Breaking Waters.

Abruptly in the sky, she spotted two very obvious monstrous bulbs of bright white.

But they didn't seem like bulbs, they seemed like eyes watching her intensely.

They seemed like the eyes of the creature, the eyes of a predator. Eyes of a monster.

•

Elliam suddenly jolted up from sleep while rubbing her arms repeatedly to heat up herself; her jacket had come off.

After sometime calming down, she put on her jacket again and taking in the warmth, thought about the scary dream.

That was the most scariest nightmare she'd ever had. But what did it mean? She didn't want to know, she hoped in time she would forget it but as for now, it didn't seem like something not so easily forgotten.

She couldn't fall back to sleep so she got up and crawled out of the low shed, the sun was out today, very weak that it had little effect on the snow.

All was silent except the breeze in the trees and the breeze on the snow. She walked to the front of the castle and looked at it.

It was shut. It seemed the staffs weren't done 'cleaning'.

Then on the ground she felt the ground vibrating, only a very weak, faint movement. She shuddered then looked around, all the children around were asleep, either in the front house's backyard or under the trees.

A creeping, alarming feeling of deja vu attacked her as she instinctively looked towards the forest area.

She moved back in fear as she felt more weak vibrations from the ground.

Then stopped, the vibration was very weak, she wouldn't have heard it if it hadn't been so silent, and so bent down in the snow and put her ears closer to the ground, trying to listen for noise or feel for quake.

But for a little while she remained there, but yet could not hear nor feel anything. She decided to wait a little. Just then she felt a hand on her shoulder, alarmed, Elliam pushed the owner away in shock.

"What did you do that for?" Elliam looked up, it was Ramone.

"Oh.... Sorry," Elliam said awkwardly as she stood up to help her up.

The other kids were starting to wake up, as more and more of them were getting up.

"What were you doing anyway?" Ramone snarled at Elliam.

" Nothing, I just tripped, " she scratched her head.

Ramone stared at her suspiciously, then looked away just as they heard a sound.

It was the large doors to the orphanage building.

All the children whom were awake looked at the castle. All windows were being opened from the inside, and in front of the front door stood mother Essyher holding a chain watch.

"12:30, you missed breakfast, now early lunch is served, be light on your feet or be locked out, " said she curtly and left indoors immediately.

The other children promptly followed inside, everyone was very hungry as no one had had breakfast.

Since the children had spent a great deal of time outside, a warm lunch was served so as to avoid any cold caught by one of them.

After a warm meal, the children went playing with their friends or whatever they were doing as it was a free day.

....

It was afternoon and Elliam was at backyard, near the pond.

She was bent down in front of it looking down at the ice. She couldn't really see her reflection that much as the ice was blurry.

She sighed and looked up.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the full round translucent satellite in the sky. It was still pretty early in the afternoon, why was it out by this time of the day? She was confused as she was wary.

She was growing more and more paranoid of the moon everyday as it seemed whenever she became aware of it, something really bad would happen.

A chirping of a bird interrupted her, she whipped her head trying to find it until she saw it, a black small canary looking bird it, under the moon, flying in zigzags as if trying to avoid something.

She watched it flying in zigzags.

Birds? In the winter?

Suddenly the bird let out a shriek and she watched it as it's body fell through the air, towards the ice and landing on it.

She looked at the black twitching almost dead bird, unable to tear her eyes away from it.

She didn't know what lurking spirit, what baleful ghost, prompted her to but perhaps she never would.

But she as if drawn by the bird, walked into the ice towards the twitching body of the bird.

As if planned it had fallen right in the middle of the pond.

Elliam knelt near the bird and took a closer look, it was small and it's feathers were a faded black. She wasn't wearing her mittens and so she could feel it's temperature well. They were cold to the touch indicating it was dead, but she expected that since it had died only a moment ago, it would still be a little warm.

She reached out and touched it, then carried it in her palms, looking more closely at it.

Way behind her, a person padded through the snow towards the pond.

Elliam looked at the strange bird, she touched its talon and shook it a little, shockingly the whole leg broke and fell off.

Elliam was weirded out.

The flesh on it didn't look fresh, it looked old rotten and mummified, like someone had taken dry rotten flesh of different birds and bound them all together to make this thing.

Just then the bird's body shook a little, then it jumped up, standing on a single leg, peering at her calmly with an eerie and frightening intelligence that sent chills down her spine. Not like a bird would.

It then flew away. Elliam stood up looking up at it, as it flew further away. She took a step making to follow it but as she did, a small crack spread on the ice.

She stopped immediately and looked down. There was a small crack but if she so much as made a wrong move, the crack would turn to cracks and the ice would crack open, then she would fall into the icy water, she didn't know how to swim so would most likely drown.

She looked towards the bank. It wasn't that far away. She braved it and took a step carefully.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a voice stopped her.

Elliam raised her head and cocked her it in confusion.

The ice was more solid near the rim than the middle. The intruder was standing a little near the edge holding a long sturdy branch of tree.

"Oh... Hi, do.. Do I know you?" Elliam narrowed her eyes, confused.

The child sighed and responded, "Do you... Know me? That's up to you,"

Elliam stared more at the child trying to remember the face but gave up and asked instead, "Ummm, could you please stretch out the branch a little so I could hold on to it and slide to the safer side?"

" Oh...You mean like this," the child stretched out the cane, it was thankfully within Elliam's reach.

" Yeah, thanks," she tried to the hold onto it.

But the child pulled it back out of her reach.

" But what if I have no intention of helping you, have you considered that?" The child asked.

" W-what?" Asked Elliam feeling a little alarmed. She hoped this girl was just joking with her.

" Please there's no time for jokes, the ice is about to break, and I will fall in,"

"That's very obvious, I can see that, but I'm asking if you've considered whether I'm willing to help you or not,"

Elliam frowned.

" Then why are you here?"

The girl sighed, "Well some time ago, you heavily injured a small child, I'm only here for retribution,"

" So... You're planning on getting that by leaving me here,"

" Well, something like that, I guess,"

" Who are you?" Elliam asked again.

The girl did not answer her.

" Well the least you could do is call the staffs,"

"I was planning on doing that, right after I break the ice," she tapped the ice lightly.

" Wait wait wait wait!! Stop! Stop!" Elliam exclaimed as the cracks spread more.

"Okay, okay I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that but I'm sure I could make up to you in some way, if I break through this ice I'm definitely going to drown," Elliam said, now desperate.

" I know you're going to drown," Ramone said, a dark shadow on her monotonous face as she swung the branch heavily against the ice.

" So, I'll give you a 5 minute headstart to do so before I call the staffs,"

The ice broke and Elliam felt the weak floor give, the world seemed to pause for only a second, she only becoming aware of the fact that it was just she and Ramone that knew where she was.

Ramone..... she could remember the name now.

But only for a second, from the next, Elliam felt the icy cold wetness of the pond water enveloping her body before she fell in deep completely.

This was only a pond but it was very deep and with the sudden way Elliam fell in, she fell into the dark depths of pond.

Elliam didn't flail her arms, or scream through the water for help, she only floated way, way down, her breath escaping as she did so. She slowly floated towards the limits of the pond as she watched the acoustic looking bubbles of her air rapidly escape her nose and her lips.

In between the flurry of the bubbles which obstructed her view, she caught sight of Ramone through the ice, she above and she below, looking down on and at her with a cold despicable face.

Ramone, seeing the depths which Elliam had entered turned around and walked away.

The flurry of air which left her breath reduced until the last small one left and floated to the the rim of the water, leaving Elliam in deep dark freezing depths.