Name: Willow

Title: Memories Merged With Snowflakes

Cohort/Team: Third/Offense

Words: 1144

Prompt: No School Day Because of the Snow

Snow.

Pretty. Cold. Heavy.

She didn't like snow much. It reminded her of times she had left behind.

Alaska.

Marie Levesque. Gems, fortune telling, snow, snow, snow.

Hazel had never liked Alaska. Not that anyone really knew that. But how could she not hate it when she could remember all those nights she had spend crying in her bed? All the times she felt so afraid, alone, and so, so cold?

It was understandable that she hated snow days, then. Ever since her mother's untimely death four years ago, when social services whisked her away to northern California, Hazel had still steered clear of snow. Her routine days of going to school, attending classes, and losing herself in homework distracted her. It took away all of her thoughts of snow, Alaska, and cold hands. Hazel liked that.

But today, there was no school to do that.

She stared out the window where she lay against - wrapped up in a blanket and huddled in an armchair conveniently located next to a frosty window. There were a few bundled up people shoveling the driveway and steps, and one lucky person had a snowblower.

Hazel was glad they didn't ask her to shovel. She would have found a way to politely refuse anyway. Not that she liked being particularly difficult or slacking in nature, but this was different.

Freezing wind, thick snowflakes, the water covered in a sheet of ice. The island, shrouded in gloom and a dark grey blanket of snow (once white, polluted by the shadows) - and her task. Hand held tightly, too tightly; her mother led her to the cave. The cave.

She pulled the blankets up higher. The cave still haunted her, in her dreams and in her reality. It was everywhere; it was everything. It lingered in her brain, it swamped her thoughts. Alone, it consumed her - mind, body, soul.

Snow. Snow, snow, the blinding white snow. Summer was better. Summer with its endless days of bright sunshine, rays of freedom joining her in her time at Alaska. Even the suffocating days in the lonely state could be pushed away with the purifying sunlight. Of course, she was taken away in the summer - and while that could be considered a good thing, it still had to happen.

She didn't like to talk about it.

Perhaps it was irrational to associate it and the cave with snow, but Hazel had done it unconsciously. And now they were entangled, intertwined in her mind, never one without the other. The cave brought memories of it and brought her thoughts of snow. Snow made her think of the cave and consequently of it, and so they never went alone in her head.

The suffocating snow; she drowned in it. She wasn't properly dressed for it either, only in sneakers, a sweater, and jeans. The snow was a prison, encasing her in a chilling prison. Was she meant to meet her end here? Was this the end of her journey?

Could she finally find peace in the one thing she hated so?

Turning her head to the side, Hazel picked up a mug of hot chocolate, thoughtfully set aside for her by one of the group home's members, and took a sip with shaky hands. It wouldn't due to think of the snow. Not now. Not when she was doing her best to move on from it. And she was doing a good job, too. But the first snow of the season was always the worst.

Maybe she was being stupid - it had been four years. Maybe she should have moved on by now. Gotten thicker skin. Hazel tried, and did a good job - but here, alone as she was, she allowed herself to act like this. And for that matter, her mother wasn't around to see it either.

But he wasn't allowed to find tranquility there - not when she heard the loud calling of her name. Her mother's voice always had a harsh quality to it, as if her words were crawling into her ears and slamming into her ear drum. Loud. Terrifying. Blame. Shame.

She pushed herself out. Ignored the cold, dead feeling of her hands and skin. And made her way over to her mother, the snow clinging to her feet as if wanting her to return. To find her peace in the cocoon of soft snow, where she had fallen, fallen, fallen.

Hazel stood up, the blanket falling on the armchair. Looking at it, she resolved to fix it later. The aftertaste of the hot chocolate stained her mouth; she sought water to rid the feeling. Walking without much purpose, she poured the rest of the drink into the sink robotically.

Rinsing it a few times for good measure, she jerked the faucet handle again and turned it off moments later. She downed it promptly, and washed it again. She left it in the drying rack.

It was a simple activity - boring, really. But she felt so tired. The first snow always took from her - namely, her energy. Drained, emptied, sucked from her - Hazel was left with nothing but a cold, heavy feeling in her body. Reminiscent of the snow she hated so.

She wasn't going to die. Really, it was more that she, encased in the freezing snow, had an intriguing thought. She wasn't happy with her life; that she had admitted. And the snow, the thing that she hated, could bring about her death - or at least, in the situation she was in, poorly dressed for the weather. And she felt helpless to change her situation. Telling other people was not an option to her - it would only lead to more suffering. That she was certain of.

And if she hated her life as it was, and didn't want to go on - why let it? Why not lie there and let the peaceful darkness swallow her whole and transport her to another world? But she never got the option to make her choice - her mother made it for her regardless of whether or not she was aware of what she had done.

Hazel moved back to the familiar armchair by the window. She folded the blanket robotically, setting it aside. And then she looked out the window again. Her gaze unfocused, and she wasn't looking at the snow anymore. All she saw was the blinding white that replaced the world.

White, white, white. Snow, snow, snow. She didn't like the color white much.

The snow brought nothing but memories now. Her mother, who she had loved, hands cold and dead (make no mistake: she had loved her mother more than anything, regardless of what had been done). The cave. Her tasks. It.

Snowflakes had a habit of falling. Memories had a habit of returning, lingering, fading. Perhaps one day, the memories clinging to the fragile snowflakes would fade rather than return.

A/N: It was supposed to be written for December... oops. This prompt has a different writing style than my usual one. The italics, the duality - yeah, it's different. It might be confusing, as "it" and many other parts of Hazel's past were not elaborated on. But that was, I think, the point - leaving it ambiguous. You're free to dislike that, but that's just the style of how I wanted the prompt to be. I did like writing this; it was fun.

- SnowBear17