Frozen Locket Games

As he walked through the snowstorm he kept thinking, “What if.. What if I went to bed, and found myself kidnapped when I awoke. What if I froze in the midst of the storm. What if the earth hadn't got pushed away from the sun.” He pushed away the thoughts, and looked at the cougar, the cougar who kept me company, the one that was trying to adapt to the dropping temperature; just as he was. He didn’t know much about the cougar, only that it was a part of his family owned wildlife preserve. It didn’t let him get near it, but it also showed him no signs of hostility. He checked his thermometer, it had dropped four degrees from the day before. He hadn’t seen anyone since the temperature began dropping. On the first day, it nearly dropped fifty degrees fahrenheit, so everyone was freaking out. Due to that fact, his family wasn’t able to catch a plane back from their recent vacation. He wished the earth had stopped drifting, maybe even drifted a little towards the sun. In the distance he saw smoke of a newly-lit fire, this sight surprised him. He picked up his pace towards the smoke even though it seemed to be about half a mile away. When he arrived at the fire, he saw something so horrendous he fell backwards into the layers of snow. He got back up and looked at the sight, he saw a dead woman, left bleeding out and frozen in the snow. There was a stab wound on her back, not enough to kill her, but to paralyze her, letting her suffer. On the fire was the remains of a meal she was cooking, the murderer of this lady didn’t seem to want anything. On the woman’s left arm was an outline of a mountain, caused by a branding iron, the burning flesh still producing a little bit of steam, as if trying to fight against the cold weather. Next to her was a note, he picked it up and it read

“To whoever finds this girl first,

Congratulations, you have entered ‘The Game’. ‘The Game’ is a trial to see who gets to live a life in our safe haven, away from the freezing cold. On the back of this note is a token to represent your part in this game.”

He paused reading it to flip the piece of paper over, revealing a heart-shaped locket. He took the locket off and put it around his neck, flipping the piece of paper back over to continue reading.

“If you are seen with the locket, you will be targeted, the goal of the game is to find three lockets. Everyone of them looks different to ensure no one is cheating by replicating the locket. Once three lockets are found, go to the third mountain on the trail by the fourth ‘Great Lake’. Good luck.”

He was shocked by the note but quickly regained awareness and decided while there was still a fire he should rest, he planned to see if he could eat what the girl didn’t after resting. He closed his eyes and dosed off into a restless sleep, when he woke up the food was gone and so was the cougar. He looked through the woman’s bags as he was hungry, finding nothing but a small pack of Trail Mix, of which he ate. He scavenged everything he could from the lady and continued to walk. Every step he took his feet sank a foot or two down into the snow, due to this, his feet were freezing and wet. His energy grew less and less by the day because of the dropping temperatures. He looked at his watch, it had dropped nine degrees from the day before. As he walked he grasped the locket in his hand, feeling it helped hide it, at least a little bit. He made it to the first Great Lake before setting up camp. By the time he was done setting up camp it was already nightfall. He ate a few snack bars he had brought with him, doing so, he noticed how low his food rations were, only enough for a day or two if he ate a bare minimum. He laid down onto a blanket trying to get some sleep, but his mind was racing too much from the recent events, so he couldn’t sleep quite yet. He sat up gathering all of his thoughts together and about after an hour or two he finally was able to fall asleep. He woke up to a sudden, sharp but on the side of his head. His eyes immediately opened and he saw a black silhouette looming above him ripping the heart-shaped locket off of his neck. He saw a baseball bat in the silhouette’s hand and it smacked his head again, causing bleeding and his vision blurred. One more hit to the side of his head was all it took. The last things he saw was a leaf-shaped locket and a star-shaped locket on the silhouette’s neck.