The Wintress

Introduction

Many that fall into her domain never truly realize who they have come in contact with. Most only ever see her pale hands and her dead grey eyes. Some only get a glimpse of her long grey hair before whatever's left of them is taken. But for many unlucky souls, they get to see her full form. A seemingly frail, young woman, wearing a dark-colored knit sweater. But she is neither frail, nor young, and she would only be a woman if she were human.

The Wintress is not someone that can be swayed or reasoned with. She cannot be studied or further understood. She exists outside the bounds of understanding and reality as a deadly enigma of evil. She is folklore, a tall tale, a forgotten dream. She is a faint memory, a shadow of fear that will never come into the light, a spectre that will always remain a mystery. No one unfortunate enough to witness her has ever survived. Though she takes the appearance of a fragile woman, inside her is a violent darkness that cannot be tamed or calmed, let alone stopped. When trapped in her vast forest, there is no God brave enough to come to your aid. So if you find yourself face to face with the devil herself, count yourself lucky if she makes your demise quick. No one knows better than her victims that there are fates far worse than death. 

The Lake

The wind blew with wild ferocity, pushing against The Woman as she ran through the forest. Her lungs burned with every harsh breath, and her feet ached with every hard step. As she pushed past frozen branches and trudged through the snow, the devil loomed over her shoulder, licking her lips and gnashing her teeth. Her pale hands moved through the air with grace, bringing all manner of frozen matter toward her prey. The Woman took the abuse of the snow and hail, suffering aches and bruises on her back.

“Come back dammit!” The Wintress screeched. In front of The Woman, she raised a massive wall of snow and brought it crashing down on top of her.

“Die!” For a moment, there was no movement. But after a moment, The Woman started flailing about as she suffocated under the cold mass. As The Wintress drew near, she popped back up, breathing heavily as she tried to regain her focus. 

“You wench,” The Wintress summoned a long, sharp icicle from a swirl of air, and sent it flying toward The Woman. As it reached her, she ducked back down into the snow, and let it shatter against a tree.

“Leave me alone, please!” The Woman shouted. She scrambled onto her feet, desperate to widen the gap between her and The Wintress.

“Leave my domain before I carve out your eyes and pack your head full of snow!!” she screamed behind her. The woman moved like a deer, sporadic and desperate. The cold stung all her airways, and deep in her stomach, she could feel something growing. It was heavier than dread and more intense than anxiety, a worry onset by the evil of the forest. It twist her insides and threatened to bring her to her knees. But she carried on, thinking she could find help if she could get away.

“You’ve escaped me for the last time,” The Woman heard the wind whisper to her. It was the least threatening thing she’d heard while she was in the forest, but the infliction was sinister enough to bring her to tears. 

The Woman continued to run, now being surrounded by a thick fog. Though there was a bit of distance between them now, the faint glow of The Wintress’s grey eyes was visible when she looked back. The Woman’s mind raced as she tried to think of a reason for all this madness, a way to ground it in reality. She’d had nightmares like this before; a forest in a winter storm, her running from some unseen evil, and the feeling of freezing taking over her entire body. She always awoke from them wrapped in her comforter and dripping with sweat. This was just like a nightmare, but it was all the more vivid, all the more horrifying. As if she had been dragged deep into the horrors of her own mind. As she tried to get an idea of what was happening to her, she could feel her feet start to move more freely. Looking down, she could see the amount of snow on the forest flood decreasing. Likewise, the wind was now pushing on her back, nearly knocking her over. As she kept on her path, the forest began thinning, the trees becoming smaller and less numerous, like a tight fist opening up.

“Oh God… am I almost out?” The Woman muttered to herself, the air still rough on her throat. Unbeknownst to her, she was only moving further into darkness. The Wintress was supreme in her domain, and any thoughts of hope and escape were momentary illusions, farces used to lead one to their grave. As The Woman marched forward and away from the trees, The Wintress found herself delighted with her own work. Whoever The Woman was, she a spec of dirt on the surface of her realm, a bug that needed to be squashed, a threat that needed to be snuffed out. Even if she had to fold one stretch of her woods over the other to do it; anything to remain in power.

As she left the woods, The Woman rightfully shook imagining the terror that awaited her. The trees had disappeared, but she still felt cold from the images of men impaled on giant icicles and Monstrosities pushing a man's organs out of his body. She stopped for a moment, allowing herself a moment to get her bearings. In front of her, on the edge of the woods, was a frozen lake the size of a small town. The ice was thick and solid, and the water below was colder than she could imagine. She looked down at the ice in front of her and stomped on it with her right foot. It held well enough, but its integrity was still weak enough for tiny cracks to form.

“Oh God, what do I do?” she asked, but it didn’t take long before the answer presented itself. A strong gust of wind blew in from the trees and knocked The Woman onto the ice. As she hit the lake, she felt her nose crack. She tried to stand up, but slipped and hit the lake again, this time bruising her forehead. Rather than make another attempt, The Woman tried to crawl across the ice, but she could barely move in a straight path.

“Oh look at yourself,” The Wintress said from the treeline. The Woman looked back, but she couldn’t see her.

“Look at how powerless you are. No more capable than an infant,” The Wintress continued. She came forward, remaining cloaked in fog. Around the entire lake, the mist pushed forward from the forest as it started to surround the lake. The Woman found the strength to scramble to her feet, afraid of what would happen if she stayed on the ground. She started to run across the ice, making her steps as careful and as light as possible. Every step on the ice put cracks in the lake, creating dozens of floating chunks of ice. Her heart skipped a beat every time she felt herself dip, nearly causing her to pass out from the constant shock and relief. She kept her path as the fog closed in, concerned more with evading The Wintress than she was with drowning. Running through the thick veil of mist, The Woman realized she couldn’t see the other side of the lake anymore. Or The Wintress at that. She looked back, thinking she would see her glowing grey eyes, but there was nothing there.

“What’s wrong dear? Are you afraid?” The Wintress whispered. The Woman stopped where she was and looked around her, but all she saw was grey. There was a crazed, paranoid look in her eyes, and the only thing she could hear over her own breathing was her heart pounding against her chest.

“S-show yourself dammit! I… I’m not afraid of you!” The Woman shouted into the mist. Only her own echo spoke back to her. She waited a moment, thinking the evil tormenting her would reveal itself. It was faint, but she thought she could hear a distant giggle. As she looked around the lake, thinking of what to do next, she felt something slowly wrap around her shoulder. She stood still, every inch of her still shaking as The Wintress’s cold, dry hands landed on her.

“Oh but you should be,” In an instant, The Woman was thrown forward onto the ice. She turned onto her back and quickly tried to shuffle away, but it was futile. Through the fog, The Woman could see the eyes of The Wintress shine down on her with fury. She hovered over The Woman, taking ghastly form as she began pulling the thorn in her paw.

“You made a mistake coming here. I don’t know what it is that sent you, but I know what you’ve been sent to do,” The Wintress said. The Woman could hear the restraint in her voice. She was trying to hold her composure, but The Woman could tell The Wintress was on the verge of snapping. It was as if she was going mad over her very existence.

“Please miss, I don’t know where I am. I don’t even know who I am! I just… I just want to leave,” The Woman pleaded. As she backed away, she could feel her heart sink. She didn’t know how, or why, but something inside of her knew she was lying. There was something familiar about the forest, as if she had visited it before in some long faded childhood memory, or seen a glimpse of it in a TV ad. 

“You can twist the truth all you want, but I see beyond your flesh. You aren’t completely ignorant. Not like the others,” As The Wintress drew closer, The Woman found herself crying. As she tried to conjure any memory of her life, all she saw were vast plains of snow and endless, dense forests.

“Who… who am I…,” The Woman asked. For better or worse, her question was ignored.

“If you stay here long enough, then soon you’ll take on my knowledge, my… my power,” The Wintress continued, raising her voice.

“You’ve already taken on my appearance,” she finished in a hushed tone. The Wintress stepped out of the mist, revealing her dark blue knit sweater, her stark white hair, and her sunken, pale face. She looked down at The Woman with hatred as pure as the sky was grey. Her hands twitched with anger, eager to wrap around The Woman’s neck and strangle her.

The Woman almost couldn’t believe it. Her hair was a light blonde, and she never wore… or was it a dark blonde? Was it… blonde at all? Did she wear braids or did she… As her own image escaped her, she raised her hand, afraid of the reality she was trapped in. 

“No I’ve never been… it can’t be,” She brought her hand to her hair, and grabbed a few strands of it. As it came into her view, she couldn’t help but let out a wail as she looked at her own stark white hair. She was hysterical in an instant, sobbing as she tried to rip the hair from her scalp. Naturally, the only thing more horrifying than meeting the Devil would be becoming her.

“You are a plague unto my domain. If it’s my position you want then know that you will never have it,” The Wintress took two steps forward. As she came closer, the ice under The Woman began to crack.

“Please!” The Woman wailed as her face ran hot with tears “Let me leave! I want nothing of yours, I promise!” The Woman kept looking at her hair, using the last moments of her life to try and remember who she could have been before this. But all she could think of was the cold wasteland surrounding her, and the dark feeling growing inside her stomach. She knew now that it wasn’t dread, but rather the knowledge that she was about to meet her end.

“Of all the souls I’ve taken, admittedly there have been many who deserved to leave. But I can assure you, without a doubt, that you are not among them," The Wintress gave her one final look of revulsion, then turned and left. As she disappeared back into the mist, The Woman could feel the lake start to give. She tried to move back but the crack only followed her.

“No, no not like this, not like th-” In an instant, the lake swallowed The Woman whole, dragging her into its icy depths.

She sunk deeper into the water, too shocked to realize she was drowning. Her thoughts were a frenzy of questions and appeals, and all her screams came out as a muffled series of bubbles. Before she fell too deep, she realized what was happening to her, and she started attempting to swim upward. Every labored breath burned her throat, and her ascent was slow, but eventually she made it back to the thick sheet of ice. But as she returned to where she was, she found that there was no hole in the surface.

She let out a primal scream as she pushed against the ice, trying to make the opening reveal itself. Out of options and losing oxygen, she started banging on the ice with her hands. Her eyes burned and her head ached, pushing her further into hysteria. Seeing as it wouldn’t move, The Woman took her fist and started punching the heavy layer of ice. Her hits were rabid and the resistance of the water meant they had no real impact, but she went on anyways, unwilling to let go of her life.

She kept pounding against the barrier, screeching into the water as her lungs filled with water. Her hits made no dent in the ice, but rather destroyed her hand the more desperate she was for escape. Even when her bones cracked, she kept throwing herself against the lake, unaware that her brain function was decreasing. As her skin broke and her fists bled, she could feel her heartbeat slowing down. But her rabid desperation wouldn’t let her stop; she banged against the ice until her hands were a jumbled red mess of torn flesh and broken up chunks of bone.

She made her last attempt, being forced to give up by the state of her hands. Her throat was completely full of water, making yelling imposible. It was at this point that The Woman was forced to accept that she was completely powerless. Her fingers were bent and broken, and her skin was completely destroyed on the backside of her hand. She let herself sink again, her bloated body losing all energy and her soul losing all hope. Her blood spilled out into the water as beautiful strands of crimson, as if her mangled hands were painting the lake in one last effort to make some mark on the hell The Woman had sucummbed to. The pull of the lake brought her down gently, delivering her to a far more comfortable darkness. The Woman sunk to the depths below, her power never to be realized. And in her last moments of consciousness, The Woman thought that maybe The Wintress was right; if she were to become this sinister if she lived, then she’d rather be dead at the bottom of the lake.

The Metamorphosis

What… where… what the hell. Where the hell am I? Jesus Christ I…I... I don’t know what happened… the last thing I can remember is trees. Trees and snow for miles. I started walking and then… that woman started following me. Chasing me. I never moved that fast before, never felt that scared. I thought maybe I could get away, but the wind blew and knocked me over. I fell and now I’m… in some kind of pit. I can’t see anything. I’m so cold, but I don’t think I’m in any danger now. I can hide here for now. I don’t know where I am but maybe if I wait for her to leave I can find help. I just hope she doesn’t stick around. Everything in that forest was so frozen, it was like walking around an image. I didn’t see any towns of buildings but maybe i just missed them. Either way I’d be stuck out here, but at least I could find a phone, or maybe another person. Someone who isn’t her. Good God she… I don’t know who she was. She seemed nice but she… I don’t know, maybe it was a migraine or whatever they’re called. I know those only happen in the desert but cold this bad will do things to you. 

What the fuck… I just… I think something collapsed. The pit, some of it must have caved in. The snow, when it fell it… it felt like it crawled inside of me. Deep inside of me, into the bottom of my stomach, spreading like a flood. I can feel it in my chest, in my heart. In my soul. It feels like another person just forced their way inside me. I don’t… I don’t think it's anything to worry about though. I just swallowed snow peobably. I used to do the same thing as a kid. I think I did at least. I tried to move up but the collapse must have buried me further. I guess I’m trapped here for now. Probably for the best. I’ll stay down here, give myself to The Wintress, wait for the day to come. I’ll be alright. Wait what did I say? That woman, I’m gonna wait for her to pass. Yeah, that was it.

It’s starting to freeze down here. My hands are colorless and my lips feel like they’re gonna fall off completely. It feels like its been night forever at this point. Guess that’s just time though. I wanna start a fire, but I don’t see any sticks or stone. I’ll be ok I guess, I have The Wintress to keep me alive at least. Oh god, it’s happening again. That woman, I keep thinking about her. My mistress, my lord, my goddess. Her image fills my mind, her words berate my ears. I’m trying to fight it but… but I… I guess I really have nothing better to think about down here. I mean hell she’s the only thing I’ve seen in… in… Dammit it’s cold down here. Maybe if I keep rubbing my hands together it’ll warm me up. At least until she comes to deliver me.

My head, all I can hear is her voice. Oh God, the things she’s seen, the things she’s said. Implaing men on spikes of ice and ripping someone’s life out of their fucking head! I can’t take it, I need to be free. I can barely hear my own screams over her voice. All the time, all day, she tells me she’s coming, that I’m hers, that I’m special. And she’s right. She’s right I am hers. Her servant, her puppet. My mind and all my memories with it are hers. My thoughts, my life, it’s all hers. There are white spots all over my skin, and the snow has started to cling to me. I think I’m becoming more snow than man. My mind feels like it's being ripped to pieces, and I don’t know how to make it stop. All I can do now is give myself up to her. Maybe… maybe I’ll be better when the day comes. 

My mistress is coming for me. The past doesn’t matter now, my life is all hers. My mind, my memories, it’s all hers. I’m all hers. My transformation, it’s almost complete. I can see my form beginning to take shape. Oh God, oh God I can’t fight it anymore! The Wintress will take care of me. She’ll give me new purpose. She’ll make me whole. I’ll know peace in her domain, among the trees. I’ll be reborn. I’ll be complete. Whatever lived in me before is going to take its final breath. I can’t remember anything about myself. I think if I were to look in a mirror now I wouldn’t recognize the man looking back at me. My own mind has been robbed from me and it feels… it feels… God no, no I don’t want to go. I know who I was. I was a person, I had a family, I had a bed, I had a life. I was alive, that much I know. I have a life, somewhere beyond this. I deserve that life, I know I do. Whatever is tearing me apart can’t take that away. You can take away my memories but you’ll never take away who I used to be. You can’t take

The Tundra

The snow came down heavy as He willed himself forward, but every step stung His body, and what began as a sprint across the valley of death had slowed to a depressing trudge. Ahead of Him, He saw nothing but grey for miles. The tundra was the asphodel of the Wintress’s domain; a dead void of unbothered snow.

“This is it,” He thought to himself, “This is where I’ll die. Maybe a few steps ahead of me. I’ll lay down. I’ll let the wind take me. I’ll let this end,” As the wind blew against Him, He tried to imagine any other place He could be. He tried to hold the image of some better world, a safe haven in His mind, but all that appeared to Him were horrid images of men being frozen alive and having their physical form ripped apart and distorted by The Wintress.

“Just a little farther and I’ll stop. Just a little farther,” He had been muttering this to Himself for a while now. At this point, He wanted nothing more than to die, but His body wouldn't let Him stop. As He kept on, He could feel his pain deepening. His skin was cracked and peeling, and his hands were practically transparent. Every inch of his skin was covered in frost, and his eyelids were being weighed down by the snow collecting on top. 

“Oh no,” she whispered behind him. He mustered all his strength to look over his shoulder, And to no surprise, there she stood, looking back at him. He thought after putting enough distance between them, He could finally have peace. But alas, evil rears its ugly head.

“You’ve strayed so far, I almost couldn’t find you,” The Wintress said. She gazed into His green, sunken eyes and laughed.

“It’s been a very long time since someone has crossed this tundra. You should feel special,” she told Him. He turned around and kept moving.

“There’s nowhere to go now. You might as well submit,” He didn’t stop, determined to die on His own terms .

“Fine. You don’t want to listen. I suppose I wouldn’t either if I was in your place,” The Wintress stepped toward Him, her face holding a sinister expression of glee. In her right hand appeared a sharp, thin icicle. As she walked toward Him, gripping the ice tight. As she reached Him, she clutched His shoulder and kept Him from moving forward.

“Please, I just want to stop. I just want to die,” He said weakly.

“Oh I promise you will,” The Wintress took the icicle and drove it through His chest. In an instant, His blood started spilling out of His body and onto the snow below. The Wintress threw Him forward, letting the piece of ice stay inside Him. He stared at the ground for a moment, shocked by the stab. But in His weakened state, in the distance, He could see what appeared to Him as a blurry spot. He could tell it wasn’t a tree because of its size; not only was it short, it was shiny. He was unsure of what it was, but something about its solitude, its stature, it gave Him a sense of hope. 

“I… I have to reach it,” He muttered to Himself. In spite of His wound, He reached out with His left hand and pulled Himself forward.

“What are you doing?” The Wintress asked, truly puzzled by His actions. She followed His gaze, and she too noticed the shiny object in the distance.

“Oh,” she said lightly to herself. As He continued crawling, she made her way to it. It wasn’t often she found something out of place in her domain, but by her own design, the tundra was rarely crossed by anyone, and those that did reach it were often taken by Monstrosities lurking below. Of course by that logic, she rarely ever went far out herself. But as she moved toward the object in the distance, she started to have dull memories of a man. She thought of her domain, her fledgling self, tasting someone's memories for the first time.

“It… it couldn’t be,” she drew near the figure, now getting a better look at it. It was a man, not too different from the one crawling behind her. He was completely encased in ice, as if he were a statue. He was facing away from her, running further into the tundra. As she examined him, she could feel his memories rushing back to her. 

“The snow barely affected this one. He must have been used to the cold,” The Wintress said. She started tracing his left arm, remembering how it felt to encase someone for the first time. She stopped as she came to his wrist, and looked back at his arm. He was as perfect then as he was when he was first taken.

His hand was outstretched as if he was trying to reach for someone.

“He was my very first trinket. He was very used to the cold, unnaturally so. Though he was special for the reason of his faith,” she looked down at his neck. Under the ice, he was wearing a necklace with a cross hanging from it.

“I thought it was interesting, still believing in a god here of all places,” she brushed away the snow resting on top of his head, and on his right arm. She then walked around the side of him, and looked at his face dead on. As she peered into his dead, faded eyes, she harkened back to their time together. Watching his struggle to get away from her, remembering how it felt taking his life… it made her smile.

“Thank you. You may not remember anything, but I will always remember you,” she leaned forward and kissed his forehead.

“As for you,” The Wintress said, turning back toward Him. There was a trail of blood coming from where He was stabbed, leading all the way to His dying body. He was barely moving at this point, though He had nearly made it to her trinket.

“S… save me,” He cried out raspily, the life leaving him with every syllable. He looked up at the frozen body, hoping in His delirious state that it would suddenly move and deliver him to safety.

“Even on the verge of death you keep your faith in your false idol,” She knelt down next to Him as He reached up toward the frozen figure.

“Maybe you belong here as well,” she placed her cold, pale hands on His shoulder, and in an instant, a thin layer of ice began covering His entire body. It wrapped around every limb, from His fingers and His arms to His feet and His legs. It captured Him in His moment of agony, like the flash of a camera or a painter's brush.

“No, no let me go. Let me-,” The ice closed over His mouth, ending His plea. The Wintress gave Him one last solemn look as she stood up. She could feel her own power taking effect immediately. Inside her head was a flood of consciousness, a spiritual scream of His life, all the moments He cherished, all the things He’d done, all the people He loved. They played like spinning vinyl in her head; every tear He shed, every laugh He shared, every conscious moment. They were all stolen from Him, and He Himself was reduced to nothing but a statue in the cold. Just as she forgot her first trinket, she would forget Him too, for she had taken too many victims to hold each one in memory forever. But even in their eternal state of agony, they never forgot her. The Wintress walked back to her forest, satisfied not only with what she found, but with what He held in his mind as well.