Chionophobia

Indena and I were at the kitchen table, flipping through the pages of the mysterious almanac I found. The scribbling was a lot harder for her to read then it was for me, but she noticed some things I didn't.

For instance, there were some super spooky things scribbled in here, like monsters an edgelord might draw in a notebook when bored.

"See this?" she pointed to a scribbled blob in one of the yellowing photographs. "Doesn't that look a little like it's supposed to be something in the sky?"

It kinda made me think of a ghost blocking the sun. I could just barely make out a pair of eyes purposefully not drawn in. This guy might not have been much of an artist, but he definitely knew how to convey a creepy feeling in his work.

"You think something spooked him out here?" I asked.

"Maybe this place really is haunted."

Eeeek! I wish she hadn't said that. Now I’m really REALLY creeped out!

In my now limitless worry, I started thinking about the carvings we saw before. They depicted a being suspiciously similar to what we were seeing sketched into this book. With both of those things, it couldn't have been a coincidence.

“Beware the harbinger sirens…” We discovered that sentence a few times here too. “Beware the Reaper…”

Something was in this valley, no doubt about it. Clearly people of the past were trying to warn us about it. I didn't want to think it, but this boogeyman we kept seeing referenced, it couldn't have been the Grim Reaper, could it?

*THUD!*

*CRASH!*

A loud noise outside freaked us out. We both turned to look out the kitchen window.

Flakes of snow had started to glide down from the sky, quickly turning into scattered flurries that covered up anything deep into the trees. It was getting really dark outside too. I couldn't even see very far using my night vision mode for some reason.

“Snow…” Indena breathed out, shaking like a leaf. “Damn it…”

Her nails were digging into the wooden window sill, clawing away at the already chipping paint.

My hand went over her arm, both to comfort her and check her heart rate. Her pulse was through the roof.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Y…yeah.” She pointed me to the other room while she locked the window and closed the blinds. “Make sure every window is shut and covered. Every single one!”

She was really scared. I got right to work!

“On it!”

I ran around the house, frantically locking up all the windows and closing the blinds. Eventually I worked my way upstairs.

Some of these windows didn’t have blinds, and a few of the shades were old and falling apart, so I strung up blankets to cover them.

*Tink tink tink* I heard a sound coming from the hidden study den.

At first I confused it for a tree branch tapping at glass, but there was a pattern to it.

*Tink tink tink…*

I followed the sound to discover a little blue bird outside, pecking at the window sill. When he noticed me, he started tapping at the glass again.

Birds weren't usually smart enough to communicate with people like this, but this one was clearly trying to get my attention for some reason. Maybe he wanted shelter?

I opened the window to let the little guy hop right in.

"Peep!" he chirped. "Peep peep!"

He did a few little frantic hops around, almost like a cute dance. The little crest of feathers on his head were sticking up.

The longer I looked at him, the more it looked like he was glowing a little. Not only that, but his body was see-through. Come to think of it, he looked a lot like that moose we saw earlier with that eerily similar blue aura.

"What's the matter, little guy?"

I wondered if Samael was making him jumpy. Snakes and birds didn't exactly get along in nature.

"Yo, Shrimp!" Indena walked into the room. "Why’d you open the window?"

Indena’s voice startled the bird, causing him to fly back outside.

*SLAM!*

"What was that?" Indena shouted as she slammed shut the window and locked it. "I told you to keep this place locked up tight."

"Hey!" I shouted at her. "That bird was trying to tell me something!"

"Just...keep the windows shut, nature girl!" she stormed out of the room to finish her job.

Could she sense something was coming? I've never seen her so freaked out before.

Still, that blue bird was also a mystery here. I'm sure he was trying to communicate with me. But what did he want?

~☆☆☆~

Indena took even more precautions around the house by turning on every light and cranking up the heat way too high. Heat didn't bother me, but something was bothering her.

It became silly when she made a fort out of some of the pillows and blankets in the front room. I had to figure out what this was about.

“Why are you so worried?” I asked.

“You want the truth? I… It was that book. It freaked me out. Then we heard those noises outside.”

She was definitely lying. Not that those things weren't freaky, but there was more to this.

“You were scared even before we saw the book,” I mentioned, remembering she was a little worried while walking home. Both times had to do with snow. “Are you scared of the snow or something?” I asked.

“Damn kids pick up on stuff so easy,” she mumbled. “Fine. Yes. I’m scared of the snow! Happy?”

I let out a snicker, which caused her to give me an even meaner look than normal.

“Laugh it up, Shrimp. But it’s true I am afraid of the snow.”

Just the thought of someone being afraid of snow seemed silly to me.

“But, how can you be afraid of it? I don’t understand.”

“I bet it reminds you of fun stuff like snow angels and crap. But for me…” she slapped around a pillow a little bit. “Gah…”

This was really bothering her now. I started feeling bad for thinking her fear was funny.

“You can tell me, you know,” I scooted up next to her in the fort. “I’m sorry for laughing.”

She side-eyed me, then looked away.

“When I was little, I almost froze to death out in the cold. Mom abandoned me and everything. I was way too small to fend for myself, if anyone even could in a blizzard.”

My heart sank as I realized her phobia was justified. That's definitely a good reason to be afraid of snow.

“Sorry…” I admitted again. “It’s just, when I think about it, it usually reminds me of Christmas and stuff.”

Who wouldn’t think like that, especially at my age?

“Again with the Christmas stuff?" she said, covering herself in a blanket. “Just leave me alone.”

“I’ll be careful not to bring those things up, if that’ll help,” I suggested.

“No!” she threw the blanket off her head. “Don’t treat me like I’m weak! I gotta beat this. Walking on eggshells for me won’t do any good.”

“But, you're scared of it. It’d be mean if I talked about it in front of you.”

Her body twisted toward me and she gave me the most nasty scowl yet.

“Oh shut up! Not all of us wanna’ sit here and live with fear our whole lives. Just treat me like normal!”

Her shouting scared me. I started to cry.

Now she was feeling bad for scaring me. She let out a sigh and carefully rubbed my shoulder.

"Sorry. I'm just not good with this feelings stuff."

Her apology made me feel a little better, but that didn't change the fact that she was still hurting on the inside too.

I didn’t have much confidence that her brute force approach was going to help her overcome her fear. She was sad, and scared. Those are things that always made a person pretty upset with life as a whole.

When we're upset, we need to be cheered up. That way, we can be happy and get over what was making us upset. Simple logic, really.

To be honest though, I was not really good at cheering people up. The most I had under my belt was getting an AI to stop wanting to kill me. Maybe that's more experience than I want to admit. But I knew when I wanted to cheer up, I played games to feel better. Usually video games to be specific. We didn’t have those around here though.

Another thing that helped me, which I was doing right now, was petting Samael. His leathery skin was actually pretty good at making you forget your worries.

I pulled Samael carefully from my hair. He struggled a little at first, but allowed me to take him down.

“Don’t worry…” I whispered to him. “I’ll just let her pet you for a little while.”

“Sss…” He hissed agreeably and slithered toward her hand.

He playfully coiled around her fingers. She was a little nervous handling him.

“Whenever I get scared, I play with Samael,” I said with a smile.

“You play with a stupid snake?” She poked his head.

“Sssss…” He sounded aggravated.

“He doesn’t like being called stupid,” I told her.

“That’s right, you apparently speak to nature,” she grunted. “Why do you even have this thing in your hair? What's a little girl doing playing with a snake?”

She’s one to talk…

“What’s a big girl doing acting all mean and cursing at a snake?”

Yeah, that got her!

She was taken aback by my sassy remark. A smirk grew on her lips.

“You know, snakes and women don’t go well together. These guys caused us a lot of trouble a long time ago… You think you can accept that?”

Trouble? Women? Snakes? I didn’t understand.

“Well, a lot of people are scared of snakes. But Samael is nice. So if every other snake is scary or evil, at least I know he isn’t.”

“Ha!” She let out a hardy laugh. “You’re alright, Shrimp.”

A tinge of pride tickled my chest knowing I was getting closer to her. I was also glad she didn’t seem as worried about the snow now.

That pride soon faded as a twisting anxiety caused me to feel sick. Waves of some invisible malevolence held my mind hostage, demanding me to cower to it in the wake of its madness.

The crackle of lighting boomed outside, battling against my perception of a silent snowstorm.

If only the thunder was all we’d heard, because another sound soon accompanied the booms.

*Weeeeewwweeeeeeooooo…*