Chapter 1

Snow.

What does it feel like?

Why doesn't it snow here?

Does it taste like ice cream?

Or milk?

These musings of your eight-year-old self flood back to you a seven years later as you experience your very first winter. You didn't expect your mom to suddenly drag you in such a frosty vacation but you weren't really complaining as the fresh change of scenery washes over you despite the biting cold. Peering out on the window of the car, you chuck your earbuds and turn on your tunes from your phone to drown out the noise from the front seat where your mom and her friend, Mrs. Bennett, are seated.

"Burgess isn't bustling as much as a city but it's got a lot of history!" You hear Mrs. Bennett's voice trail off as you turn the volume up.

As you look at the seemingly never-ending scenery of snow outside, you didn't expect it to be so… boring. You definitely think that the winter wonderland looks beautiful and anyone who would deny that is an idiot, but other than beauty and coldness, it didn't really have anything more to offer. There's playful activities perhaps but how long until your exhaustion and the cruel cold catches up to you to chase you back to your warm home, blanket and hot cup of chocolate? The cold weather back at your home town when it's in season is more than enough to make your teeth teeter, let alone an actual snowy place!

Maybe you were just overthinking this, maybe the long ride was just getting to you, and maybe you'll actually enjoy it more than you think. You spread your body across all of the space of the backseat as the consistent and subtle hum of the engine lulls you to sleep.

The car door slams, the engine has stopped for a little while and it's quiet. You could hear muffled voices from outside talking to one another. You figure that it's your mom and Mrs. Bennett but you can almost make out another voice. A boy's voice. The door at the backseat opens and you feel a familiar hand tap you on the shoulder.

"Honey, we're here. Get up now," your mother ushered. You groggily get up, feeling a stinging pain in your head. It feels heavy. You realize that you left your earbuds on while you slept, causing the long overdue exposure of your ears to radiation and gave you a bit of a headache. You try to shake it off but some of the pain still remains, perhaps properly sleeping it off later would make it go away.

You get out of the car with your stuff and a boy with brown hair comes into view with Mrs. Bennett and your mother.

"Oh, Jamie, dear could you please help our visitors with their luggage and bring it to their rooms?" Mrs. Bennett appealed. The boy nodded, taking some of your mother's baggage and then walked towards you.

"Here, let me do it," the boy said.

"Oh, no, it's fine, it's not really that heavy."

"That's alright, and trust me, you'd be doing me a favor as well because if I don't do this I'd never hear the end of it from my mom," he insisted. You shrugged and gave in, introducing yourself to the boy. He nodded at you, introducing himself back as Jamie Bennett and then urged you to follow him to your room upstairs.

Vacation definitely didn't ring a bell about staying in another family's house to you, but you weren't complaining since at the very least it did cut off some expenses. Besides, Jamie's home was actually quite nice and welcoming for your taste.

Jamie set down your stuff at the guest room as you were looking around the other rooms out of curiosity. There was the master's bedroom where Jamie's parents probably slept, one that was coated in pink and pastel colors, and another which you presumed to be Jamie's room, judging from how he presents himself. You peered your head in the doorway and eventually walk in, scanning his room and finding a lot of nerdish antics from your typical robot models to the heaps of mysterious mythical creature books.

Wow, conspiracist much? You thought.

You look at the wall to his bedside to see dozens of pictures with friends that are taped and displayed, some of which are a little weird looking with empty spaces being left in between people in the middle of some of the pictures. You raise a brow at one of his selfies that was angled weirdly, almost as if there was supposed to be someone else in all of that free space on his side.

"Hey, your room's ready," Jamie interrupted, making you flinch a bit and cutting your train of thought.

"Right, thanks," you smiled at him. "These are some nice pictures you got."

"Uhh, yeah," Jamie replied, sounding nervous all of a sudden as his eyes dart to your side and then back at you again.

You furrow your brows a bit, looking confused as you turn around to see nothing where you caught Jamie was staring at.

"Hey, uhm, I'm not feeling well right now and I kind of need to sleep. Talk to you later? Maybe?" You spoke out awkwardly, not reading the situation quite well.

"Oh, right! Right," Jamie replied and led you to your room. "Have a good rest, we'll be downstairs."

You nodded at him and entered the room but before you could close it, you could've sworn that you saw him talking to someone from his room.

"Just don't do anything funny!" Jamie shouted in a whisper.

Looking confused again, the pang of dreaded pain had started to come back to your head again so you brushed it off and quickly plopped yourself to the bed to drift off in another sleep.