Fire was all she saw. It had been ice, blinding and white, drowning in the cold, but now she was alight with heat. It consumed her, a swirling storm of red and gold and black. The sky turned to ashes, blackening with soot. High above was the moon, glowing brightly, but it was quickly being pushed away by some unseen force, its rays diminishing and cloaking her in darkness.
She stared around, terrified, throwing out a hand and screaming as the fire consumed her sister where she stood, reaching for her still despite the blue glaze of ice freezing her solid. Distantly she heard her voice, calling her name, battling the agonised cries of the wind.
Before her glowed an ethereal sight, a pair of white eyes blazing violently amid the storm. Slowly they were joined by lips, the curve of a chin, a full face flickering in and out of focus: a woman, slender and fierce, built of flame, slipped from the wall of fire and stepped slowly toward her on the ground. Her arm outstretched, the woman bent to her knees before the silver-haired youth and smiled impishly.
"Elsa…" she breathed, voice like the whisper of a secret box being opened, "It's time to wake up now…"
"Anna!" Elsa gasped, her eyes bursting open. She didn't recognise her surroundings, barely able to see them through the gloom. "Anna…?" Fire danced in her memory, high, cold laughter echoing in her ears. Her back was pressed against the ground, hard and slippery like ice. But it was stone, polished black and damp from trickles of water falling from the cavernous overhang above her. As she stared around, dazed and confused, she realised she was in some kind of cave.
Looking over her shoulder behind her, she saw an enormous closed gateway carved into the stone. It reared over her like a gigantic black horse, frightening and dark. She was unable to see where it ended, silhouetted against think chinks of sunlight just barely breaching the canopy of dark crystalline ceiling. Breath shaking, Elsa pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. She found herself standing at the top of a flight of steps snaking away into the darkness, carved like the gate from the same black stone that enclosed her in the unknown cavern: spikes of ice had formed across them around where she had lain, glinting dully against the darkness.
She turned toward the gate, scarcely aware of her bare feet trembling closer to its ominous form. The two sides were stuck firm by an enormous lock of dark onyx, etched with the same face she had seen in the fire. She reached out a shaking hand to take it up, but it burst into flame at her touch, scorching her fingers as the same cold laughter resonated from within it. She recoiled from the gateway, and the flames sputtered and died away.
"No…" Elsa shook her head, disbelieving. Her deep blue eyes widened, staring out through the finely carved bars of black stone. Beyond she could see a tunnel of earth, a ravine leading to… where? Home? She didn't know, but all she did know was that it was the way to escape this strange place. Everything else she had forgotten, save for the last memory of her sister.
Anna, struck through the heart with her spell, had been unable to reach her in time. Reaching out a hand to call out her name, warning her of Hans' attack, she had been lost to the swell of ice within her heart. Startled by the noise, believing her already to have been long dead, Elsa looked up to see her sister standing there. Consumed by grief and anger, Hans' sword was thrown from his hand as a pillar of ice flew up from the fjord between them and sliced through his heart.
"Anna…" she said again, her voice quivering and breaking as her eyes welled with tears. She sank to her knees before the gate, trapped and defeated. "I'm so sorry…"
"So this is what the Face in the Flame has given me…" came a cool voice in the darkness, causing Elsa to freeze where she lay, "Pitiful…"
Footsteps sounded behind her, slow and soft, but when she turned to look down the staircase she found it empty. Tense with fear, she looked around frantically for the source of the voice. She thought she saw a shadow circling from above, but when she looked again there was nothing.
"You are to work alongside me?" the voice taunted, much closer than she had expected. Elsa turned, and found herself staring up from the ground into the face of a tall man swathed in black. His sleek hair fell back from his sallow face, grey eyes scratched with a golden lustre. They shone from his face like candlelight in the gloom, fixing her with imperious disdain. An antagonising smile curled his thin lip, and he bent at the waist to survey her closer: his face hovered a foot above hers, handsome yet cruel. "Don't make me laugh."
He straightened up and began to breeze past her, head held high with great pride.
"Who are you?" Elsa asked, and he stopped. One foot down on the second-most stair, he swivelled slowly on the spot. His eyes narrowed at her darkly, smile contorting his cheeks.
"Haven't you ever heard of the Boogeyman?"
Elsa couldn't stop her mouth falling slightly open: satisfied with his effect, he once again made to leave her there.
"Why am I here? Was this you?" she called after him, trying to rise to her feet. In a rush of cold air, he had appeared before her, baring down with evident malice.
"You think this was me?" he hissed, long-fingered hands clasping around her shoulders and holding her before him. "You think I want you here?"
"I don't know," she replied, ice crackling in her fingertips.
"Have you been listening at all?" he asked, the gold glinting in his eyes as they bored into hers. "You were given to me against my will; chosen, because I am such a failure!" Spite poisoned his words, and he shook her aside, pointing irritably at the smouldering lock on the gateway. "The Guardians have risen, crushing the Dark Ages – and me with it! Nobody believes in me, not now!" He turned to her, taking in her pure white hair and pointed beauty. Seeing her so different to himself, glowing against the blackness, angered him further. He cursed the Face, infuriated that she would so quickly seek to throw him out for this pathetic excuse for an Assailer. "So now here you are, prized above all others on this night because of the darkness she saw in you."
"She…?"
"The Face in the Flame!" he continued impatiently, circling her like a shark to its prey, "Do you pay attention to nothing?"
"I – "
"The Boogeyman is nothing more than a bad dream," he interrupted, "Now that the Man in the Moon has chosen his heroes, so too has the Face in the Flame chosen hers." He slowed his heated step and halted directly before her, glancing aside into her stunned face. "You."
"But… why?" she whispered, hardly able to process his explanation. He surveyed her thoughtfully, gazing deep into her eyes. It was always in the eyes to find a person's weakness, their fears etched permanently within those glassy windows. And that was what he knew best: fear.
"I was chosen to bring fear to others because it was all I had ever known," he told her softly, his voice an icy purr. "The Face shed light on my desire to punish the world for what it had done to me, but you…" A guttural laugh carried on his breath, and he raised a pale hand to tenderly stroke her cheek, "You made your world fear you; all but your sweet, loving sister…" Elsa's eyes widened in surprise, and the dark smile returned to his mouth, revealing pointed white teeth. "The only light who still believed in you; snuffed out like the brief candle all children really are. And for why? Because her dearest big sister struck her in the heart with a blast of ice. There can't be anything more cruel than that - "
"Please, stop," Elsa said, bowing her head and pushing him away from her. He laughed, delighting in her pain.
"Just look at you," he continued, sinking into the floor and joining with his shadow, tracing the cavernous walls, his voice echoing across the stone. "You, the new harbinger of fear? It's pathetic."
"I don't want to be like you!" she cried, defiant, turning her head to follow his movement. "I never wanted to hurt anyone, I never wanted them to be scared! I don't know why the Face in the Flame wants me to be like you, but I'll never be like you!"
"No-one is like me!" The Boogeyman's maddened voice filled the space, shaking the very ground beneath her. The words echoed deafeningly, taking an age to fade out to silence. For a time Elsa thought he had vanished as swiftly as he had come, but then she heard a sigh from below. She looked down to see him on the staircase, half masked by shadow. He faced away from her, fists clenched. "I won't give you the option to join me, because I neither want nor need your pity, but understand one thing: we both are prisoners down here. The Face is punishing me for my failure, and until you use your powers for her purpose she will never let you go."
At this he began to descend the stairs, cloaking himself in shadow.
"She can't keep me here forever," Elsa said, looking back at the gates barring her from freedom. His voice drifted back to her from the dark.
"I think, now that you're immortal, you'll find she can."