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Alice woke with a start, and instantly she felt the slushy coldness of wet snow around her. She was freezing and sat up as her body began to shake violently from the temperature. Confusion set in as she looked around herself, trying to find some kind of clue as to where she might be but it all seemed white. "Hello?!" She called, her arms now wrapped around her upper body as she struggled to stand up. "Hello?!" She called even louder and walked forwards, reaching out to touch what looked like a muddy wall that seemed to be frozen with ice.

"Hello," a male voice suddenly said, causing Alice to jump and glance around her quickly, "look up,"

Alice looked up and squinted her eyes, seeing someone crouched by the side of... what looked like the entrance to a hole... that she was in. "What's going on?" She asked, her teeth chattering violently as she stood there in only a t-shirt and pyjama pants.

"What do you think?" The silhouette chuckled. She couldn't see the detail of his face because of how the moonlight was reflecting off the snow, and the darkness of the sky wasn't helping with the contrast. Alice could feel herself beginning to panic, but she tried to think calmly, even though there was nothing calming about this situation.

"How did I get here?" She asked, her voice trembling as she rubbed her arms, "I'd like to go home now,"

"Oh," the voice laughed, with other chuckled echoing as if there might be more than one of them there. "You'd like to go home? Alright, well here's the ladder," the guy laughed again and Alice seemed to recognise it. The guy threw a ladder down, but it barely reached half way. "Jump for it," he taunted darkly, causing the fear, panic and anger to rise in Alice's throat.

"Stop it!" She yelled, "I haven't done anything wrong!" She shouted, feeling her muscles beginning to tense from the cold.

"You haven't done anything wrong?" The guy replied, his voice showing his irritation suddenly. "Try stealing, there's one thing. Try sticking your nose into business that doesn't have anything to fucking do with you, there's another thing. Did your mom never tell you about how curiosity killed the cat?" He taunted then laughed again, pulling the ladder up and away from sight again. Alice could hear more voices, and in a few short seconds she realised what was about to happen. She was going to die. Her mind began to race as she stared at the silhouette. "Have fun freezing Alice Murphy," the voice finally said, before they stood up as if they were going to leave her.

"Magnus!" She yelled, causing the silhouette to stop. "M-Magnus Johnson, Trey Eno, Charlie Newman, Noah Wilson, James Wright, Juniper Welsh, Lucy Bazen, Danny and Katy McOwen! I know all your names!" She shouted and took in a shaky deep breath, as she was met with a cold silence. "Gregory Lang, Hannah Wells, Ben Rodgers, Jamie Andrews, Helen Kitt, Olivia Price, Jacob Clifford, Robert Ellis, Danielle Cole, William Taylor and his brother Sam, Tom Peters and Veronica Green!" Alice called, her eyes fixed on the silhouette who she realised was Magnus Johnson himself. "Thirteen bodies, seven locations, I know where they all are and I've written them down!"

"Where?" Magnus demanded, and she heard the sound of a gun click, causing her to flinch as her eyes blinked rapidly but she stood her ground. "WHERE?!" Magnus shouted, causing her to whimper but she stayed silent. "You fucking- Search her room, tear her house apart I don't fucking care! Find the list!" He shouted to someone else and turned back to stare down at Alice whose skin had turned ghostly pale with how cold she was. "Maybe out here in your last moments before you fucking freeze you can think about why you don't stick your nose into shit that has nothing to do with you!" He spat before dropping something into the hole. Alice looked down to see his black gun in front of her, "There's only one bullet left... I used the others to shoot your family... Merry Christmas Alice Murphy." She heard him say darkly before the sound of his crunching foot steps in the snow became quieter and quieter as he left.

Alice felt like time had frozen for a moment as she stared at the gun and Magnus's final sentence replayed itself once more in her head. She felt her heart rip from her chest and seconds later she could hear herself screaming, but didn't feel it leaving her throat. The sound would be heart wrenching for anyone who might have heard it, if she were not trapped at the bottom of a man-made hole in the middle of the national park. "Magnus!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, her cheeks streaming with tears as she struggled to breathe in the cold, "Don't leave me here, you bastard!" She continued to scream as she tried to jump at the frozen walls of the hole to pull herself up but her hands kept slipping. "Please! Please let me out! Magnus!" She sobbed violently whilst she screamed as the emotions flooded her system, and her racing heart pumped them through her veins at lightning speed.

Snowflakes began to fall from above her, and each time one of them touched her skin it felt like an electric sting, "Help me!" She screamed, her voice straining to gain volume over the sound of the howling wind blowing in snow from the north. Panic choked her, and she was beginning to hyperventilate. "Help me!" she screamed again, but the snow was beginning to fall heavier. Alice couldn't stop the persistent whispering of reality, telling her she was going to die in this hole if she didn't get out but she couldn't see a way to achieve that.

Her tears were beginning to sting her cheeks, but she couldn't stop crying. Blinded by panic and snow she couldn't screaming for help and attempting to pull herself up on the wall. An hour passed in reality, but it felt like an eternity for Alice since time didn't seem as straight forward anymore, and there was still that eerie silence of howling wind and the pattering of falling snow that had begun to haunt her.

Alice stood there, exhausted and crying softly, her tears had nearly frozen to her face and her skin had turned ghostly blue. She'd stopped shivering, and she knew at this point her body had gone into shock. She felt numb, and she knew she was about to die... quietly she looked down at the gun Magnus had left for her, covered in a layer of snow, she bent down to pick it up. She could barely move her fingers but held the gun up to her head... but before she could pull the trigger her eyes closed and she fell back and onto the bed of snow that had gathered underneath her.

Alice's body lay there eerily still. And all that could be heard was the wind howling through the trees above the hole and the fluttering of the snowflakes caught in it.

Minutes seemed to sluggishly tick past as snow began to pile up. It wouldn't be light for a couple more hours, and by then all traces of Alice would have been covered with snow...

Alice..." a familiar voice called in an eerie echo, causing Alice to open her eyes slowly and tiredly.

"Leave me alone," she mumbled, feeling the exhaustion deeply set in her bones and her muscles as it weighed her eyes down. "Just let me sleep,"

"Get up Alice," a familiar voice called, and it almost sounded like her own. "I said, get UP Alice!" The voice shouted now, suddenly sounding angry. "Get up, Alice! Get up! Get up! Get up!" The voice was screaming over and over again, getting closer and closer until something that felt like a fist struck her chest painfully...

... suddenly she sat up, gasping for air and grasping at her face since her lips had turned blue. Alice quickly stood up, frantically brushing the snow off her and shaking her fingers to keep the blood moving. She knew she'd stopped breathing, and she didn't know why she had started breathing again but something, somewhere had decided that this wasn't her time.

But something about Alice Murphy had changed. She felt no panic, no fear, no anger or desperation just determination. She looked around herself quickly and noticed the gun on the floor... Alice picked it up and hurried to the edge of the hole and began to break the frozen mud away to create a hole big enough to put her foot into. She did it over and over again, her breaths shallow and controlled as she climbed slowly but steadily out of the hole, which she couldn't have done without the extra padding of thick cold snow that had also coated the edges.

Alice pulled herself out of the hole and onto flat ground, her eyes looking slightly glazed over as she looked around herself, suddenly seeing faint car tracks in the snow a few yards away from her...

* * *

"... Early this morning at Summerland's Police Department an anonymous note was sent to local Sheriff, John Wilson. Locations of the missing teenagers bodies, Hannah Wells and Ben Rodgers, were enclosed within the brief note, suggesting that the two teens that went missing earlier this year are in fact dead.

The search for the two teenagers begun down at Kettle Valley Steam Railway shortly after the anonymous tip was received. Our on-location journalist Jeanine Marston Reports..."

It had just gone six thirty in the morning when Richard Murphy wandered back upstairs with two cups of coffee in his hand, having left the back door unlocked after letting out their dog into the back garden...

Polly, the young king clavier spaniel, wandered innocently around the edge of the yard to relieve herself only to bark with fear as the back garden gate swung open and Alice stumbled through. She was almost frozen to the bone, but had managed to force herself to keep moving. Her lips were blue, her eyelashes and hair frosted with snow...

Sophie Murphy sipped her coffee as she glanced out the window to see what Polly was barking at, only to witness her eldest daughter collapsing onto the snow out of exhaustion. "Oh mon Dieu!" She cried, dropping her coffee mug and darting out of the room with her heart racing in her throat. "Richard!" She called, running frantically to the back door and yanking it open. She ran outside in her bare feet and over to Alice who was now unconscious and barely breathing again. "Richard call an ambulance!" She cried as Alice's father, stared in horror from the door and ran back inside and fumbled for the phone...

... only an hour later Alice was wrapped up in foil blankets and sipping hot liquids by the crackling fire in the living room with her parents staring at her with horror and worry whilst a paramedic checked her over. "Well you had a near miss there Alice," she said kindly, "a minute longer and you would've had a severe case of hypothermia. But if you keep warm and slowly build your body temperature back up you should be fine by this evening," she advised as she checked Alice's temperature again.

"Can I ask what you were even doing outside in this kind of weather without the proper clothing?" The other paramedic asked who was folding up the bag of supplies they'd use to bring Alice back around. He had been looking at her suspiciously for the past half an hour, wondering why this petite sixteen year old wasn't more unnerved by the events that had just happened. It almost seemed as if she didn't care.

"I can't remember," she replied quietly, her cheeks and lips now pink again. "The last thing I remember was-" she hesitated and tried to remember, and remembered every single detail. Yet, she found herself lying. "-having dinner," she finished, now looking up at the adults surrounding her. "I don't know what happened after that,"

Her statement was followed by a brief silence. "...Well, you're one lucky kid," the paramedic said, looking at her sternly. "If you were even a fraction smaller than you are, this situation could have been completely different."

Alice stayed silent and lifted the warm tea to her lips and drank in slowly, deciding to look away and into the crackling fire... "Thank you so much for your help," Alice's mother said softly to the paramedics as she showed them to the door, still dressed in her fluffy blue robe. "I don't know what I would've done if..."

"-It's alright Mrs Murphy. It was a close call, but she'll be fine. Lots of hot liquids, hot food and rest for the next couple of days. Try to avoid caffeine as well.... however I would keep an eye on her... her behaviour is slightly unusual but it might just be from the cold. If the ... detached mannerisms continue feel free to bring her down to the hospital," the female paramedic advised kindly since the other was already making his way down the path to the brightly coloured ambulance in the driveway. "Have a good day ma'am."

"You too. Thank you again," Sophie smiled warmly and closed the front door gently and walked back towards her husband who was hovering by the edge of the living room.

"I don't understand," he said quietly, his eyes on Alice who was still staring into the fire. "All the doors were locked... when I went up there this morning to wake her and Charlotte, I could've sworn I heard the shower running. Her bed was made... I- I thought she was there."

"Maybe she was..." Sophie trailed off, unable to find a believable reason. "I'll keep her home from school today and try and find out what happened."

* * *

Magnus pushed open the door to the Boys locker room violently and walked in slowly, catching the attention of his team mates who were all preparing for their last ice hockey game of the semester.

Magnus passed Trey and Charlie, beckoning them to follow him to a corner away from the rest of the group who had music playing. Trey glanced at Charlie cautiously and followed, only just reaching the corner before Magnus turned and held up his phone, showing them a headline of one of the local news outlets. "Do you want to read that for me," Magnus said in a low voice, looking at Charlie directly.

"Uh, bodies of um- missing teenagers Hannah Wells and Ben Rodgers found at railway." Charlie said, glancing up at Magnus who looked furious.

"Tell me how they found them," Magnus hissed, "because you told me you cremated the fucking bodies, Charlie-"

"I know- but uh, well I-" Charlie tried to explain but Magnus's eyes flared with rage. He grabbed Charlie and threw him up against the wall and held him there, pulling back his fist ready to strike but someone stopped him.

"Hey!" Coach shouted, "Johnson- cut it out!" He added as he pointed his finger at the back of Magnus's head, causing the other team members to look over out of curiosity. Magnus let Charlie go reluctantly and continued to glare at him for a moment before looking towards his coach. "Now I know tensions are high because of the recent news about Rodgers... but I want a good game tonight despite that. It's what he would have wanted as our own captain. Now before the game starts, the headmaster wants us all to have a minutes silence for Hannah Wells and Rodgers, out of respect... and Magnus, as the new captain, it's your duty to keep your cool and lead this team, no knocking any heads before you get on the ice."

"Sorry Coach," Magnus replied calmly as Charlie shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat, avoiding all eye contact.

"Alright," coach smiled and clapped his hands together, "Now If anyone needs to fight anyone tonight, I suggest you wait until the game starts..."

... Half an hour later Candice and Olive with a few of their other friends slid into seats half way up in the stands beside the ice hockey rink. "I can't believe Alice won't be here to watch this," Olive said as she tucked her hair behind her ears and sat down. "She loves ice hockey,"

"I know, when she said she was sick I was so surprised." Candice replied, "on the last day of the semester too... maybe we should film the match for her,"

"She's been sick a lot recently, like two days last week and now today... I feel like there's something up." Olive pointed out as she took a bite of her sandwich and looked around the rink to see that most of the student body had turned up to watch the ice hockey match.

Candice hummed to herself as her eyes scanned the rink too, and her gaze landed on a particular group of seniors who were just settling into their seats by the edge of the rink to watch. "Oh my god! It all makes sense!" She gasped, "Remember how we thought her involvement with Noah Wilson was so random, maybe they've been hooking up and taking sick days to spend more time together,"

"That's insane," Olive chuckled, but she found herself looking for Noah too, and couldn't seem to find his big rimmed glasses and beanie hat. "But it kind of makes sense in an irrational way..."

"Exactly! I hope she doesn't bail on the dance tonight, I'm kind of exited to see her with Noah." Candice smiled, feeling at ease with the conclusion she'd come to about Alice's absences....

... When the game had finally begun, things had carried on as usual... the match was running somewhat smoothly between Summerland High and Penticton High, and so far the score was favouring Summerland.

When the buzzer for half time sounded, you could tell the tension between the two schools was getting high. There had been some pushing and shoving between some players but that usually happened. But today was different, today was the day that Summerland high and most of the British Columbian province had found out that two of its students had been found dead... today was also the day that Alice Murphy was meant to be dead too.

Magnus felt unusually tense, and found himself continuously glancing towards where he had seen Alice's friends sitting to watch... he tried to stop himself but he, for some reason, expected to see her there. And kept seeing flashes of blonde hair in his peripheral vision.

When the game started up again, Magnus couldn't concentrate... he was an extraordinary ice hockey player, and could play the game as if it was second nature... but suddenly he heard a girl scream a little louder than the cheering from the student body, the sound was piercing, loud and confused him momentarily as he wondered why no one else had reacted to it. He stood there in momentary shock, and looked down seeing the black hockey puck slide into place by his skates and stared at it, seconds later he was body slammed into the edge of the rink by a player from Penticton High, Myles Smith.

Both of them hit the ice and Magnus grunted as some of the air left his lungs harshly, "Watch it," Magnus spat, pushing Myles off him aggressively before he got up,

"Watch it? How about you pay attention to the game you elitist prick," Myles spat back, causing Magnus's eyes to suddenly focus on him angrily. Myles was about to skate away to rejoin the match but Magnus caught him by his jersey and pulled him back,

"What did you call me?" Magnus asked, his usually subdued fiery temper beginning to rise quickly.

"I said; you're an elitist prick." Myles snapped back and turned to shove Magnus hard into the plastic shielding surrounding the ice rink.

A few of the other players had begun to notice the confrontation between the two just as Magnus had been shoved, "shit," Trey hissed under his breath as he began to skate over to break it up since he knew Magnus's patience with confrontation was thin.