Remodeling the soul

Whoosh.

Smoke billowed out in front of her, fogging the cab of the small SUV and blurring the features of the people driving and riding with her momentarily, as the numbness settled itself in for the duration of the ride. Grogginess struck within minutes, almost before she had found the will to let go of the glass apparatus, passing it to a man that she had been forced to realize she never knew in the first place. Head lolling to the side, the panic and fear that had been so sharp and urgent in the prior weeks had subsided, no longer driving her to attempt escape, each time resulting in physic'al violence and manipulation of her mind to a degree she had no real cognizance of. Even now, the angle of her mind's eye was as off-kilter as the rest of her world for the last few months. As the warm skin of her temple and cheek met with cool glass and consciousness escaped her, one final warning alarm kept ringing through the curiously empty spaces of her mind before unconsciousness devoured reality and began its' ritual assault. She wanted to be in this car, on this journey...

Right?

Consciousness came abruptly, as it always did these days, as she sat straight up, stiffer than any board surely. Strangely echoing still in her mind were the remnants of the nightmares of yesterday, only adding to her normal grogginess. She had never been much of a morning person and was even less so in these strange, stretched days with not near enough sunlight nor warmth. She was raised in a place where snow was unheard of, joked about thoughtlessly by the locals who would never know the true bite of it and happily forgotten by those that had moved there from places where all four seasons were experienced in varying degrees of intsensity. Before her eyes could register anything in the small space around her, her ear detected what had surely woken her from her slumber. The heater's out of propane already? She groaned at the thought and drew her sleeping bag around her as tightly as she could, clinging the last vestiges of warmth trapped within.

Her tent was a moderate size, with space enough for her and three other people comfortably. Instead of people, it housed an air mattress with a sub zero sleeping bag, a propane fueled heater and two duffel bags of clothes. Layer after layer and most nights she still found the cold gnawing at her soul and bones alike, the only other way to combat it was movement. Easier said than done when there is snow on the ground, a persistent razor blade of wind and depression weighing down every muscle. Pain was a constant companion thanks to this bitter cold for which she had had not even the faintest inkling of an idea of what she was going to be in for when summer faded to fall and fall slowly succumb t o winters icy grip. She had pitched her tent along one of the small lakes (although it was probably more of a pond in the summer time, who knew) that had frozen over weeks ago. Trees marched out in every direction, bare fingers reaching for some imagined relie. f from the constant chill, and silence reigned.

She was lucky to have found this spot alone once she finally could cry no more for the love and life she had lost. He had walked away with so little hesitation after everything he had put her through, not blinking as he left behind the broken human being he had been hell bent on creating. This final betrayal was too fresh for any of her senses to have revived themselves and relieved her of her anguish, so she stared blankly out the open zipper at the front of her tent. Her eyes didnt register the change from the days before for several minutes and then it hit all at once.

Her tent was open. The heater was not just off but gone. And the frozen pond that she was still childishly considering attempting to skate on, like they always did in the movies she watched in her former life, was not one solid expanse of arctic blue and white. Instead it was fractured into at least ten sections, jagged stripes of dark blue separating all that ice and revealing the water still flowing beneath it. And at the bank stood a figure, hand crafted fishing pole in hand and back to her.

Her heart stopped. Before it could stutter back to life, a voice reached her across the distance, clearing away the fog in her mind isntantaneously because it was the voice that haunted both her waking and slumbering moments viciously and relentlessly. He found me.

"I should have just told you, I'm so sorry."

[to be continued]