Death Cycle

Chapter 1: Frost Verse (104)

     The boy wakes up to somebody shaking him.

     "Hey. Are you...okay...?" a boy standing above him asks.

     "Where am I...?" the boy asks. Everything's cold and he can't stop shaking.

     "Y-You're freezing! Here. Come with me. I'll bring you to my house," the other boy says as he helps the boy up.

     Opening his eyes, the boy can see that the ground is covered in snow. He looks over at the boy helping him and sees that he's wearing a dark purple coat, black gloves, a black puffy hat, and a long black scarf that flapped in the cold wind.

     Soon, they reached a cabin. The scarfed boy opened the door and helped the other boy inside, being pushed into the cabin slightly by the harsh winds. The scarfed boy sets the boy on a couch and closes the door.

     "Are you okay? Let me get you a blanket," the scarfed boy said as he rushed out of the room.

     The boy looked around, shaking on the couch. The cabin looked very nice and comfortable. It even had a large TV with multiple consoles plugged into it.

     The scarfed boy rushes back and wraps a blanket around the shaking boy. He then grabs a remote and points it at the fireplace. A fire starts in the fireplace.

     "There. That should warm you up," the scarfed boy says. He walks over to a table and places his coat, scarf, gloves, and hat on it. After he pulled off his boots, he walked over to the shaking boy and sat next to him. Now that he wasn't wearing a coat, he could see that he was wearing a black shirt. His white hair stood straight up because of the hat he was wearing, but started to fall back down again and his purple eyes looked at the boy worriedly. "So are you okay?"

     "Uh...I th-th-think s-s-s-so..." the boy said, his teeth chattering.

     "You're REALLY cold. Let me make you some hot chocolate," the boy said as he got up and walked into the kitchen. "Oh! I'm Spleek. What's your name?"

     "My...name...?" the shaking boy asked. He thought hard, but he couldn't think of anything. "I... I can't remember..."

     "Huh? Do you have amnesia?" Spleek asked.

     "I don't know... All I remember is a bunch of guys in lab coats throwing me into some sort of machine thing," the shaking boy said.

     Spleek sits next to the boy, handing him a mug of hot chocolate. "Woah. Sorry, I don't know what to say..." Spleek says.

     The boy looks sad as he takes a sip of hot chocolate. It burns his tongue and he flinches in pain.

     "Careful! It's still really hot!" Spleek says.

     The boy nods as he places the mug onto the coffee table. His body felt much warmer now.

     "Hm... Well, it's going to be weird talking to you without knowing your name. How about a temporary name for until you get your memory back?" Spleek suggests.

     "Like what?" the boy asked.

     "Uh... What about Darien?" Spleek suggests.

     "Darien?" the boy asks.

     "Yeah. I mean why not?" Spleek says.

     The boy smiled. "Darien... I like that name."

     "Heh. Well, I'll call you Darien from now on then."

     Darien smiles. "Thank you, Spleek."

     "Hey, it's not a problem."

     Darien looks at his hands. They were very pale. "Uh... Do you have a mirror?"

     "There's one in the bathroom."

     Darien got up and looks around for the bathroom. He had no idea what he looked like, so he was very curious to see his reflection. When he found the bathroom, he stepped inside to look in the mirror. Darien saw he was wearing a blue jacket and a black shirt. His skin was completely white and he had no face or hair. He stepped back from the mirror and screamed.

     Spleek rushes into the bathroom. "What's going on?! What happened?!" he yells.

     "My face! Where's my face?!" Darien screams.

     "What?! What are you talking about?!"

     "What do you mean what am I talking about?! Look at me!"

     "I am! You look fine!"

    "Wha-? L-Look in the mirror!"

     Spleek does so. "I don't see anything weird."

     Darien looks at his reflection, very confused. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? "You don't see anything weird...?"

     "No."

     "O-Oh... I'm sorry..."

     Spleek turns around. "It's okay, Apollo. Everything's fine."

     "A-Apollo...?"

     "Oh, you haven't met Apollo yet!" Spleek says as he steps out of the bathroom, allowing Darien to see the husky staring up at him. "This is Apollo."

     Darien looks at the dog, too scared to move. Apollo tilts his head in confusion.

     "You're fine. He doesn't bite," Spleek says.

     Apollo walks up to Darien, sniffing his jeans. Darien starts shaking. Soon, Apollo walks away, his tail wagging behind him.

     "Are you afraid of dogs?" Spleek asks.

     "I-I don't know... This is like my first time seeing such a large dog I guess..." Darien says.

     "He's very polite," Spleek says as he walks away. "Come on."

     Darien looks at his faceless reflection again before following Spleek.

     When Darien walked into the living room, he saw Spleek sit on the ground. He raised his arm up, squeaking a squeaky toy. Apollo's eyes light up as he runs towards Spleek, trying to yank the toy out of his hands. Spleek lets go and starts petting Apollo. "See? He's friendly," Spleek says.

     Darien sits on the couch, not sure what else to do. Apollo looks up at Darien and jumps onto the couch, trying to play with him. Darien panics and scoots away a bit.

     "He just wants to play with you," Spleek says.

     Apollo walks over to Darien and sniffs his arm before jumping off the couch and running over to the front door. Spleek gets up, opening the door for Apollo and closing it behind him. He then sits next to Darien. "Well? Are you scared of him?" Spleek asks.

     "I-I don't know... He seems to be well-behaved..." Darien says.

     "He is."

     "Well, yeah, but... I... I don't know..." Darien says as he looks down at his hand, realizing that it's blinking red. "Wh-What the hell?!"

     Spleek hears scratching at the door and gets up to open it. "What's wrong?"

     Darien looks at his other hand, realizing that his entire body was blinking. He turned to Spleek, who was staring at him with a confused look as he opened the door. He didn't seem to notice that Darien's body was blinking red.

     Suddenly, a wolf runs into the cabin through the open door, leaping toward Darien and biting into his arm. Darien screams out in pain as more wolves enter the cabin, biting him. Darien could hear Spleek yelling as the wolves began ripping Darien apart. He felt his vision going dark as the pool of dark red blood surrounding his body grew larger and larger.