Frost
The shadows have teeth.
They have teeth, and they rip and tear.
I throw my weight against the rusted chains holding me in place. I don’t know this room. How did I become chained? The heavy pipe above groans under the force of my weight, but it doesn’t give.
I’m in slivers. In tatters. Nothing but pieces.
There’s blood on my skin, dripping down my arms and torso.
No, it’s not blood.
It’s shadows.
Shadows with teeth.
I need to get out. Out of this dank, dark room. Out of my mind.
The shadows twist and roil inside me. Everywhere they touch, they flash black against my skin and agony lances through me. I’m unsettled. I’m dying.
The pain is…
The pain just is.
I try to yank my hands downward. Metal cuts into my wrists. I howl when something in my chest burns like a knife blade. Pain throbs behind my eyes. My head is going to split open any moment, I’m sure of it. It’s too full. Too full of too many things.
Shadows.
Pain.
Fury.
Violence.
A lock tumbles, the soft sound reaching my ears like a crack of thunder, louder than it should be in my mind. A door opens.
I cringe away from the light that falls through the open door, snarling as it burns my already aching eyes. The giant structure next to me is cold on my bare skin, but it gives me just enough room to hide.
“Frost?”
A light voice. Musical. What is it saying?
The shadows scream in my head.
Another voice speaks. “I don’t think he’s in his right mind.”
“Yeah. I think you’re right,” the first voice agrees.
I don’t… I don’t understand the words. It’s just noise. Sounds that make no sense. The quiet voices make even less sense than the shadows. The shadows dart across my skin in agitation, twisting around my bones and thrashing in my soul.
Kill them.
Fury overrides every other emotion inside me. I lunge from behind the metal cylinder and leap for the three figures standing over me. I almost reach them, but the heavy metal chains wrapped around my wrists stops my momentum, and I’m thrown off my feet. I’m yanked back and land hard on a stone floor, but everything else hurts so much that I don’t even feel the impact.
I am pain.
I am shadows.
I’m nothing else.
The smallest of the three figures stares at me, her big green eyes shining. Why do I know those eyes? Why do I want to drown in them?
“He’s not even human,” she says, her voice choked.
“He’s only shadow,” the largest figure agrees.
What are they saying?
Destroy. Destroy. Destroy.
I haul my body backward to reduce the strain on my arms. My feet slip out from beneath me and get tangled up in something soft and warm on the floor. I kick at it, snarling. Is it attacking me?
Destroy.
“We have to break him out of this,” someone says. I don’t know which one.
I can’t even focus on their faces. But I know them. I think I know them.
Enemies.
Lovers.