Ani

I’m slowly losing my mind. It’s been snowing in town for over a month non-stop. School was cancelled and nobody is on the road. I feel so trapped and helpless. Everything came to a head yesterday... when I saw her. Anastasia Morozov, or as we all knew her, “Ani”, had been missing for about a month now and nobody could find any trace of her. Steven told me what happened that night in the mountains. How he and Jake just left her in the woods, all for some stupid prank. Here I was thinking she got kidnapped, or mauled by a wild animal. But no. The truth, or what I believe to be the truth, is a million times worse.

Last night, I had been talking with Kate over the phone about the incident. There was not much else for us to talk about honestly. We had been stuck in our houses for so long, we were sure our minds were slowly deteriorating. She told me how every night she would hear a voice just outside her window, but that was all it was. Just the voice of a girl saying, “I’m cold…” I’m not one to believe in the supernatural, so I just told her it was her imagination running wild from being cooped up for so long. Kate was going to tell me I was right, until she paused. She told me she was hearing it again. That voice. This time, however, I could hear it too. Kate said she would be right back and put down the phone. All I could hear was static, like something was interfering with our signal. Suddenly, our connection was dropped completely and I couldn’t call her back. I just figured the storm was the cause of this and went downstairs to watch TV.

Our house was cold, even with the heat cranked all the way up. My dad was outside shoveling, which was honestly pointless considering how hard the snow was coming down. I think he was just going as crazy as I was being stuck inside. I was about to turn on the TV, when I heard a knock at our back door. It was soft, almost like whoever was behind the door was actually afraid someone would answer it. I could still hear the sound of my dad grunting and swearing in our front yard, so I knew it wasn’t him. It knocked again. Now I was scared. I ran to the front door and swung it open. I yelled to my dad that someone was around back, and he told me he would go look.

I could hear his footsteps in the snow walking around the side of our house. After some time, he tapped on one of the windows and shrugged. There was nobody there. All of a sudden, I began to felt weak, like all of the energy was slowly being sucked out of my body. I went upstairs to lay back down in bed, but when I reached the door to my room, the doorknob was completely frozen. I panicked thinking the window in my room flew open or something and I would be greeted by a giant snowdrift instead of my bead. I pulled the sleeve of my sweatshirt over my hand and opened the door. You know that feeling: when you think you’re hallucinating and, for a moment, all time seems to just stop? That’s what I felt when I opened the door to the girl standing in my room. My mind was filled with a mixture of horror and confusion as I took a step forward.

I called out to the girl, something I instantly regretted when she turned around. Her skin was a blue gray and she had a pair of piercing blue eyes. She was wearing a cape-style coat that almost completely covered up her thin leggings and boots. The most distinguishing factor, however, was the dark gray beret she wore on her head. I knew instantly that this girl… was Ani. She looked at me and smiled.

“Hi Margaret,” she cooed. Her voice was ethereal and disembodied.

I stood there in shock. My heart was stuck in my throat and I wanted to scream and cry all at the same time, but I couldn’t. I wanted to hug her and tell her we missed her, but something about her now terrified me. Ani moved closer to me.

“Do you want to see?”

I started to regain feeling in my body and managed to answer. “See… what?” I asked, consumed by fear.

I never should have answered. I should have ran as fast as I could out of that house with my dad and just drove. Ani was closer now, so close that I could feel her icy breath on my face.

“See what they did to me?” she said in a low, ghostly voice.

I didn’t get the chance to respond as Ani’s face began to change. Her skin started to rot off sides of her face and her eyes fell out leaving nothing but, sad, dark, empty sockets. I started to cry and fell to the ground. This wasn’t her, but at the same time it was.

“I’m… so sorry, Ani…” I choked, half stricken with this painful sadness the gnawed at my throat, as well as this intense fear that my life was going to end then and there.

The undead girl, or whatever she was, looked down at me. She put her ice cold hand on my shoulder. “I’m cold, Margaret,” She hissed in my ear.

Her voice sounded evil. Nothing like the sweet girl I had attended school with for four years. I looked up into those dead, abyssal eyeholes. An earie, pale, blue glow began to emanate from inside her body like some sort of twisted soul trying to escape.

“I’m cold,” she hissed again, more aggressive than before.

Her grip on my shoulder tightened and I thought she was breaking through my skin. I closed my eyes and screamed in pain as I summoned what remained of my strength to flail my body, in hopes that I might break free. I felt the pressure disappear but the pain still remained. I opened my eyes and searched frantically around my room for a sign of Ani, but, she was gone. That, was last night.

My parents took me to the hospital this morning when I showed them my wounded shoulder. When we got to the hospital, the doctor confirmed that I had a severe case of frostbite. I just told him I was outside and wasn’t dressed properly. I’m not sure what else I could have said, even that sounded a little strange as it was in such an odd place. I was given medicine for nerve pain, and instructed on what do to do take care of it. Luckily, they told me I should be fine which did give me a sense of momentary relief. That feeling has long since passed, however. I’m petrified that the ghost, zombie, whatever the hell Ani had become, is going to come back for me. I still don’t know how she got in the house in the first place. Hopefully I’ll hear from Kate soon. I haven’t heard from her since we got disconnected. Every time I try and reach her, all I can hear is that same, distant, ghostly static.