Frozen in Time
Summary: A work in progress, and my first piece of CSI fanfic. No CSI in this chapter, this is just the introduction.
Authors Note: I do not own CSI or any of the CSI characters. The rest are pure invention of my mind.
Prologue
It had been a freezing cold winter so far that year. The girl trudging through the knee deep snow pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, and stuffed into further into the neck opening of her coat. The sharp north wind howled around her, whipping up flakes of falling snow, hundreds of sharp icy shards pricking at her delicate exposed skin. The girl continued onwards, half stumbling through the snow, trying to run.
Her breath came in sharp ragged spurts, the cold burning at her chapped lips and freezing her chest. She puffed out white clouds of moist air, indistinguishable from the massive white flurry around her. Still she carried on, falling and picking herself up, scrambling through drifts of pure white coldness.
She had to have hope, she kept telling herself. She had to keep going, if she could just have the strength to reach the town. She could get help. She could help the others. This thought spurred her on. It was difficult though; the falling snow was so dense, the fallen snow so thick, and it was so very cold. She stumbled again, and landed facedown. "Get up, you must go on" she heard herself say, and attempted to push herself up. Tired and alone she began to cry from the effort, and her weakness.
Something howled in the distance and she knew her time was up. She had heard dogs at the farm, she knew He kept them for his games. He kept them hungry, and trained them to hunt. Oh God no! She thought, and with one last push she scrambled to her feet, and began to run again.
In the distance she saw a glimpse of hope, a light shining like a beacon. She knew it was the town, another 15 minutes and she would be safe. She could save the others! She could see a fence about 20 feet in front of her through the whirling snowfall. If she guessed correctly, then this was the boundary for her parents land and she was nearly home. She urged her feet to keep moving, thrusting them down through the ever-increasing snowdrifts. She pushed her right foot down, and immediately felt teeth snap onto her calf. She fell forwards again and turned to look behind her. For a moment she expected to see one of His dogs with its jaws clamped onto her flesh. She cried out form the pain when she tried to move her leg up. Whimpering she dug at the snow to find the source of her pain. Her numbed fingers unearthed a jaw trap, its rusted fangs spearing her shin. She tried to force the traps jaws apart, but only succeeding in moving it a centimetre before it snapped shut on her leg again. She cried out and heard the dogs howling, closer now.
She tried again to release the trap, but the snow was too compacted around it to open it. She dug further around the trap to free it, hoping she could try again. The pain was excruciating and she felt sick from the effort. As she dug she felt something hard brush against her hand. She saw something pink-blue coloured jutting out from the snow she had been digging at. It looked like a fingertip. Despite the pain she frantically scrapped at the snow around the fingertip to expose more. She felt her heart rate increase long with the nausea, as she uncovered a whole hand. The hand rolled forward, not attached as she had expected, but free from its body. She panicked and tossed it away from her onto the snow. She stared at the lone hand, its stump ragged, the exposed wrist bones and muscle poking out from the skin. It was then with a heavy sickness in her stomach, that she realised why they had never been saved before. Why she would never have saved anyone tonight. The hand had short nails painted in pale pink nail polish, and wore a small gold ring. She could remember her friend Mary having a ring like that and pink nail polish. Mary had been let go He said. Mary had been a good girl. Like she had been a good girl. She screamed as it dawned on her that He had never meant her to make it home. He just let them go, and let the dogs chase them. Now she knew she he kept them hungry. It was just a game to him. She could feel herself drifting away, the cold numbing her entire body. She felt dizzy, her heart rate weakening. She knew she was starting to suffer from hypothermia, but she no longer cared. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer that the next girl would be luckier. The pain from the trap, and the increasing loss of blood combined with the effects of the coldness, and the girl slipped into unconsciousness.
The snow continued to fall as the dogs made their way across the snow towards the cooling body. They dug up the fresh snow covering their meal, and began to feast….