"Frozen Flame" a short story

[khaos4ng31]

This is a short story that I started writing since February, but I haven't been working on it for a long time. At most, I put in 2 days in it, and only recently, have I started to reread and edit it. It was supposed to be a sad story in general, but I turned it into a tragic semi-romantic story. This is only part of it, and I'm thinking of how to end this as I type (I know what the ending will be like, but I don't know how to transition it right). In the end, I believe it will be ~5k-6k words. Technically, this amount of words make up a short story, so I'm sticking to it. I plan to distribute this on the internet on select places through use of screenshots of each page (because the format I used is really neat and organized), as to discourage plagiarism. Feedback is nice too. I would like for you guys to read and if possible, help me to edit any mistakes that I made (because I wrote this while going through emotional problems). To edit, please just use a code box, spoiler, or anything that prevents the thread from having long, ugly posts, copy paste, and color red your corrections (i.e. you fix a spelling error, so you mark it red so I can find and fix it on the original copy.) I don't want people to steal this... so if you want to share... please... give credit where credit is due. Link to this page, or cite my name (either Justin N. or khaos4ng31). I've only posted part of this story on one place on the internet, and only a few people accessed it before it expired, and this happened months ago. So enjoy. Spoiler for Frozen Flame: Frozen Flame By Justin N. Persona 1 ~ Monomania I couldn't believe what I had just done. After several years of crushing on her, I've finally mustered up the courage to express my feelings to the one girl that made life worth living for: Echo Nowling. All the months of phasing in and out of the hellhole I call life, all the months of constantly working to find self-identity, all the months of working to build my relationship with her ended in success. I've finally broken the social barrier just to be with her, a nerdy, emo-like guy who was supposed to be coding complex algorithms or scripting programs for the newest open-source operating system and a happy, rich, popular, outgoing girl who favored nights of Glee, days of shopping, and evenings of partying with the mass of friends she accumulated over the years of high school stardom. Two completely different types of people, but it felt right. No matter what people claimed, no matter how much they made fun of my dancing to EDM (electronic dance music for those who aren't familiar with rave culture), no matter how much they disapproved my liking for kawaii anime, she looked to enjoy our differences. She, to simply put it in layman’s terms, understood and looked to love me just as I loved her. I still kept her first token of love: a simple picture of us together. Our first time together. The first day I made my move. People thought we were made for each other. I thought otherwise. I don't believe in creationism, so I preferred that we strongly felt for each other instead being made for each other. Persona 2 ~ Euphoria This was in the middle of the school year. In winter. In Colorado. As you know, Colorado is freezing cold at this time, and the mountains are the best. Our school usually has a non-school sponsored winter vacation to the Rockies, so whoever could afford to go, would go. At that time, we were just dating, so both of us didn't go. However, the next year, we did. Boy was she excited. She almost cried tears of excitement when I told her that we would be going on a weeklong trip to ski at a newly opened ski resort. Saturday snuck up on us, and we rushed to the scheduled bus with our hastily packed bags. The night before was filled with dancing and raving. As we boarded the bus, we chose the middle-back seats, as it was far enough from the driver in the front and the douchebags in the back. We settled into a seat, and talked about things like first snow experiences. I told her about the first time I saw snow; I felt like a god just took some ice and turned it into a powder. Of course it was just powdered snow, but I told her how I loved the way the powdered snow would land on your head, and in a few minutes you'd look like Sweeney Todd with white highlights. Her first experience was slightly less memorable, but interesting nonetheless. The first time she saw snow was when a freak blizzard snowed her house in. Of course, to a normal Northerner, this is nothing. However, she was from southern California, and had just moved to Michigan. Yeah, culture shock, I know. As stories were traded, a kid asked how much longer till we would get there. The reply was that in this current weather, we would be delayed by an hour due to all the snow and ice. If the blizzard got worse, we'd be delayed by 3 hours. Moans echoed throughout, and we huddled closer to stay warm. I joked and teased her over her Hello Kitty boots. She teased back on my Hatsune Miku hat. Well played. She fell asleep on my shoulder. I hugged her close. The scent of her hair through her snow cap was invigorating. I gently kissed her cheek, as to which she woke up and returned the favor before falling asleep again. Soon, everyone was falling asleep to the droning of the bus tires on the asphalt, the singing of today's latest pop stars, and to the chattering of the gossipers. And soon, I fell asleep, and entered a world of fantasy. Persona 3 ~ Phobia Screams everywhere. Crying. Sounds of people checking on others. Someone lightly tapped me, insisting that I wake up. I opened my eyes, and see a girl. It was her. No. As my eyes refocused, adjusting to the bright light of sun reflected by snow, struggling against the blizzard, I found it was a girl whom I did not know well, but nonetheless was on the trip. Arianne was her name. I stood up. Arianne found that I was pretty much okay and left me to check on the others. Looking around I saw that there were many people huddling together with their things, shoveling snow off their petrified faces. As my consciousness returned, I panicked when I realized that Echo was gone. I stood up and soon found myself on the floor. I looked to my leg. I could not feel it. I stood once again. Fearing the worst, I again stood, and felt a wave of tingling. My leg was asleep. I was out longer than I thought. I heard my name being carried by the wind. I turned around and Echo, with a face of fear, run up to me and held me tight. I questioned her for clues that would tell me what was going on. She just looked at me, fear in her eyes, in her breathing, in her voice. She quietly said that the bus had flipped and nothing more, that being together safe and sound was the only thing we should have been worrying about. I stroked her blond hair, and pulled her in close. I walked her over to a pile of snow, where most of the other students were. As I approached the gathering, I noticed that despite being in the midst of a blizzard, they were not struck with a cold, rather struck with a phobia. A phobia of not knowing what went wrong. Yet most were just sitting there, crying, sobbing, moaning, getting reception for their phones, etc. I sat down with Echo and told her that everything would be all right. Inside, we both knew that everything would not be all right, that this was just a glimpse into the impending terror we would yet to find. I stood up, and reassured Echo that I would be back in one piece. She seemed to settle down and finally let me go. Our minor separation unsettled me slightly. Thoughts raced through my mind. Fear began to creep into my conscious, and soon I was beginning to think that leaving to go out by myself was a bad idea. Perhaps this was a foreshadowing of what was to be. Maybe this was destiny and that by isolating my own self from the group, I would have broken the cycles of society and I am able to fre--. Just as my paranoia was taking control, I saw a small group of students who called me over. They too wanted to find out what had happened. I recognized them as the guys who sat in the back, who always joke around. They were my friends, long forgotten, always in my peripheral, but that was to be expected after I committed myself to Echo. They mused at how the old crew was back together again. I laughed. We really did have great times back then. Seriousness set in and, as a group, we walked to find out the truth. 4 minutes had passed by, and we managed to find the road. Unfortunately, the road was 50 feet above us, and covered with a railing. Our eyes moved right, and soon we had seen what had happened. An unfortunate dent in the railing was all that was necessary for us to know what had happened. We looked on forward and saw the truth. The bus had run over some black snow, and slid into the railing. The momentum of the bus was too great for the railing to hold, and the bus burst through with immense force. The bus had dropped 50 feet, flipping obviously more than once as it tumbled down the cliff. The bus was ruined, excluding the now detached axles which were still intact. The bus had been ripped and shredded from the top, a result of scraping against the razor sharp cliff face. Something shiny caught my eye, and as I walked towards it I found that it was a gold band ring. I curiously looked for any damage and was appalled to see that despite the tumbling the ring had managed to survive without any scratches. My finger ran along the inside of the ring and felt ridges. I brought the ring to my eyes and read the inscriptions I had just discovered. Although the words were small, the meaning of the inscription was significant. The inscription read: A burning heart of passion can easily be frozen by the hatred of the world, but it takes only another burning heart to melt away the ice. The ring brought reminders of Echo and me, and soon we returned to the group to tell them where the bus was. You know how it is with people and their useless inquiry for material wealth. Persona 4 ~ Dysphoria We returned, and it was obvious that things seemed to have settled down. People were up and about, running here and there to the bus and back, relaying inventory from the bus. No one could get signal. A few of the hardcore students brought out some tents, obviously intending to camp out in the blizzard at the resort in an attempt to prove that they were boss. The tents were big as well. We all huddled in. I discreetly counted about 15 students, give or take one due to all the hustling and bustling inside. As no one could get signal, we were obviously stuck with no one to help us. Serves us right for deciding to take an inside route that was known to few. We decided that no one would be crazy enough to drive out in the blizzard. I held Echo’s hand in an attempt to comfort her. She didn’t hold back as tight as she normally did. I then hugged her, thinking that she was just traumatized. Her hugs didn’t seem right. She yawned. I let her lay on my shoulder while she dozed off for a while. Soon I too dozed off to the silence of all but the wind and snow. Groggily, I stood up and saw that Echo was not in the tent. Hell, no one was in the tent. I heard noises though. That calmed me down. It was Eric, one of my long-forgotten friends whom I had severed connections with due to legal consequences resulting from a demonstration of Schrodinger’s cat using a quite large animal. I was fairly pissed from that memory, but was glad to hear that everyone was still there. I silently crawled out the tent, looking to surprise Echo from behind to bring some comic relief to the situation. I crawled out. I found that she was in the arms of another. I stood silent, waiting to see if they would cross the line. She slowly came up to him and kissed him on the cheek. Soon they were locking lips. Dread rushed through me, and I felt weak. Soon I was filled with rage. The rage that I had bottled up before. The bottled up feelings of resentment to those who bullied me in the past, because I was too afraid to do anything about it, to those who constantly told me lies, to those who took advantage of me, to those who verbally abused me, to those who excluded me, to those who thought me as an anti-social monster, to those who call me heartless and cruel, to those who always pushed me around, to those who always commanded me. My years of desensitizing my limits were coming back. The feelings of anxiety came back. The inner rage I had bottled up was pushing the bottle cap further and further. My bottle was cracking. Air was hissing out of it. The bottle was heating up. I thought of all the things that I had missed out on: the lack of parents who actually spent time with me, the lack of people who cared for me, the lack of a person who actually saw through my mask. Echo broke this mask. But like all things broken, they can easily be glued together. The bottle had burst. Rage spilled out, spraying in all directions. My fists were clenched. I walked towards the deceiver. I pulled her away in one gentle-smooth, but swift movement. Just as the guy began to open his mouth in my interrupting his love fest, I grabbed him by the neck. I could feel his jugular and his pulse through my thin winter gloves. Echo screamed for me to stop. My eyes were no longer focused on life. Instead they focused on releasing my pent up anger. Echo’s scream attracted the attention of the other students faster than I had thought. It would have been a comical sight to see, a smaller, shorter, and scrawny-looking college student holding up a bigger, taller, and tough-looking student by the neck, if it weren’t for the serious intent that was flowing from my eyes. My grip was so tight, that my fingernails had burst through the glove openings, and managed to pierce his skin a bit. The amount of detail I remember in those quick 5 seconds it took for me to spot the two and grab the guy seemed to be inhuman. Nonetheless, the anger continued to build, and it overflowed. My other hand wanted to experience the action as well, so I gave him a good punch to his left eye, effectively bruising it, and threw him against the snow. Kneeling down beside him, I threw another punch to his temple in an attempt to disorient him, a method I learned while taking an anatomy class. Using my knowledge of the human body, I grabbed him so he could stand and shoved him towards a tree. He hit the tree with excessive force. The momentum could not be stopped. My anger continued to overflow. Memories of past enemies flashed in my eyes, and replaced the guy I was pummeling. This only served to fuel me further. I gave a punch to the opposite side of his heart, careful not to give the guy any fatal injuries that would warrant me time in prison. I assaulted his head twice more, a fist in one direction, a fist in the other. The images of my rivals who verbally abused me for being apathetic appeared. My fights with them were revived. Fights in which I won which resulted in countless months of therapy and counseling. Rage continued to erupt from me. I gave even more assaults to the guy, until eventually it took five other students to separate me from the guy. I might have taken a bite out of one of the guys holding me back, due to my need to breath and the fact that the rage had forced me to clench my teeth so hard that one of my teeth actually cracked. Despite this nerve-racking damage to my tooth, I felt nothing as my rage continued to make me oblivious to all external pain. The guy was unconscious. People were staring at me. They were staring at what they thought a monster, a freak. Echo looked at me, tears streaming through her eyes. She knew that she had once turned a monster into a guy that would love her unconditionally. Now that she lay kneeling on the floor, she also knew that she had just killed that guy, allowing the monster to be reawakened. An hour seemed to have passed by. In reality it was only half that time. In that time, I was separated from the rest and they decided to move and look for the nearest town in order to get medical attention and to escape the raging blizzard. I was in the back. Ten long paces behind the group. It wasn’t that I tried to stray away from them; it was that they were trying to stray away from me. Another half hour past, and my rage and insanity were not all that dormant. I burst out in laughter and let out a wild yell. I loudly exclaimed that I was no longer going to follow this blindly led group. Several of the good-hearted students attempted to persuade my decision. The rest kept quiet. I turned and retorted to each of the students that if I didn’t sever my connections with them now, then I would have severed each and every one of their spinal cords in their sleep, choosing somewhere between the first vertebra to the seventh, allowing for paralysis of their body from the neck down. They responded with silence, a fitting response to the ever raging blizzard. I turned and walked away. I also pointed out that they were not heading the right way in an attempt to further demoralize them. They insisted that they were headed the right way. Their footsteps were slowly muffled by the silent whoosh of the wind, snow dropping to the ground in front of my own eyes. Person 5 ~ Mania I managed to walk back to my place of origin. The tents were still there, but all resources were stripped from them. I sat down on the snow, gathering my thoughts. Something shiny caught my eye inside the flaps of one of the tents. As I approached this object of interest, I saw that there was a note written on a fancy stationary paper attached to this mysterious object. I stood still for a minute, only to run towards the object moments later. I grabbed the object and observed it. It was the ring that I had found at the bus stop. I grinned a ghastly grin, one that only an insane man could have during a raging blizzard. I looked at the note and began to read it. The letter was composed hastily as can be seen from the ink stains and messy handwriting. The note read: Roses are red; Violets are blue; Anything you’ve said, Helps me to never forget you. On the other side of the note, I found that it was addressed to me. I desperately searched for any clues that would lead me to the original author of the strange note. I could find none. I picked up the object that was now on the floor. It was the gold ring I had found earlier at the crash site. I reread the inscription, and my rage soon died down. The realization of my isolation was becoming clearer and more ominous. The hot rage was now filled with tears. How could I have been so oblivious to the signs? Creationism is truly a fact, for I was destined to be alone. I now understood, and I took the ring and pocketed it, and folded the square note and put it in my coat pocket. I headed out towards a direction, none in particular, for I had nothing to look forward to. It had only been a few minutes before I came across a cave. I entered the cave and surveyed for any residents. There were no signs of life inside. The cave was a perfect rendition of me. Cold and dead on the inside. I gathered what was left of my integrity and my body soon was put into survival mode. After leaving for about ten minutes, I returned with an armful of firewood to warm myself up. Upon returning to the cave, I noticed tracks which were not mine that entered the cave; it was human, and smaller than mine. Cautiously, I entered the cave and there I found Arianne sitting on the cave floor, unzipping her backpack and spilling the contents. Without a word, I laid the firewood beside her, and at that point she asked me if she could stay with me. Although my disregard for life was strong, I was not completely heartless, and allowed her to stay. She grouped some of the contents of her backpack into two separate piles. She pointed to one and explained that this pile was mine, while the other was hers. Seeing the confusion I had, she explained that this was a type of psychedelic drug that would keep the body warm if consumed, but that the side effect was slight hallucinations. I was skeptical. I gathered the firewood on the floor and commenced to light it on fire with my Zippo lighter. It lit up, and things began to heat up. I laid back against the cave wall, and looked towards the fire. I grabbed one of the pills that Arianne gave me, and consumed it. I immediately began to feel warmer, but the side effects were not noticeable. Instead of hallucinating, I fell into a nap. When I woke up, the fire was almost dying, and Arianne was over me, desperately trying to get me to wake. When I woke, she let out a sigh of relief. She told me that the one shouldn’t sleep whilst on the pill, for if they do, they then will fall into a deep sleep and their hallucinations would severely change their dreams to nightmares. She also added that in some cases around the world, users of the drug that fell asleep sometimes never woke up and remained in a coma, forever stuck in their fantasies. My second close encounter with Arianne made me realize her blue eyes and brunette hair. I couldn’t tell if it was the seriousness of my situation or if it was the drugs Arianne had given me that impaired my judgment. After half an hour, a thought came across my head. Why had Arianne followed me? I looked over at her. She was sound asleep, arms wrapped tight around her body to conserve heat. I felt pity and took off one of my coats and laid it over her. My very action caused me to almost burst into tears, because of the irony that I would be so willing to help another person despite the fact that people have never helped me. I managed to get a grip of myself, and I crawled beside her. Using my gloved hands, I gently nudged her. She woke up, stared at me and smiled. I guess it was my expression, because she obviously sensed the awkwardness in the air. She sat up, and I began my questioning. My first question was why she had followed me. She gave the explanation that she was afraid that I would have gotten myself in trouble. Despite the fact that she thought that I couldn’t take care of myself, she managed to be the only one to end up with me. My second question gave away my paranoia. I asked her why she would follow a guy that she hardly knew. My suspicions were met when she answered that she had secretly been following my life since she first saw me years ago. She told me that she saw how I was usually isolated, and anti-social, and how she wanted to make sure that I didn’t do anything to harm myself. In short, she was like my guardian angel. As I was staring at her with confusion, I noticed her facial expressions changing. Her smile remained the same, but there was something in her eyes that told me that she also had some problems in her life that she was hiding from the rest of the world. Looking at her was like looking into a mirror. I only saw myself. A tear was released and slowly dripped down my cheek, unable to freeze due to my body temperature rising to reflect the nervousness and awkwardness in the small cave. It was obvious that she had grown an attraction to me over the years, despite the fact that we had never spoken to each other until now. I looked into her eyes and was blinded by flashbacks of my past. During the intermission of flashbacks, I had noticed that Arianne was always there, somehow drifting in the backgrounds of my memories. She turned over and looked away from me, breaking my concentration. I stood up and walked towards the cave opening. I stood, staring intently at the raging blizzard and pure, white snow. I sat down, unable to rest from all the flood of memories and thoughts. I turned around to look back at Arianne, and noted that she had luscious, silky, brown hair, even in the cold weather. And yes, the prolonging of each "chapter" is intentional. In my opinion (which may differ from yours), it is used to represent how much of that "persona" the main character experiences throughout the book (technically me, in a sense.)