked so suddenly it made Jean jump. That was odd too. He didn’t usually bark.

With a wary hand, she crouched beside him and tenderly stroked his ears in an attempt to soothe him. Maybe he was just cold, she wondered. He barked again, more ferociously this time, and looked at a patch of snow.

“Bailey? What’s wrong?” She asked, following his eyes to the snow. His low growl rumbled like thunder behind her as she eyed it. There was a pin prick. A dot. Of… paint? It was so miniscule, she couldn’t even tell. “Bailey?” She asked, turning to hear more barks. He kicked up snow as he jumped further into the woods. Following slowly behind, Jean paused at the space where Bailey stared at, wagging his tail over and over. More red. Could it be… ? No. “It’s nothing,” she told herself. “Probably nothing.” Who would be outside, with paint? Even if it wasn’t, it didn’t mean anything. It was just a pin prick. A cut. A tiny wound.

And yet Bailey continued to bark and scurry off. As she found herself following him deeper into the woods, there was a definite trail. Smudges of red dotted along into the distance. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. Red on a white canvas. Reluctantly, Jean continued to follow Bailey along the trail. If not for making sure that whoever owned the trail was alright, then for making sure Bailey didn’t get lost.

Biting her lip until it was raw, Jean began to shiver even more. It felt somehow colder now, like the snow was deeper, or thicker, or maybe Jean was just less warm. “Bailey?” She spoke surprisingly quietly, sounding cautious as she watched his tumble ahead. He had not barked in a while now. “Bailey?” She asked again. He dropped from her sight. Jean gasped and began to sprint through the snow, finding it difficult as it kept pushing her back. She fell over, grasping onto it - onto something - finding she was knee deep in it, and continued to stumble through until she fell out the other end beside Bailey, on thin, crystal ice.

Jean turned her head slowly, looking at the frozen lake. Even she knew it was dangerous to be on here. She let out a ragged exhale, and watched as her breath tumbled from her mouth like smoke. Bailey whimpered. She gathered him up in her arms and placed him on the snowy ground behind her, using her numb hands to crawl backwards off the ice. And she would have left then and there, never dared to walk the dangerous tightrope - but something stopped her: red against the white.

“No,” she breathed. Somewhere in the centre of the lake, her eyes trailed to. There was a dark circle, surrounded by so much red she could see it from here. Someone could die. Her heart raced as she fumbled through her coat with numb, blue fingers for her phone and repeatedly smashed in numbers to the phone, unable to feel the screen. Jean picked herself up and before she knew it, her feet were skidding and sliding across the ice - racing towards the inevitable pit, the hole in the lake, searching for someone that wasn’t there.

She slid to her knees beside the hole and her fingers fell into the red liquid, smearing them. She shivered and her hands burned - hurrying to pick up the phone that was foolishly skidding closer towards the hole. The water below was less dark now that she was close - not even murky - but tinted with the same red that laced the ice around it.

Jean shoved her head sideways along it, looking to see if anyone was underneath - but if they were, they had already floated away. Shivering ferociously as her chest pounded like it never had before, her legs went numb against the ice to the sound of Bailey barking from safety far behind. A voice rang in her ear suddenly, making her entire body jolt - 

“911, what’s your emergency?” Jean let out a loud gasp of relief, still trembling like a child, and her mind raced, thinking what to say. Her mouth snapped open, just as Bailey fell silent and she felt a tremendous blow to the back of her head. 

The world tilted severely on its axis. 

The phone slipped from Jean’s hand into the icy depths.

Jean followed soon after.

Caressed by a cold blanket of her very own red.