The person you knew me as was a vessel of sorts. At his core, he was me essentially. He just lacked my abilities and my memories. I lived as him until it was time for him to die. I re-emerged when he ceased to exist.761Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaenyTI44SU
Arlene felt a stick prodding her back.
“Wake up Arlene!” a voice squealed.
“Let me sleep Garlow,” Arlene muttered in an annoyed tone.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” Garlow continued shouting.
Arlene pulled the bearskin over her head in an attempt to drown out Garlow’s voice. She had slept late last night after concocting a potion she hoped would return colour to her pale skin. Maybe some warmth too.
“Arlene! Arlene! Arlene!” Garlow continued.
Having had enough, she threw the bearskin off of her, accidentally knocking Garlow away. He crashed down on the frozen floor. Arlene paid him no heed as she sat up on her bed and rubbed her eyes. He was an Itey – he could fall from a tree and not feel pain.
Arlene looked past the cave opening. The black sky outside was slowly turning red.
“The sun isn’t even up yet,” she said, irritated. “Why did you wake me up?”
Garlow stood up excitedly and walked over to Arlene. He thrust his furry arm in front of her, palm wide open. In the middle of his palm was a piece of golden amber.
“What’s this?” Arlene asked.
“Look at what’s inside,” Garlow said.
Arlene held the amber in between her thumb and forefinger and brought it closer to her eye. It was still dark inside the cave and she had human eyes after all. Inside, encased within the frozen tree resin, was a small red ant.
“There’s a devil ant inside,” Arlene said.
“Yes. It’ll be preserved in that forever. It’s frozen in time just like you Arlene,” Garlow said.
Arlene’s hand trembled as her brother’s words sunk into her mind.
Frozen in time just like you Arlene…
She handed the amber back to Garlow with a smile.
“It’s really beautiful isn’t it?” Garlow asked.
She could see his eyes gleam even in the darkness of the cave. “Yes, it is. Go and show it to dad,” she said.
Garlow sucked in sharply at what was, to him, a marvellous idea. He turned around and ran out of the cave entrance, shouting for his father excitedly.
With a sigh, Arlene got out of her bed. Tucking away the bearskin in a hole to prevent it from freezing solid, she slid her way across the ice and to the cave entrance. Beyond towards the hills, she could see the sun’s rays creeping through. The sun itself hadn’t risen yet.
She turned and slid back into the cave, towards her bed. From underneath the straws that she slept on, she fetched her clothes. She looked down at her naked body. Her hair was black and her skin was pale – almost blue – everywhere and her lips were purple. The cold didn’t bother her; she didn’t even feel it. Inside the cave that was her home, she was always nude.
She only wore clothes when venturing outside of the cave and did so out of habit. She had spent nearly 27 years here in the mountains with the Iteys and yet she felt uncomfortable around them without her clothes. She had tried to go completely nude around them, they themselves were naked all the time after all, but decided to start wearing clothes around them again later on. They may be technically naked but they had white fur covering their body and she had none.
The clothes she had been brought with to the Iteys were hidden safely in a hole underneath her bed. They were pretty worn out and torn at several places. To avoid further damage, she had buried it in this cave which she had later turned into her home. That was twenty five years ago. She’d been living here since, making her own clothes and wearing her original clothes only on her ‘birthday’ – the day she’d been brought back to life by the figure in white.
Over the years, she’d grown proficient in making her own clothes. She’d discovered a tree down in the forests below with leaves as long as her own body. The veins on the leaves ripped out when a leaf was still fresh proved to be a good substitute for a string. Later one, she’d taught herself to milk a spider for its silk and used that to fashion clothes for herself. She figured she’d been able to do that because of her cold skin. The spiders that she milked never bit her when she held them and she’d heard from father that those spiders could kill a human in a single bite.
She put on the clothes she’d retrieved from under the straws. Two pieces of clothes to cover her breasts and groin. That much was enough when she was around the Iteys in the mountains. She put on more clothes whenever she ventured down onto the hills and the forests on the off-chance she might run into another human.
She wrapped two other small piece of cloths on each of her feet so that she could walk around the mountain without slipping on ice. With the cloth around her feet, she walked instead of sliding to the entrance like earlier. She paused by the opening, looking down at the ice she stood on. The sun was now over the hills and light had flooded the cave. On the ice, she could clearly see her reflection.
It was the same face she’d been looking at for the past 27 years. Nothing had changed. No hair on her head had gone white. She had developed no wrinkles on her face. She looked as if she was a twenty something year old human and had looked so for her entire life here in the mountains.
Frozen in time just like you Arlene…
Arlene shook her head, consciously drowning out Garlow’s voice resonating within her.
The man in white, when bringing her back to life, had effectively given her immortality. She never aged. Her body was perpetually cold, exacerbated by the fact that she lived in the mountains. Sometimes, she wondered if she was just a walking corpse. But then she felt pain and hunger. A corpse wouldn’t feel those, would it? A corpse wouldn’t need sustenance.
Then what am I? Who am I?
She had long ago resigned herself to the fact that she would likely not get these questions answered. Her memory of her old life was not going to come back. The only thing she could do now was to find a way to change her condition to that of a human. The Itey were a very hospitable and kind race but she ultimately did not belong to them. She longed to be surrounded by people of her own kind. People she could love like in ways she couldn’t with those that she lived with now.
“Arlene! Arlene!” Garlow was calling from a distance away. “The penguins are hatching! Come see!”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she shouted back.
Garlow was, in effect, her brother. He was the youngest son of the Itey family that had adopted her 27 years ago. She had practically raised the twelve year old herself and was very fond of him. She may not be able to love these people in ways she wanted but she cared for them nonetheless. To her they were family after all.
“Arlene! Come quick! Come quick! Look at these little babies!”
With a smile she set off through the knee deep snow to see the penguins that her brother wanted her to see so desperately. She trudged upwards, choosing to jump from one protruding rock to the next ploughing through the snow. The first few months had been incredibly difficult for her here in the mountains. She had had difficulty breathing and could not walk for more than a few minutes without tiring out. Several times she had passed out when walking uphill and once would have fallen off the side of the mountain had not her father caught her.
Now she could run uphill through the snow without running out of breath. Being a small human, she was extremely agile and could reach places the burly Iteys never could. Down in the forest covered hills where the air was thicker, she could run at her fastest for hours and navigate through trees and the rocky terrain of the hills without tripping at the same time.
Jumping over a medium sized boulder, she landed beside Garlow who was eagerly watching small baby penguins waddle out of their eggs.
“Where’s the father penguin?” Arlene asked.
“I don’t know. Last I saw him, he was headed to the river below. He hasn’t shown up for since last night.”
“Last night? Then how are the eggs hatching?”
“I kept the eggs warm with the straws and the cloths that I borrowed from you a week ago. I kept them beside me when I slept. I brought them out here to their nest when they started cracking this morning.”
Arlene looked at the baby penguins. Grey fuzz for feathers, they had huddled together and were making no sounds.
“Garlow, grab these chicks and take them wherever you were keeping the eggs. They’ll freeze to death without their father out here,” Arlene said.
“Really?” Garlow stared at her wide eyed with worry. He immediately scooped up the four chicks in his arms and ran off, hugging them close to his chest to keep them warm.
Arlene watched her brother go. Those chicks would not survive more than a three days without their father keeping them warm until the mother returned with food to feed them. Something very bad must have happened to their father for him to not return to his nest. She decided to see if she could find out what had happened to the father penguin.
She sprinted to the nearby river where Garlow had said he had last seen the father penguin head to. If the penguin hadn’t returned since last night, chances were it was either injured or dead. Either way, it would most likely be downstream. With that in mind, Arlene started following the river downstream.
It didn’t take her long to come across the father penguin. She found it half buried in the snow. Shaking her head sadly at the dead creature, she proceeded to dig the snow to uncover the body and perhaps give it a better burial. She had thrust her hand into the snow when she froze.
Sticking out of the penguin’s body was an arrow.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
