The wind howled above me as dark storm clouds appeared across the sky.

I slowly trudged through the quickly darkening woods. The trees once bright, and inviting twisted into a phantasmagoria of harrowing creatures waiting to pounce. Their branches, jagged claws, that desperately scratched at me as I kept along my dread-filled march.

As more snow began to fall to the ground my head darted about in search of the long lost ski lodge.

My hands shook with not only cold. My breath became jagged as tears welled up in my eyes.

I rubbed my hands together. My light coat, and beanie doing nothing to keep away the frigid needles of a winters night’s wind.

The snow crunched beneath my boots leaving footprints two feet deep.

Finally like the bright of dawn I saw light ahead.

I threw myself forward into a run, my heart soaring, my eyes glittering with hope, and joy.

As I reached the clearing I saw the monolithic cabin. All of the wall facing me was a window so I saw the wondrous fire roaring, and the family that sat comfortably around it.

I ran up to the front door, and pounded on it desperately.

“Help!” I begged.

From where I stood I saw the family turn to face me.

They look me dead in the eye, and smiled. Not a friendly smile in any regard. It was anatomically impossible to smile that wide! Their teeth jagged, and cracked shimmered in the reflection. Their eyes were empty coals, yet a fire seemed to burn somewhere deep inside them.

Though as fear seemed to grab at me, I stayed rooted to the porch.

My legs were cooked noodles, my hands were blocks of ice, and my feet unmovable boulders.

I slowly sank to me knees, then to my side as the cold ate away at me.

As the family smiled at me in their warm cabin with that taunting fire the world swirled around me.

Colors danced in my vision and the ringing in my ears reached a peak…

Then the world went silent.

But not before I heard the front door of this treacherous spiders web open, and a calm malicious chuckle rang throughout the cold, cold night.