Chapter i
"Five-hundred and forty-six." A young man counted from his windowsill. "Five-hundred and forty-seven." He pointed at another snowflake drifting away from the gray sky. Whenever the weather turned frosty and the skies began darkening before bedtime, a blonde knew what his Christmas vacation would consist of: Counting the snowflakes, one by one. He, as a little boy, made up a ritual. If he would ever make it to one-thousand he would receive whatever he loved most in the world. Whatever his heart most desired, the boy would have it; without question or restrictions.
But, there were rules. Rules he wrote down and were hanging on his room wall, just behind him. If he were to take a peek over his shoulder, the rules would yell, "No. 1, ONLY in daylight are you allowed to count the snowflakes." "No. 2, ONLY you are to be in your room as you count." "No. 3, ALWAYS count alone, not even animals are allowed." "No. 4, EACH snowflake has to be counted only once." "No. 5, YOU can only count the snow falling from the sky, not one that has all ready hit the ground." "No. 6, ONCE you start counting, you cannot stop." "No. 7, ALWAYS try your best."
Of course, the last rule had its … questions, yet the boy never marked it, cut it, or ripped it off, he kept the rules just as he made them some odd years ago. He could remember the day he created the superstition just as the day he pulled out construction paper and markers, creating the rules as well. Every scrape of the marker to thick, colourful, paper to the screech of the tape, he recollected all his senses to the one moment in his life that meant the most to him, or so he thought.
That day lived in eternity, from the moment he scooted a chair to a blank spot on his wall, to the moment he taped it to the white vacancy, to the moment he stood back--sinking in the true power of his work. The boy followed his belief right to when he was on the eve of his 17th birthday. Not once has he made it past 999; there always seemed to be a thought, a simple intuition to hold him back from making the last snowflake count. He would draw back his finger, step-off from his desk chair, wondering the consequences of one-thousand. However, out of all the countless times he stopped, the boy tittered-tottered on rhetorical questions, such as what would he receive for the one-thousandth snowflake.
"Six-hundred and two." He unrelentingly counted, pointing at a new space of the window, "Six-hundred and three." The boy quickly swiped the window clean of the fog his breath created, "Six-hundred and four, six-hundred and --"
DING.
DING.
DING.
DING.
An alarm clock snapped the blonde boy out of trance of continual counting. He jumped and gave a small yelp before realizing he had set the alarm to warn him about school. "Oh no!" He exclaimed, jumping out from his spot then running out of his bedroom without a second thought about shutting the door, or his rules. He ran to the front door, slipped on his shoes, grabbed his bag then bolted out of the doorway running to school, lacking a coat.