Fear

Fear a fickle thing, utilized to control and manipulate those who are vulnerable.

A cold icy hand creeping from the depths of the head. Disabling and debilitating, impending.

Grasping the victim and wrapping them in an inescapable mummification of freezing inaction, the desire to hide and cower away from the problem, the reason to be afraid.

Using itself to perpetuate its own effect, the incapacitation leads to lack of action, leads to creeping fear, leads to more and more and more until you're stuck.

Done and over and ready to give up, wrapped, smothered, and frozen, unable to thaw or break out.

Suffocating, shivering, paralyzed in nothing but genuine horror.

This horror, although seemingly daunting and hopeless, can be fought, melted, torn apart. It may never leave, but it can be turned against itself, or those who use it to their advantage.

Embracing the ice, realization that it is something that's apparent and coming, and that standing still doesn't stop it.

Using this fear to propel yourself into the will to make things better, refusal to be scared into a corner, the ability to remove yourself from the crowd of forced followers it manages to accumulate.

Moving and fighting, although scared, although cold, continuing to fight. Wielding the fear as a reason to keep going, as you would rather die trying to prevent your fears from coming to life than sitting back while they inch to your feet.

Moving keeps you warm, the blood pumping, the brain working and rationalizing. An active target is much harder to freeze than a shivering one.