Guardian

I.

The young child was running, laughing in the snow, struggling at how much there was She had wandered father away from the house than she should have without thinking about it. The snow was altering her visual limits. The icy wind seemed to whisper a warning but the child didn't hear it Suddenly, there wasn't snow anymore but something that looked different to the child. It was for a lack of other words shiny compared to the snow.

She took one step forward onto it and almost slipped. She steadied herself and then took another step again having to steady herself. Step by step the five year old continued on, getting further and further away from the edge that she had come on from. It was such a game to take each step and not fall down. With the next step however a loud noise thundered below her and startled her. She began to fall but farther than she could have ever imagined.

She fell through the ice and was immersed in freezing water. She started screaming for her mommy but Mom was too far away in the warm closed-up house to hear her. She struggled until she was too cold to struggle and slowly began to sink under the water. She didn't remember after that. It was like she had gone to sleep and forgot to dream and all was dark.

Krysta woke from the dream struggling for a moment to catch her next breath. After so many years, one would think she would have stopped dreaming about it. It was always the same dream moment for moment, it never varied. The memory could never fade, the dream never would let it even after sixteen years.

The rest of the memory was different. She grew up being told what had happened. Someone had happened by and saw her fall in and pulled her from the icy water. He breathed air into her once water-filled lungs and brought her back to life, wrapped her in a thick coat, and carried her to the house. There she was quickly rushed to the hospital. She never had a memory of this, it was told to her by her mom or grandfather time and time again.

She vaguely remembered the hospital room that she woke up in. It was dimly lit when she woke, her mom sitting holding her hand and stroking her hair. Her mother's face was marked with concern and tears as she clutched her to her now that she was awake. They differed on one memory though. As Krysta leaned forward being clutched by her mother, over her Mom's shoulder in the darkness stood someone watching. Krysta didn't ask that night who was watching not until later when remembering with her Mom. Mom always told her the same thing. No one was in the room but them.

Her hero, the brave soul that rescued her, was never heard from again and no one even got his name. They said he was a man of twenty or so. Once he got her to the house, in all the commotion, he just left. Her mom still had the coat that he wrapped her in he even left without it. It was odd that he would leave it but she had the coat.

Krysta grew up hearing about how she was saved by her guardian angel and that there was a special reason she was saved. It was part of her. She knew how lucky she was to be alive, to have been given a second chance. Sometimes though, she wondered why.

Having the dream always seemed to bring reflection. Why she was even out there that day was always the question. Her mother always said she was determined and rebellious and that's why she had sneaked out to play in the snow when she had told her no. She was always told she was like her father, always determined to do what she wanted no matter what. She wouldn't know, she didn't remember her father, he left her Mom and her before she was two. All she knew of him was a couple of photos and a few old stories that didn't give her much of a dad.

Her grandfather was the only father figure she remembered in her life. They were living at his farmhouse because that's where they went to live when her father left. It was home that day, snow, lake and all. That was as much the reality as the five year old being out in the snow at the lake that day. Reflection never changed any of it, maybe it just added a little sober sadness. She didn't like to think about it most of the time. Sometimes denial was bliss.