Chapter 9 

The prodigious being stood in front of her white tufts of it cloak soared along width of the overhang. Annemarie could barely make out its entirety after it had flowed through the crack in the falling snow. 

     She wouldn’t have been able to see as well in the darkness of the storm, but her surroundings were being illuminated by a cold white light.  

     Annemarie’s eyes were first drawn to the ground, from where the light was coming. She saw the untouchable cloak revealing two shoes of pure white, polished to a sheen. The ivory shoes radiated with a spark of its own and dimmed and brightened to her heartbeat. Before she could snap out of her thoughts the creature spoke. 

     “Well,” rang out from nowhere and everywhere, yet Annemarie clearly knew what was speaking. “What do we have here?” it asked in a jesting tone, but it was also laced with malice and arrogance. 

     Annemarie flinched back. She wouldn’t trust something that seemed so alike Jack. But then voice seemed to echo in Annemarie’s mind until the creature snaped its fingers. The snap sounded as close to her ears as a motherly whisper. The being was far more than Jack would ever be. To Annemarie it was far worse than Jack could ever be.  

     Annemarie wished nothing was behind her as she reeled back in fear. She hoped to get as away as possible from this encounter. Her wished were not granted and she was not spirited away. Her shoulders hit the hard glass wall behind her. It didn’t hurt as much as it would have. She was getting numb in the cold and only felt a dull pressure against her back. She wished she would feel the pain. She wanted a distraction from the dreadful presence in front of her.  

     The creature in front of her had no face but a skull of an animal long forgotten. It was a rugged thing with antlers and eons of weathering, but it lived. From bottom of the skull a tapered neck draped down in a foggy, misty, hazy movement. The now wide neck connected to shoulders that stretched on their own accord. Over these wide shoulders a cloak flowed around like clouds would in the sky and fell to the ground like flocks of snow. Hidden under the thick coat of fog, pale pearly fingers sprouted from unseen arms and below the two pristine shoes of gleaming white shone.  

     Annemarie felt it was a survivor, an endurer, and a mockery. 

     “I speak in jest,” the creature spoke from above and below, from the front and behind, “I speak in hopes. I speak in boredom."  

     Annemarie frowned. The being had yet to assault her, but for all she knew it could rip her apart and twist her like a twig. The empty emotionless eye sockets of the skull stared holes at Annemarie. The pale pearly fingers were spindly and had knotted joints. They stretched out of the being's cloak like spider's legs. They reminded her of a killer’s hands. And yet, it wore crystal shoes more beautiful those of a princess.  

     “I speak for myself and only myself,” the being continued. “Do not fret, your story ends here," it added, “I have seen your plight and solely wish to be entertained some more.” 

     Annemarie would have screamed and yelled and bit that creature right there, but she was too tired and dulled. She thought, “what difference would it make to be mocked for a little more.” She had learned to endure under Jack long ago.  

     The material shoes, polished to a shine and radiating cold light, grew in anticipation, as the creatures long stretched out arms, each reaching past the end of the overhang, were pulled back to the middle. Two hands of pearly gleam clasped together as snowflakes swirled around in a twisting wind. The creatures long fluid neck craned towards Annemarie, until its head was before her own. 

     Shivers ran down her spine, as she fought to make any reaction. Annemarie tried to back off more, but only squished herself more against the dark crystal wall. 

     “Say, little girl,” the creature spoke again without direction. Its voice vibrated through her body and mind, “why is it that I find somebody like you here, beneath the monument of those who have forsaken and doomed you?”  

     Annemarie gulped one last time, her toes, feet, and legs all ached, and her fingers, hands, and arms prickled. She was filled with weariness, each time she a cold and heavy breath. She stared quietly up to the skeletal face, as it stared back. Its skull hovered motionless right in front of her.  

     She could not believe what was happening. Nobody would have in her position, but it was pointless and even whimsical to question reality now. Annemarie was stuck in a hellscape made of frozen souls and hearts. She consigned herself to her last moments. She readied herself to be struck down by the horrible creature. Fear still flushed through her face, but she couldn’t scream her lungs sorer than they already were. As the creature's arms hadn’t begun moving towards her, she decided to talk. 

     “What people are you speaking of?” Annemarie answered with honest confusion. Cold iron winds blew above her. “I do not know of those who erected this tower. Why should I give fault to those who I don’t even know?” 

     “Is that so?” the creature chittered quietly, and then asked, “have you not heard of the people who poisoned the water and burnt away the air? Centuries past your grave has already been dug. Wouldn’t it be right to give those who called forth this long winter your murderers?”  

     Its words skittered across Annemarie as she grew uneasy. It spoke with memories of times no human still had. It spoke of stories she was only vaguely familiar with, but it had directly seen. She looked away from the creature whose skull spoke of a war which had been fought since the beginning of her people. She peered up into the nothing of the black overhang. Her mind was slipping, but she needed to somehow to argue against the impossible being. Her heart heated up as her limbs cooled down. Annemarie had found her answer in her anger. She did not need to focus for it, she did not need clarity of mind for it. She tried to lower her gaze again but dared not to look into the being's empty eye sockets.  

     Yet she spoke, “it’s that damnable brat’s fault. Jack is his name and everything that had happened was his doing. I do not need to hear of your tales from times long past. My doom lays in the present.”  

     Annemarie stopped as she choked on the frosty air. Her throat had gone more than dry, and it felt as if she had swallowed a bucket of shards. Blood flowed from her lips as she pulled their skin into a pained grimace.