The cold mountain air choked Emma violently. It was a frozen burn that ate at her lungs. The sensation grew colder than any mint and made breathing like trying to heave against the world’s weight.

  That summit painted her hands purple, and her body grew number with each passing moment. It had reached a point where she began to feel warm inside. The aches in her body slowly faded along with her sense of reason.

  Dizziness. Confusion. Why had she started climbing that mountain in the first place?

  Attempting to summon the answer in her mind was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. She tripped over a root she hadn’t seen.

  Emma became a snow angel. The warm and fluffy substance coated her face down to her toes. It kissed her little pink nose, and it invited her to rest.

  You’ve done enough. You can sleep now. Rest in this endless white abyss.

  Rest?

  Had Emma ever known that word? If she had, would she have begun the climb in the first place? The answers all eluded her. The mind couldn’t conjure up those sensations anymore. Her passion began fading with her flickering essence.

  The entirety of her being was screaming at her. The danger of it was plain to any logician. The divine pillow was sucking away at her life. Slower and slower.

  Her heart had become a smooth metronome, playing Winter’s tragic song. And a new song was growing in her head, even louder.

  Sleep…Sleep…Sleep.

  Emma’s shallow breath was a small whistle, but the crescendo of death had become even louder. The wind’s dangerous howling was like an army of wolves. The freeze bit into her neck like a vicious animal. How, then, did the rest of her body feel so warm?

  Was this mountain her mother giving her a warm hug?

  It was only fitting that the mother’s embrace brought about tears. They dripped from her cheeks and melted speckles of snow.

  She had never known a mother’s love, but she was assured this would be the feeling. It was an endless tender warmth, and she was tucked into a blanket. Her final blanket.

  Sleep.

  When Emma opened her eyes, she felt warm. A well-lit cave had become her surroundings. Her gears began to turn as she blinked her eyes several times.

  The cave around her was slick and frozen over. The walls were a crystal blue, and her face reflected back to her. Emma’s hands traveled around the unfamiliar image.

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  Her face had become noticeably thinner, and her pupils had become smaller. Moreover, her irises had become a creepy creamy color. She gasped, and the mirrored image repeated the gesture.

  Two pearly fangs were reflected. The shock of the canines almost made her forget her nudity. Perhaps her sunken stomach and skin clinging to her ribs should have been more terrifying. It was like looking over a corpse, and her white hair and pale skin reinforced this image.

  However, the most terrifying was her lack of aversion to this form. The small woman stood up on the icy floor, yet her feet didn’t slip. She clenched and opened her fists a few times.

  The pale woman covered her throat with her thin hand before trying to speak.

  “Ahh…Ahhh…”

  Emma realized the vocal cords had become different from how she remembered. This time she went through the motions.

  “Ahhh…Dooo…Reee…Miiii…Faaa…”

  The woman found her range, noticing that her voice had become noticeably scratchier. It was as if she went dehydrated for hours on end before attempting to speak.

  More thoughts started flooding her brain as if triggered by her speech.

  First of which, Emma realized she didn’t remember much. She had no idea how she arrived here. When she awoke, she had vague sensations of her name and words, but the knowledge of who she was became absent.

  All she knew was that she was Emma, and she felt surprisingly full of life. Despite looking like a corpse, she smiled with a well of energy.

  Now that she had grown more awareness, she began to notice something strange. The cave was lit, but there were no lights. There wasn’t a flashlight or even a torch, yet the cave shone brightly around her.

  The frozen place didn’t cool her body. If anything, she felt right at home. Emma squinted and thought of reasons, but the only thing she could glean was the world around her. The pale woman concluded that it must be something with her constitution.

  There had to be no lights. Rather, her vision had become better suited to night. She wasn’t sure why she felt that such a thing was different than before, but Emma knew that she didn’t have night vision.

  A new sensation permeated over her body as well. It was like a rippling sea that brought her a faint sense of joy.

  What is this? She tried to grasp it, but it wasn’t something tangible. It was something that existed to her like a limb, but she couldn’t grab it nor bite it.

  One more time she tried to grab it with her hand, but this time a smooth icicle appeared in her palm. She flinched from the suddenness of it, dropping the piece of ice.

  It fell onto the ice-covered floor, shattering into dozens of pieces. However, a new determination seeped into her mind. She was willing to latch onto it.

  Once again, she channeled that imagination into this strange limb or organ. The thing that brought her joy responded with a small flash of white, producing a clear snowflake.

  Emma’s eyes widened before she began jumping with joy. The pale woman threw it at the wall, but the expectation was vastly different from reality.

  She expected it to shatter as the previous implement did, but this one sunk several feet into the wall and embedded itself.

  Emma made a mental note of her newfound strength before experimenting with other things.

  She found that the organ was like a spring, and she could easily conjure up snow or ice with it. The ultimate limiter was her imagination, but since her memory was shocked, she mostly conjured small knives of ice or walls of snow.

  Eventually, she found a way to cover herself. A snowy and fluffy dress materialized around her, and she twirled in the mirror, smiling with her lifeless pale lips.

  Emma was not content with just this. No, she had a strong will to display her new power to the world. That desire manifested as she began walking to the cave’s maw.