He was cold.

Hal trudged through the snow, having slowed from a sprint just a few seconds earlier. His feet, numb and weary, had refused to obey his mind, protesting at the physical exertion it subjected them to. The deep snow made it difficult to walk, never mind run, and with every step Hal could feel his foot sinking deeply into the five-inch high sludge.

Glancing over his shoulder, Hal peered through the thick, drifting snow. His breath misted in front of his face, spiraling away in a white cloud. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering, and tried to stop his teeth from chattering as he watched for his pursuers.

He didn’t see them anywhere. Did they perhaps lose track of him in all this snow? Or did they give up after deciding it was too cold?

“I didn’t stalk anyone.”

Grumbling to himself, Hal kicked out at the snow, or at least as best as he could. The white, fluffy frost clung to his boots, flaking from his soles as he pulled on them. Hal almost slipped, but he righted himself, his arms flailing about.

“Why me?!”

His voice echoed throughout the woods. Scratching his head in frustration, Hal took stock of his surroundings. He had been so absorbed in running that he didn’t realize he had escaped into the forest. No wonder his pursuers didn’t chase him. The forest was not a friendly place even in the best of seasons, and during the winter its grim stoicism was amplified several times. Even though it was supposed to be early afternoon, already the sun was fading away. What little sunlight that streamed down was filtered by the canopy of leafless trees, their shadows casting gloom over the gray snow.

Hal wiped the frost off his face, wheezing. His nose was getting clogged up, and it was getting hard to breathe. With the declining sun, the temperature was plummeting further, the cold biting down to the bone. He shivered as a sudden gust of wind howled up against him, and tucking his gloved hands into his jacket, he proceeded down the snowy trail.

I should return.

Boots crunching against the snow, Hal glumly proceeded the way he came back from. He wasn’t very enthusiastic about returning to the cottage his class had rented in this dinky little town, but he couldn’t stay out here either. He would die, if not from hypothermia, than from the beasts supposedly prowling through the woods. The bears should be hibernating now, but apparently there were reports of a predator lurking in the snow, abducting unfortunate townsfolks and dragging them deep into the forest. He didn’t know how true the rumors were, but seeing how dark the forest was, he didn’t want to risk it.

He would much rather face the wrath of his classmates.

How did it come to this?

Hal hadn’t been the most sociable of people, but he wasn’t exactly antisocial either. He was just a bit awkward. When asked who he liked, he mumbled Cassandra’s name. It was only natural. She was beautiful, with long, golden blonde hair, a bright smile and twinkling blue eyes. She kept fit through strenuous cheerleading activities, maintaining a gorgeous figure that tantalizingly offered wide hips and curves in the right places.

What Hal didn’t count on was that she already had a boyfriend. Adrian had risen to anger the moment Cassandra’s name had left his lips, and backed by his usual posse of jocks, they sought to beat him for being so impertinent.

His survival instinct kicking on overdrive, Hal had fled, grabbing his winter jacket on the way out. It was a good thing he did, or he wouldn’t have survived in the cold. The other guys had paused to grab their gear too, giving him time to cram his feet into his boots and sprint into the open, his laces untied. Remembering his flight, and how his boots were loosely clinging to his feet, Hal knelt down and clumsily tightened the laces, his gloved fingers trembling in the cold.

“Hu…”

Hal exhaled another white breath of air, his teeth chattering. He couldn’t stay out here in the open for much longer. He would just have to apologize and take whatever beating Adrian and his cronies had in store for him.

Or maybe he could ask one of the townsfolks to provide him shelter before he headed home by himself the next day. It was quite the small, cozy community. He was sure there would at least be someone who would be willing to offer him a place to stay for the night, especially when the alternative was to be locked out here in the cold.

“Uu…”

Hal froze at the sound. Swallowing, he turned around, seeking for the source of the cry. The voice seemed like it originated from deeper inside the woods.

That couldn’t be right. Why would anyone be crying in the middle of the woods?

In any case, the person sounded like she or he was in trouble. Hal leaned toward the former, because of the high-pitch. A child, perhaps? Did she get lost in the forest?

“…hello?”

Hal felt stupid calling out to the crying child, but he gulped and took another step forward. As cold as he was, he couldn’t leave a child out there in the darkness alone. He felt a chill run down his spine, but he ignored it and continued forward.

“Are you all right? Where are you?”

The weeping grew louder, and Hal felt a little more confident as he proceeded in that direction. He stepped past a withered tree, placing his hand on its wizened bark as his foot slipped, and turned around it.

There was a little girl, crouching in the middle of the forest and burying her face into her hands as she sobbed. Her body trembled, though whether it was from the cold or from being wracked by sobs, Hal couldn’t tell.

“Hey, there.”

Hal approached her, his heart stung by the pitiful sight. He held out a hand.

“Are you all right? Where are your parents? Why are you here by yourself?”

“I…”

The girl continued to sob, refusing to look up at him.

“I…I can’t see anything.”

“It’s…it’s okay. I’ll bring you back to your parents. I’ll help you.”

“Really? You’ll help me see again?”

“…huh?”

Before Hal could digest what the girl was saying, she looked up.

Hal fell back in horror.

The girl’s eyes were gone. Literally. Blood was streaming from the empty sockets, but somehow she was staring at Hal balefully, tears of blood slowly freezing along her cheeks.

“You’ll help me see again, big brother? Will you give me your eyes?”

As she reached out with her fingers, Hal yelped and kicked off from the snow, the flurry of ice obscuring the space between them. Scrambling to his feet, Hal twisted and ran, fumbling frantically as he stumbled through the trail in the direction where he came from.

“Ah…ah…!”

Hal almost fell, his boots unable to gain traction in the slippery snow, but his panicked movements allowed him to somehow propel himself forward. He bashed through the thin trees, putting as much distance between himself and the girl. As he bumbled through the darkness, he realized that he couldn’t see any sign of the town.

Where am I?

Hal wanted to get out of the forest. He wanted to find someone, anyone, be it the hostile Adrian, his leering cronies, or even the scornful Cassandra and her friends. He didn’t care if they beat him up. He just wanted to be among humans again.

“Hah…hah…”

Panting, his limbs numb from the cold, Hal tripped and fell, sliding through the snow. His foot had caught onto something, something he didn’t see because he was too focused on escaping. He cursed, but thankfully didn’t feel any pain. The low temperatures had stripped his body of feeling, of sensations, and his mind was flooded with too much fear to register such a thing anyway.

“Ah…”

Hal shuddered, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. As he crawled to his feet, he felt like he was being watched. Like there was someone deep within the woods staring at him. The girl with no eyes, somehow staring.

Hal shook his head and tried to get up, almost slipping on the blood-red snow. He threw a hand out to steady himself, only to blink at the color.

Red…snow?

He glanced at his gloves, which were now slick with blood. With a yelp, he hauled himself out of the area, spinning around to stare at what he had tripped over.

It was a body.

“…Henry?”

It was one of Adrian’s lackeys. A thick, burly young man with dark, matted hair and bulging muscles, he was an imposing fullback, a regular on Adrian’s football team. And now his huge body was lying in the snow, staring upward in shock as blood leaked from his neck, staining the snow before freezing solid.

It wasn’t just Henry. Paul, Jesse…the whole group were there, staring wide-eyed into oblivion as they lay sprawled in the snow, horror frozen across their expressions.

Hal understood just then. It wasn’t that they gave up on chasing him. They had been pursuing him all this time, braving the snow to satisfy their violent urges. The reason why they stopped wasn’t the cold.

Something had killed them.

Then one of the bodies moved. It was just a little shift, a tiny movement almost indiscernible to the eye, but Hal caught it. A pair of small hands, just barely visible from under Jesse’s body, slightly pushing it.

“Where are you going, big brother?”

The girl. It had to be the eyeless girl. Somehow she was eying him, toying with him. With a scream, Hal scrambled to his feet and bolted, following the trail and praying it would lead him back to the town. His blood pounding in his ears, the wind howling in his face, and tears and mucus flowing from his eyes and nose, he stumbled half-blind through the snow.

Hal didn’t know how long he ran for, but eventually the trees thinned out and he saw the cottage his classmates had rented. Feeling immense relief pouring through his veins, he sprinted toward the house, half-crying and half-laughing from the sheer sight of safety. Not caring what sort of hostile reception his classmates had prepared for him, he barged through the door.

The lights were off.

That was the first thing Hal noticed when he staggered into the house. Locking the door, he looked up only to see that the interior was dark, a stark contrast to when he had first fled the place. The only light was the illumination afforded by a television in the living room, which flashed and hissed through the open doorway.

Feeling a sense of unease creep up his spine, Hal made his way toward the living room.

“Guys?” he called out timidly.

There was no reply.

Hal swallowed his fear and proceeded, stepping past the doorway. The television was on, yes, but there was nothing being screened. It was just hissing and flashing static. The rest of Hal’s classmates were lounging on the couches, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw them.

“So you’re there, guys. Listen, Henry, Paul and Jesse are…”

As he spoke up, Hal noticed something amiss. None of his classmates were responding to him. They continued to lean against the couches, riveted on the crackling television. Hal wasn’t able to shake off his premonition.

“…guys?”

Despite his growing fears, Hal approached them with trepidation. Stepping around the couch, he tried to draw their attention…

…only to see why they hadn’t been reacting ever since he had barged through the door.

They were dead.

Unlike Henry, there was no blood or any sign of injury. They were just dead. Pale, frozen in shock, staring at the television with wide eyes and gaping jaws. They looked as if they had died from fright, the horror of whatever they had witnessed too much that it stopped their hearts and sapped the souls from their bodies.

“Jesus…!”

Hal swore and stumbled back. As he retreated to the doorway, something on the television caught his gaze. Blinking, he glanced at the hissing static. Between fuzzy, black, gray lines, he caught a glimpse of a girl. A girl in a red dress, with long, black hair. Not the same young girl as the eyeless child as he saw in the woods, but a girl his age, a young woman in her late teens, attractive and full grown.

And she was staring at him from the screen, disappearing and appearing in between distorted lines of static.

“Holy…!”

Hal turned, tripping over the staircase. He scrambled over the steps, pulling himself up and away from the television. Should he leave the house? Then where should he go? The eyeless girl was outside. But if he remained in here, then whoever killed his classmates…

“…”

Hal froze. He was sure he heard a muffled voice. Not that of a ghost, but a familiar voice. Cassandra? That was right. She and Adrian weren’t among the guys in the couches. Were they hidden upstairs?

Much as Hal loathed to see them again, he was left with little option. He didn’t want to face whatever killed the rest of their classmates alone, and there were strength in numbers. Even if he had to team up with a couple who bullied him, they were at least still human.

“Adrian? Cassandra? Are you there?”

“…”

He could have sworn he heard their muffled voices again. Steeling himself, Hal hauled himself up the stairs, leaving a wet trail of melted snow on the steps. The corridor upstairs was shrouded in darkness, but a silver ray of faint sunlight trickled through the windows, affording him a measure of visibility. Hal proceeded toward one of the rooms, where he heard the muffled voice.

“Cassandra? Adrian?”

Hal swallowed and pushed the door open. Stepping into the room, he saw the couple on the bed, tangled with each other.

“…guys?”

It was inappropriate for him to intrude. Both Adrian and Cassandra were fully naked and exposed, locked in an embrace. But they didn’t react to Hal as he walked in on them, their bodies motionlessly entwined.

No…

“Ah…!”

Hal heard Cassandra’s voice again, but he realized it was not coming from her body. A tiny, digital video camera lay abandoned by the side of the bed, its contents replaying over and over again. A small caricature of Cassandra rode Adrian in a frenzy as she squealed from the pleasure, their bodies rocking in ecstasy.

That was what Hal had heard. Tearing his gaze away from the video camera, Hal turned to their entwined forms. Like the others, Adrian and Cassandra were dead, their lives snatched away while their bodies remained locked in coitus. Red blood mingled with white semen as the fluids pooled under Adrian’s body, Cassandra’s sprawled on top of his. He was still inside her, their bodies united even in death. Hal could see where the semen leaked out from, but he didn’t see any visible injury. The blood. Where did the blood come from?

Unable to stand the sight, Hal staggered out of the room, Cassandra’s voice still screeching from the video camera.

I’ve to get out of here.

But where?

Breathing heavily, Hal dragged himself through the corridor. He suddenly froze when he caught sight of a figure darting at the corner of his eye. Spinning around from fright, he almost collided with the wall as he struggled to distance himself.

What he saw made him laugh hoarsely.

A life-sized mirror hung over the wall, reflecting himself. Hal sighed in relief and tried to calm his pounding heart. Whatever killed his classmates might have left, or might not be chasing after him. If he could hold out until morning…

“…eh?”

Hal blinked. From the corner of the mirror, a girl in a red dress was approaching him from the left. The same teenage girl that appeared and disappeared from the television. Startled, he spun around, stumbling back.

There was nobody there.

Heaving, Hal glanced back at the mirror, but only his reflection stared back at himself.

Bam!

The door slammed open, causing Hal to jump. A gust of wind howled inward, bringing flakes of snow into the house. Some of them even drifted upward to the second floor, where Hal was. Hal gulped and glanced down the stairs.

The wind continued to howl.

I locked the door. How…? The wind?

Gritting his teeth, Hal cautiously descended the stairs. He wanted nothing more than to hide in the room, but he would be forced to accompany the entangled corpses of Adrian and Cassandra, and for he knew, staying inside the room would be far more dangerous than going downstairs. And if he left the door open, then something might enter.

His heart pounding in his chest, Hal proceeded toward the main door, shivering as another gust of wind barreled past him. Shielding his face from the invading snow, he reached out to close the door.

“I would leave that house if I were you, big brother.”

The eyeless girl was standing outside the house, staring at him hollowly with sockets that continued to leak tears of blood.

“Holy…!”

Hal let out a shriek and fell back, stumbling away from the little girl. She watched as he scrambled to his feet to flee deeper into the house, but curiously enough, did not give chase.

Hal didn’t care. He just wanted to get away from the girl. Upstairs was not an option, not with Adrian and Cassandra lying dead in the room. The living room was now a room of the dead, its occupants lifelessly watching a television that broadcasted nothing. There was only one route open to him, and that was downstairs, into the basement.

Hal almost fell over the stairs, diving down them as he sought to put as much distance between himself and the little girl. He landed heavily at the bottom, cursing and swearing. For a while, he lay on the ground, his battered body throbbing from bruises.

He couldn’t see anything. The basement was enveloped in total darkness, with no windows or anything to afford any sort of illumination. Rising shakily to his feet, Hal fumbled for a light switch, but he failed to find one. Cursing under his breath, he reached into his pocket and retrieved his cellphone. Switching it on, he lit the place up with its flashlight mode.

And yelped.

In the center of the basement, slowly swinging from side to side, was a skeleton dressed in the same red dress as the teenage girl he saw in the mirror. A rope extended from the ceiling and ended in a noose that looped around her neck, bodily lifting the skeleton off the floor. Her arms and legs hung downward, rotting flesh dribbling off the bone.

“I have always been so lonely.”

Hal fell back when he heard the voice beside him. Raising his cellphone, he saw the girl. The teenage girl with long, black hair and a red dress. She was staring at him, her neck bent at an unnatural angle and her hair falling over to obscure half of her once pretty face. Raising a hand toward him in an oddly friendly gesture, the girl smiled.

“Can you accompany me?”

Hal screamed.