Rescue Me

Chapter Five

Time meant nothing to him. It could have been minutes, hours, even days or months; but he wouldn't know. He was trapped in darkness. There was nothing but black surrounding him as he tried to draw his knees up further into himself, "Please." He begged as the imaginary weight started to once again crush on top of him, "Please leave me alone." Useless, Worthless, Pathetic, Mistake. Words, those haunting words with the faces of people…people he did not really know or care to remember to know, but they seemed familiar as they stared down at him with their eyes pitch as the darkness that he was drowning in.

"Please." He begged again as they continued to hover over him. Anger, Hate, Devastation, Pain. The emotions that joined in with the haunting faces started to now filter into him. Threatening to tear him apart…whatever was left of him that is; he could not even remember his own name at this point. He did not even know how or why he was here…wherever here was…then again the more he was here, the less he started to care; he just wanted the pain and torture to end. Someone to end it and leave him be.

Then again what did it matter? Clearly no one gave a damn about him. Useless, Miserable, Disappointment, Failure. The words echoed and continued to slam into him. And he let it. He deserved this, whatever he did, "Hans." He perked up a bit, a new voice. He lifted his head away from his knees, and it was as if he could sense a warming presence breakthrough the darkness that was encased around him, "Hans."

Hans…who was Hans? Regardless, he shook himself and scrambled to his feet, "Hello? Who is there?"

Pitiful, Pathetic Creature, "Hans, I am here."

He fought the words back and tried to focus on the warm voice, "I did not mean for this to happen exactly." What was this voice saying? Weak, Helpless, Useless, "I meant for you to be punished, but I did not think it would really be like this."

The voice was becoming familiar. Why was this voice familiar? His breathing picked up as he continued to look around, but he couldn't see anything other than black, "I guess I am here because I need someone to talk to. You would understand on some level I think." Understand what? He wanted to talk, but something kept him quiet, "So I am going to read you a story or two rather. One you created, but I will start with the original." He paced the area around him as the voice spoke, "Once upon a time in the kingdom of Arendelle-" Faintly, as he tried to locate the source of the voice in the shadows, he could see a very small speck of light.

As he focused on the voice and the story, the more something began to stir in him. Monster, Demon, Hopeless. The words were faint, but as the story continued, he felt more of the crushing weight. He wanted to beg for the voice to stop, to silence her as they became worse again. Pitiful, Weak, Stupid. He tried to put his hands over his ears, and it was about to when he heard the warm voice say, "The only one with a frozen heart around here is yours."

It was as if something slammed into his stomach. The air left him as he fell to his knees. His heart…what did that mean? It meant something clearly, but what. Another voice, this one cold and harsh came to him and surrounded him as his voice echoed into the darkness, "I am going to wipe away all traces of magic from you. You will not remember any spells, or be able to use any type of magic ever again. I will also ensure that if you do survive and reproduce after what I have planned for you next, any child born with your blood in their vain will never be able to do magic either for all of time." Suddenly there was a burning sensation in his stomach that he immediately gripped it as he screamed out in agony.

This lasted for what felt like an eternity as he ripped his shirt off to reveal a pentacle branded on his stomach. His head began to explode now as the harsh voice was growing stronger and slowly drowning out the warm voice, "Your mind and soul will be sent to the Shadow Realm, where you will experience a crushing weight of everyone you had done wrong in your life, one thousand times over. If you should survive this and remain sane, you will have a lot of pieces of your heart to pick up; only then will you wake up."

It was then that he saw a faint glittering pile of glass out of the corner of his eye. Going over to it, he kneels down and reaches out to pick up one of the shards, but as soon as his fingers touch the reflective glass, he yanks his hand back. It was burning, but not hot…cold. Freezing cold. "The only frozen heart around here is yours," the warm voice echoes hauntingly at him.

Miserable, Worthless, Useless, A Mistake, Nobody. Each word sent the shards cracking into smaller and smaller pieces. It was then that he knew what needed to be done. Gulping, he reached out once more to touch the shards, and picked two up; hissing as he held them and tried to align the cracks. His fingers started to turn blue and numb, but with shaking hands he fits the cracks together and in a small flash of light, they stuck the feeling changing from burning cold, to a comfortable warm. For the first time in…days, months, years, however long he was in this hell-hole, he smiled. Hopeless, Worthless, Pathetic. He tried not to let the words get to him, because he had a job to do as the memories slowly started to return to him with the connection of each piece of the broken glass of his heart.

-Snoopykid-

Anna was taking a break, having just finished the story of the events that surrounded the winter in summer fiasco. She had placed a finger in the beginning chapter regarding the continuation of Hans's story. She had tried to read it herself, after having taken the books from Kristoff in her room, but found that she couldn't. Sure she skimmed the pages, wanting to get down to the bottom of trying to summon Alastair Roman, the man that had marred her face and helped Hans create the army, started the war, and enact the Dark Curse; but found that she couldn't. It wasn't for that she didn't try to, because she did, but no matter how comfortable she made herself, how she talked herself up, she couldn't rid herself of the guilt she had to reading his story.

Thus she found herself sitting in the chair, the curtains over Hans's bed pulled for privacy, reading the original book to him. She did not know if he could hear her, but she figured that at least having him here with her, offered her some sort of permission or sick encouragement to read his story. However to make herself feel semi-better about this, she figured that she would start with her and Elsa's story, and then reading into his. Tit for tat as it were in her mind, "That is how we ended the winter in summer," she said as she looked at the comatose scruffy and sickly looking man on the bed, "but I guess you knew that."

Without any conscious thought of her own, her hand reached out and touched his hand and begins to rub a finger over his knuckles, "You really are a monster. How in the hell did you end up this way?" She had asked as she had been on her knees in the study with her heart in his hand as the curse had descended upon them.

"That is for me to know and you to find out never." He had retorted before going on about losing everything she had loved and built with her sister, just to become a mindless, heartless, soul.

Even as the curse had broken, Anna still felt like a mindless, heartless, soul. Her heart had been aching and threatening to tear her apart. She released his hand and turned back to the page she had left off from, "I am going to read your story." She told him as she took a deep breath to begin, but then as she exhaled she remarked her page and sighed, "Look I do not know if you can even hear me, or even care to hear me; but I need to find Alastair; your accomplice in all of this. I need to find him, and I would ask you, but seeing as you can't respond, well this is the only way." She deliberated as to whether or not she should explain further, but decided that since it was his story, she continued, "I am only telling you because…well because I didn't want you to think I was invading your privacy for kicks." Opening the book again she started once more on the story.

-Snoopykid-

Hans sits on the floor, his appearance changing with each piece he puts together. He is becoming younger, but he pauses as he listens to the warm voice, the voice offering the small source of light in the deep blackness, "I need to find Alastair, I need to find him." No. No she can't.

Only people who have nothing to lose, nothing to live for go to Alastair. He knew that now. He remembered that now, "Anna…no." He said out loud.

Spineless, Crook, Murderer. In his hands were already shards that were together, however hearing those words and sensing the faint light scared him that he dropped them, causing the shards to again shatter and break, "Damn it!" Hans began to cry as Anna's voice reached him again, "After the failed assassination attempt on Queen Elsa and Princess Anna of Arendelle, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles was returned to his family to face punishment."

He had to stop her. There was no way he was letting her near that demon, besides if anything this could be his only chance at redemption, something even mediocrely better than this hell-hole that he landed himself in. Quickly he set to work as he once again picked up the burning cold shards of his heart.