For Now, I am Winter

Chapter One

 10  Years Later

I smile as I watch the New York cityscape stretch out below me. The roofs of tall buildings have been my favorite place to relax since I was thirteen. My eyes scan the world below, watching as life goes on while I stand here, suspended in time for a moment.

I almost don't hear the iron door creak behind me. Almost.

So when the blade whistles past where my head had been milliseconds before, I see the confusion on my attacker's face. It causes me to grin as I slam my body into hers. She stumbles back, momentarily disoriented. I use this to my advantage and lunge at her.

Before she can so much as utter a sound, I snap her neck. She slumps in my grip, eyes wide for a moment as the life fades from them.

"You almost had me." I whisper, smiling as her eyelids flutter closed. "Almost."

After I've found a good hiding spot for her body, I make my way back to the street level. I always hate coming down. It's like coming down from a high: everything suddenly crashes back into reality. The noise of cars and shouts from angry cab drivers fill my ears in an annoying way. The smell of exhaust and grime attacks my nostrils and the tension of the many people bustling past me causes my face to take on its usual expression: annoyed.

Some people say the roar of the city is relaxing to them. For me, it is a nuisance. Ever since that day I escaped the lab, nothing but the forest calms me. Although, the occasional rooftop—especially the ones with gardens—does the trick.

I pull up the collar of my shirt and weave my way through the sea of people, keeping my eyes down. The path to my destination has carved a permanent place in my mind; I could get there with all my senses muted, honestly.

I arrive at the gravel road leading to the old lab in less than two hours—new record. Before I begin down the path, I allow my body a moment to relax. My muscles slowly release the tension they had built on the way and my mind clears. For a moment, all I am aware of are the birds in the trees and the bugs in the shrubbery. Once I feel confident enough to hold myself together, I set off down the path at a brisk walk.

It doesn't take long for the lab to slowly rise out of the horizon. By the time it was distinguishable, I was already near the front door. My hand comes up to rest on the cool gray metal that the doors are made of. Vines of ivy snake down over the door in tendrils longer than my body. As I stand there in front of the lab where my entire life changed over the course of 12 hours, I feel the tears threatening to break free.

Ever since I became this—this thing—my emotions have never been "normal" again, to say the least. The only thing I ever really feel is anger anymore. Then, every once in a while, I feel an uninvited and completely crippling sadness wash over me. It seeps into my very bones, locking my body in a fetal position for hours. My thoughts are never my own in those times; they are the thoughts of a younger girl who called herself Sabine. She was maybe seven years old.

I know that Sabine was me and I am her. She is the girl I was before I was injected with this curse of a drug, Ansilax. That is what my father did to me the day I ripped his throat open—he cursed me.

He made me one of his experiments. For that, he paid with his life. But even in his absence, the company still functions. It has moved since I escaped, but I know where to find it. Still, despite the horrid memories of my short time here, I always find myself returning. It is the one place I am familiar with from my past.

My old house was sold by the company. My father and mother were buried somewhere that I never found any evidence of. I hope to whatever higher being is up there that my father was dumped in a hole far from my mother. Even if Mother is just rotting away in the middle of nowhere, if Father is not near her, she has been done some justice.

I pick up my head, pulling my forehead from its resting place on the cool metal door, and pry the doors open.