[TWWM] Seventh Prompt: Ice Death

The child squeezed her eyes shut, thrust her hand into the darkness of the room. She slowly opened her eyes, one bit at a time, fearing what she might witness. Just like the day four years ago, a day which existed in her memory, though the object of the memory was ephemeral. She slowly walked into her room, checking, of course, behind the door as she always did. Running through the normal checks of the room, the child began to think more about the past.

She remembered skating with her friends, whoops and shrieks and laughter, the sun setting and goodbyes. The memory called back to mind the frightful feeling of being watched by hatefully curious eyes.

Turning in the darkness of her bedroom to check the locks on the windows, she turned in her memories as well. The younger child in her mind saw nothing in the darkness, not a hint of a movement.

As she turned back around, she began to hear taps across the pavement behind her, and the rest of the world became muted. She turned again, quicker this time, and blue light blinded her. She let out a yelp, and then fell backwards, feeling a sharp, skull splitting noise pierce her mind like a needle.

The girl, done checking the windows and doors, shakily sat on the hardwood floor of her room. The memories were no longer in control; they wouldn't stop now. She saw it all again. She saw the abuse and his maleficent eyes, the bright blue of them mimicking the blue light that had sent her mind into such a frenzy. Worst of all, it was all from the eyes of her child self, the five year-old girl who spent days and nights crying.

These were the memories re-gifted to her from the strange, tapping creature that night. Until then, none of this was in her mind. None of it made any sense. The girl rocked back and forth, thinking. She had looked everywhere, from Roswell to New Guinea for answers about this creature. She had found nothing. Nothing to match the description of this long creature with its probing, knife like glare. Nothing to match the memories given to her.

The child shuddered, and, stutteringly, stood from her place on the floor. She logged onto the computer, the clicking of the mouse the only sound inside her noiseless home. She typed into the search bar and waited for the computer to load, gently tapping her fingers against the desk, mimicking the sounds from her memory. She stopped tapping when the screen loaded a blog page, with large, bold letters across the front. "Have You Seen This Creature?" it exclaimed, with a hand drawn image of a slick legged creature and a bright blue eye. The girl's breath caught in her throat. That was it!

A cold air began to creep into her room, seeping from the windows and the door. They were all open. Every last window had burst open, the cold air soaking into her bones. The memory of that night came back as her computer flickered off, and the lake outside her home froze over. A howl broke into her mind, stealing her thoughts and her breath, freezing her blood. Again, they played, his eyes, the face, his eyes, the face. The cold came closer and wrapped itself around her throat like a bad dream, and suddenly the memories were more vivid, more colorful, she was living them again.

The cold was closer, the howling turning into a shriek. It built and built, louder upon itself like the fireworks on New Year's. She collapsed to the floor, hands over her ears. When she uncurled from her protective position, the room was warm, the windows and door closed, the computer still on. Nothing had happened...it really had been a dream.

She stayed on the floor for a very long time, so long that when she got up, the computer needed to be turned back on. The page was still there, but now there was a message box available when she refreshed. She quickly typed a message into the box. It only took a few seconds for the reply to come up, and for her world to be turned upside down. "I know you." the reply said. "We have met before." The girl shut the computer, the fear returning to her bones.

Again, the howl echoed into her mind, into her very skin. She shut her eyes and the howl began to subside, to sound familiar. The wailing stopped suddenly, and the girl sat up with a gasp. She was in an ambulance, freezing cold and soaking wet. It was dark outside and there were paramedics around, picking up the stretcher, her mother crying nearby. "Where were you?" she sobbed. "Why didn't you come home?" With a snap of invisible fingers, the girl realized that night had never ended.

The night full of the blue eyed creature had ended with her following it into a frozen lake and falling through the ice. Someone kind had found her and called the ambulance, as she later learned through her mother. The night never fully left the girl's memory, and instead followed her throughout her everyday life. Although, she never tried to find out what had nearly killed her that night, no, she left that in her hazy frozen memories, sunken deep.