Stuck in a Frozen Lake

By BarBarKetrab

Part 1

In the middle of the night, amidst an expansive valley of snow which housed the meagre population of a small town, lay a small lake filled with freezing cold water. Yet despite the fact that the temperature outside was far below freezing, the water did not solidify. It was due to this very fact that in the centre of the lake, a demure head could be seen poking out from above the water’s surface. The obvious head of a person.

Teco Turchu was idly floating in the freezing water, feeling completely at ease. Not caring about the advice of the multiple doctors that he had spoken to, to “not bathe in freezing cold water” as they said, Teco relaxed and allowed his mind to wander. He had stopped thinking for years about the simple, mundane truth that this habit of his should have inevitably resulted in him being killed by the laws of thermodynamics long ago. He had done this dozens of times in his life already, and he was still alive.

Some things just didn’t make sense. This was just an extreme version of that.

The lake was in the shape of a circle, stretching out in the distance when looking north. It was surrounded by evergreen, winter trees, covered in snow, which was the only thing that made them visible, as they were obscured by the darkness of the night. Snow was piled around the periphery of the lake, every now and again depositing a small load of itself into the water, only for said load to quickly melt. As a matter of fact, snow was everywhere. It was a true eternal winter wonderland.

Teco’s house was quite close to the lake, a mere 5 minute walk is all that was required to make it there.

But Teco had no intention of going home, the reason why he came to the lake in the first place was to have a place where he could think clearly, without having to worry about unwanted interruptions. The freezing water had an unexpected calming effect on him. Perhaps the cold was literally numbing his brain.

His ‘roommate,’ Ena, knew many things about him, including his habit of “turning himself into a popsicle” as she would say it. But she never commented on it; it simply wasn’t strange to her anymore. Not after watching him do it for so many years in a row. She also respected his privacy, knowing the kind of person he was, so he had some time to sort out the things in his mind.

And those things mainly involved the exact same person he was just thinking about.

That girl……

Ever since she came back he hadn’t known how to speak to her properly, or really do anything properly around her for that matter. It’s not that they didn’t like each other, it just seemed that as they got older, things just got more and more…… complicated.

He knew things about her. Things that few others knew. Things that would downright disturb some of his friends if he told them. But he wouldn’t tell anyone. It was his promise to her, made three years ago right before she left, when they were both thirteen.

In turn, she knew things about him. Things that few others knew. Things that would make other people feel even more sorry for him. Things that would make maybe a few of his friends and associates feel betrayed. But she wouldn’t tell anyone else either. It was a dual promise, after all.

Obviously, they had both changed somewhat after all of that time, emotionally that is. It was really hard to tell if they had changed at all physically. Dealing with each other emotionally was like trying to disassemble two faulty machines and fix all of the components inside to synchronize them and make the machines compatible. Only that they were the size of people, and their respective machines were the size of skyscrapers.

Teco was very, VERY, emotionally reserved. Most of the time he did not display strong reactions to anything. Indeed, according to him he was incapable of feeling strong emotions. He would describe it as a wall surrounding his heart. Every time he felt a strong emotion building up in his heart, the wall would bear down on it, and push it back into nothingness. This way his body simply didn’t react. It was rather unpleasant, but he would think to himself ‘better to show too little emotion than too much.’ Although as time flew by, he seemed to be becoming more emotionally numb with each passing year. This sometimes made communication difficult. He really hoped it wouldn’t become a problem.

Ena was always a bit of an erratic person. She could go from being the happy-go-lucky overly excited individual, to the deeply angry and resentful type of person as soon as a change was brought forth to her. Every now and again though, she seemed to lapse into an emotionally numb state for some time. Sometimes it was due to stress, sometimes he didn’t know what caused it. This deeply unnerved him, because she started behaving more like him.

Was this really how other people saw him as well?

Lately, Ena seemed to be displaying more irritation and negative emotions in his presence too. She mostly kept to herself in the past. It was so crushing to see all this. All of her confusion, anger and……… was it resignation too? And not knowing what to do caused an even worse feeling to wash over him. If he did something wrong he would be met with rejection, and an argument would certainly ensue. Should he do nothing, he would be forced to suffer.

He was still looking for a way to support her, him and their relationship. But, he didn’t know where to look anymore.

What could be causing this, he thought. All of it, the sudden changes, the emotional numbness and the increased aggression. It was a far cry from her past self.

After contemplating all of this for an extended amount of time, he moved his head backwards in the frigid water, looking up at the sky, and sighed in resignation.

“Ena...... what am I supposed to do?”

Soon after saying that, Teco saw the darkened shapes of the branches and shrubbery growing around the ‘entrance’ to the lake moving, as if something was coming through. It was rather dark, but not quite dark enough to not notice.

Sure enough, a few moments later, a figure came out into the open in front of him. Initially trying to hide under the surface of the water, he quickly relaxed upon realizing who it was and stuck his head out once again.

The person began walking towards him, and he in turn began slowly swimming back to the edge of the lake. Upon reaching it, he clung to the ground.

“Ena?” “What are you doing here?” he said somewhat sheepishly.

Ena was standing a few feet from him. She was wearing a somewhat thin winter coat and little else to protect her from the cold. The coat’s hood was over her head. Teco took note of the fact that she appeared very tired, with faint bags under her eyes, and also a little……… frantic?

She replied to his question.

“Checking on you of course.” Her voice sounded weary and relieved. “You’ve been here for two hours, it’s 1am for crying out loud!”

‘Had it really been that long?’ Teco wondered. He climbed out of the lake and took a moment to let the water drip from his body, before standing up to face her. He had foreseen that something like this may happen, and decided to wear swimming trunks to avoid any embarrassing situations should Ena decide to come looking for him. Usually he came to this pool completely naked. However, the fact that she came looking at all made him feel happy.

Ena stood slightly taller than him and scrutinized him through emerald green eyes. The only part of her body that was uncovered was her face, with a few strands and locks of her hair peeking out under the hood. Many people had said that the two of them, Ena and Teco, looked quite alike. He had green eyes just like her, and their facial structures were quite similar: big round eyes, distinct cheeks, and they were both of similar height. The main difference between the two was their hair. Teco was blonde, and his hair was rather unkempt most of the time. Ena had brown hair, with a slight auburn shade to it, and it grew down to her shoulders.

Certainly a passerby would have been amused at the sight: a fully clothed girl ready for winter standing next to a boy dressed in nothing but swimming trunks while they were surrounded by subzero temperatures.

Facing Ena, Teco came up with a quick and, he thought, satisfying thing to say to her. “Do you want me to come back ho-”

“You know….” she cut him off.

“You spend so much time here, that I’ve been thinking ‘how bad could it be?’” she said with a confident smile while removing her hood, revealing her shoulder length hair.

“Alright then, let’s give it a try!”

He could only stare, realizing what she was about to do. But at the same time, he noticed that all traces of panic from her face had vanished, replaced with her usual personality. This greatly relieved him, and finally made him feel more comfortable.

It was only too bad that he didn’t have enough time to tell her that jumping into a lake of freezing water was intrinsically, a bad idea.

It was 2am, and both Ena and Teco were back at Teco’s house. Currently, Ena was sitting huddled up in a heated blanket on his sofa while shivering after her ordeal with the frigid lake. She was still very pale, and her nose and cheeks still a very noticeable red. She also chose to jump in while wearing all of her clothes, so now she could forget about wearing her favorite shirt for a while.

Teco was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, on the left of the living room, looking at Ena’s condition while trying to suppress giggles.

His living room had been renovated a few weeks ago, and he had removed the obscure portraits hanging on his wall as well as the strange designs on his doors and carpet. Now, he thought that it looked more like a home, rather than the colorful mish-mash it was before. The only out of place thing there were the many bean bags piled up against the wall. He loved beanbags. Straight ahead of him, on the other side of the living room, was the window, giving him a view of the snowy outdoors.

They had laughed and quipped to each other as they walked back home, and somehow Ena was able to keep up her upbeat attitude despite being thoroughly drenched and freezing cold. That was how he wanted to speak to her. In the short hour that had passed since she jumped into the lake, he felt happier than he had in a long time. Probably because it reminded him of his childhood conversations with her.

Laughter, joy, and having fun together, why couldn’t it just be like that again? Teco wanted to experience those memories once more, even if it was in a different time. He couldn’t just let her slip away from him, especially not when she was in a mood like this, such a good mood at last.

Somewhat impulsively, he quickly made his way to the sofa and sat down next to her. She turned to him, a slight grin still on her pale face.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice somewhat laboured by her shivering.

“I want to help you,” he replied.

“Help me with what?”

“Whatever you’re dealing with.” He paused, choosing his next words carefully. “Please, let me help you. You’ve been acting so different ever since you came back here, and it’s been getting worse every day.”

She stared at him, understanding.

He continued “Please, I want to. If there’s anything I can do for you, just say it, okay?”

He looked at her hopefully.

She moved back a bit, before her face relaxed and assumed that neutral expression that he disliked seeing so much. Only this time, it was visibly mixed with disappointment and……sadness.

“........Why did you have to ruin such a perfectly good moment......?” she said quietly.

Then she wordlessly got up, allowing the blanket to fall around her, exited the living room, and went upstairs.

Teco listened to the door of the room that she slept in shut, before hanging his head in sullen silence. Once again, the wall around his heart stopped his body from feeling much, but the emotions were still recognized.

‘Why........?’ he thought to himself.

He hung his head even lower.

He stayed like that for a while.

To be continued-