File 14

Hey, everyone, Daniel here. I don’t know what happened yesterday, it all seems…….distant, like whatever happened was like, 10 years ago. Apparently I like, attacked Mistress or something. I hate it when this happens. Either way.

So Sylvia is doing far better. She can carry on a basic conversation, about on par with that of a smart 4-year old. Most of our conversations are about books she’s reading. She’s currently working on Catcher In The Rye. I love that book.

Now, Elise is the one who bothers me. She seems almost upset at me for something yesterday. I get it. She decoded the cipher and it’s fucking disturbing, I’m not gonna lie, it disturbed me too, but she needs to realize that if there was someone in the driver’s seat yesterday, it wasn’t me.

Afterwards, I went to speak with Mistress. I thought she was gonna be really pissed at me or something. Turns out she was actually acting concerned. Pfft, she doesn’t really care, she just thinks I’m useful. Anyways, she asked me how I was and whatnot, but nothing more than small talk, really. I got the hint, I needed to get that info that was necessary.

I let the City know that we were looking for The Mother of Snakes before getting into the car, and I could see the City shifting up ahead. “Follow the buildings shifting.” I told Elise.

We were mostly silent for the majority of the trip. We stopped when we came to a Door. It was more ornate than the rest of the most, and cold to the touch, so I was a little confused, but went inside nonetheless. We had the car parked in the nearest parking lot and hoped the City wouldn’t shift over it. So we got out and were suddenly in the middle of a fucking tundra. Nothing but endless snow and ice. The Mother of Snakes is cold-blooded, right? If she was here, she wouldn’t be hard to observe. Course, that’s assuming she wasn’t buried under a foot of snow. We wandered aimlessly, Elise and I, for a long time. We were ill-equipped, that much was easy to see, me in my trilby, black shorts, and a Musikfest 2011 shirt, and here in a tanktop and short shorts, we were both freezing quickly.

Then we saw someone. He looked to be a boy made of ice. The Cold Boy, I recognized him from the Convention. He was about half-visible in the blizzard, but he had the creepiest smile I had ever seen, except maybe that of the Unnamed Child. Made me wonder who learned it first, considering the Child and the Boy at least seemed pretty decent friends. He walked up to us and stopped about 10 feet ahead of us. And then he sang.

Twinkle twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diam-

He was cut off by Elise obfuscating a shotgun and unloading all her bullets into him, riddling him with bullets. The body of the Cold Boy flew backwards and skidded in the snow. “I fucking hate Nursery Rhymes!” Elise screamed, before shuddering, though I couldn’t tell whether it was from the cold or fear.

“It’s okay, Elise.” I put my hand on her shoulder. It was freezing. She hugged me, burying her face in my chest. “It’s gonna be okay.” I gently stroked her hair. Then I let her go when I saw the Cold Boy stand back up.

          “I’m gonna freeze yoooooou…” his voice carried softly through the blizzard. He reached into the ice, and pulled an icicle sword out.

          “We’ll see, now won’t we?” I grinned, pulling out my Knife. “Tell you what, let’s play a game.” I was catering to his interests now. I definitely had his attention. “I need to write an essay on you, for the Wooden Girl. If I win our little fight, you let me write the essay, and if you win, you can have me as a statue, deal?” I didn’t want to put Elise at risk.

          The Cold Boy made a face of disgust when I mentioned the Wooden Girl. Seems just about no one liked her. “She always made me go on that stupid Mikey show. Mikey was so creepy.” He then smiled. “But okay! I love playing games! What about your girlfriend there?” He pointed at Elise.

          “Oh, one other thing. Regardless of the winner, you’ll help Elise out of here, right?” I asked.

          “No, no, no!” The Cold Boy smiled and shook his head. “She’ll be a statue too! I wouldn’t want to split a nice couple up!” Elise and I exchanged awkward glances.

          “Alright…” I sighed and rushed him. For his age, he was a surprisingly good swordsman, parrying all my slashes and jabs with ease. What’s more, the sword seemed to be immaculately crafted.

          I finally got a hit in on his sword shoulder. The sword spun out of his hands and hit the ground. “Alright, do you yield?” I held my knife at his throat, making sure not to touch him. He was freezing just to be around, and I had reason to believe his body was down near Absolute Zero.

          “Okay…” He sighed. “You win. I’ll let you do your homework.” He sighed. “Or would you rather I show you to civilization?” he then asked.

          “The latter, please.” Elise and I said at the same time. I observed him and looked at him and interviewed him a bit while we were walking there. He was actually not hating answering my questions. He just seemed to be enjoying the conversation and having the people him around him.

We finally got to the human place. Alert, Nunavut. There was no one there. Apparently people only show up in the winter, what the fuck? Anyways, we found a door, fortunately, and went back through it. “Will you come back and play with me sometime? We can play hide-and-seek in the forest in Canada during the winter!” He smiled.

“If I’m not too busy, maybe.” I smiled back, and stepped through the door. Elise and I decided to walk home, and get the car, wherever it was, tomorrow. We were walking home, because it was a nice 81 degrees fahrenheit, rather than however cold it was over on Ellesmere Island. Regardless, it was still another three hours before I could type.

File 14: The Cold Boy

Alternate Names: PRE08, Fossil-Type ICEFALL, The Ruin, Subject Charlie Bravo, Nursery Cryme, Shivering Johnny, The Abominable Snow Boy, Ymir, The Forgotten, Little Boy Blue

Attitude to Humans: Varying

Power over: Ice, Cold temperatures

The Cold Boy is another who is generally not hostile, just kind of there. He wants to play with people. If he appears and asks you to play with him, it’s probably best to do so. He doesn’t usually want to play anything dangerous, usually hide-and-seek or Cops and Robbers, the usual stuff that kids enjoy playing. If you say no, however, he will become enraged and attack. He can often be found singing Nursery Rhymes, which is odd, given he looks to be about 10 or 11, rather than the usual Nursery Rhyme-singing age of 5 or 6. He’s fairly easy to spot. He wears all blue, usually has blue hair, and his face crinkles and cracks when it moves, like real ice. Often other children he gets to play with him quickly become his servants. The Children of the Cold. He is supposedly friends with the Unnamed Child and the Manufactured Newborn. He was once considered a friend of the Wooden Girl, but it has been revealed he was actually forced to be on her television shows, like Candle Cove and Playtime With Mikey. Also, he’s regarding to be one of the “Pied Piper” Fears, the ones that lead their victims astray. The Cold Boy should be regarded with caution, but not hated or demonized, he doesn’t want to be alone, that’s all.

I went to check on Sylvia again. The first thing she said when she saw me. “You’re so cold!” She said, standing up and walking over to me. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. Then she grabbed me by the hands and practically flung me onto the bed. She got on top of me, and then just started rubbing against me. I think she was trying to warm me up or something. I pushed her off me as gently as I could.

“I have uh…things to do.” I said, standing up. “I’ll be back to bring you dinner, okay?” I said, leaving. Elise was waiting outside, and she didn’t look happy.

“What were you doing in there?” She had obviously peeked in.
          “Wasn’t my intention.” I raised my hands in defense.

“Well, you’ll have to pay for that.” She said, kissing me. I could tell she was at least a bit drunk, she was clearly that way. I pushed her away as well. “Maybe when you’re sober, then we’ll kiss.” I sighed.

Nothing much else happened. Tomorrow we’re going to see if we can find the elusive Mother of Snakes. Goodnight everyone.

~Thompson out.