Isabel’s origin

*This is the origin of a character from a story that is in my Christmas tales, from my folder “25 Christmas tales”. But this story is under my folder “Snow creatures”. Gacha Club character designs are under this forum: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=116005&start=990 . Enjoy and Scary Creepmas!*

Introduction

Isabel saw the flicker of pink in her room for a brief moment before it disappeared. She thought nothing of it, until…

Until an avalanche of snow tumbled in her room, carrying Isabel far, far away…

Yet somehow, her parents didn’t wake up. She was whisked away, the pink flickering image burned into her brain, like a nightlight that would turn on and off, on and off, on and off…

Chapter One

She blinked open her eyes. Isabel was no longer in her room, but sitting in the middle of a frozen forest.

A boy and a girl, eyes uncannily wide and glass-like, like orbs, skin glistening like ice crystals, and white, twisting claws stared back at her.

Isabel’s own fingers felt far too long to be human…but wait…

She looked down.

They weren’t fingers.

They were the same contorting, grasping white claws as the boy and girl’s.

Chapter Two

“What happened to me? Who are you? Where am I?” Isabel asked.

The boy and the girl looked down at her in pity. Isabel got up from the ground and almost made a head start to run, but the girl grasped her own claw around Isabel’s wrist.

“My name is Liz, his name is Anselm, and you’re a snow faerie, like us. You’re cursed, like us.” Liz said.

Cursed? Cursed? What did she mean, “cursed”? Who would curse them? Why would anyone want to curse them?

Why was it happening at all?

Chapter Three

“A Spring Faerie named Giorgia cursed me because my Mom destroyed her garden when she was little, and she cursed anyone who liked Winter more than Spring. She’s dead now, we killed her!” Anselm said with a smile.

“Really? That’s a ridiculous reason to curse someone, just because they like one season more than another.” Isabel pointed out.

It didn’t seem like something that would happen, something that anyone would get mad about.

But she was changed into a monster, so perhaps it was time to believe in the impossible.

“Since she’s dead, we’ll just show you what it’s like to be a Snow Faerie! We can only get pulled to this place in the Winter, then the grass and flowers will come back and we’ll have to be human again.” Liz said.

“Am I going to get home?” Isabel asked. She’d learn how to get by with her new form, she just wanted to make sure she wasn’t trapped.

“Of course! Just after this!” Liz said with a smile.

Liz let go of her wrist and headed off into the forest with Anselm. Isabel looked back, then both sides, then straight ahead. It was all the same. Swaths of snow, tree branches twisting to grab.

Did Isabel really have a choice? How would she ever get home?

She followed Liz and Anselm into the beyond.

Chapter Four

“Now, you’ll have to eat the animals here. We feast off of meat, it’s our only way of living.” Liz said.

Right in front of them was a herd of deer that slept on the tufts of snow hills, a picturesque scene of peacefulness. Isabel couldn’t believe her eyes, it seemed too good to be true.

And Liz wanted them to eat the deers?

The three of them stared at the deers for a while, admiring their beauty, basking in the silence. It appeared that Isabel was wrong, that they cared just as much as she did.

How much did it hurt for them to hide their nature from their parents?To keep lying, to keep secrets burrowed deep? Isabel wondered.

Perhaps it was best not to ask.

“We can’t stand here forever. We have to eat at some point.” Anselm said.

It was true. Isabel’s stomach felt as though a hole had opened through, a great void of nothingness. It was a selfish, savage desire, but it was the strongest, nonetheless.

She joined the two of them in their slashing of the deer, who were doing nothing but existing.

Chapter Five

“Does it get any easier? Living like this?” Isabel asked.

She, Liz, and Anselm had finished devouring the deers, and were walking together in the forest, snow crunching under their shoes.

“None of this is easy, it just becomes more mundane.” Anselm said.

Isabel figured that he’d answer like that, but nonetheless, she still asked, clinging onto the hope that something would be better, that he’d offer false optimism.

Nope. Only the sour, bitter truth.

Something scampered in the woods, too fast to be any animal that the three knew about.

They all stopped, listening for unearthly sounds that they might pick up. Isabel mentally smiled, grateful for the distraction from her thoughts.

Anything to get her mind off how fast her life changed overnight.

Chapter Six

The sound continued again, more frantic than before. It sounded like a creature digging through the Earth, scavenging for food.

“Shouldn’t we run right now? Do we even know what that is?” Liz asked.

“Maybe it’s harmless. We’ll never know until we find out.” Isabel said with a shrug. Not everything was out to get them.

“Are you willing to take that chance?” Liz asked with a raised eyebrow.

How funny that she should ask that in their current situation, when they were all animal-eating monsters.

“I think that it’s important. Come on.” Anselm said, gesturing the girls to follow him.

It wasn’t like they could do anything else. They couldn’t leave him with a potentially dangerous animal…creature…whatever it was.

Anselm ran off, the girls running after him, determined not to lose sight of the boy in the vast, infinite white space that was the forest.

Chapter Seven

Finally, after many miles of running, they stopped in front of a hulking figure, eating away at the corpse of a deer.

The figure wore a cerulean and white striped pajama set of a shirt and pants. It had long, white hair and glistening pale skin, just like the three of them.

It didn’t seem like a monster, but monsters came in many different forms.

Liz grabbed Isabel’s wrist before she could come any closer, but Anselm took one step towards the figure and asked:

“Mom?”

Chapter Eight

The figure stood up from the ground. When it turned around, the three of them saw a woman with glistening ice skin and crystalline inhuman orb eyes. Her pajamas were the only human thing about her. Her hair shone with crystals, just like her eyes.

“Anselm? You were cursed too? I didn’t think that she would curse you, along with your friends.” The woman said.

She looked at Liz, then at Isabel. Maybe Isabel was imagining, but she thought that she saw tears in the woman’s eyes.

“Who are your new friends, anyway?” The woman asked in a curious tone.

“Oh! This is Liz and Isabel!” Anselm said, gesturing to the two girls behind him.

Liz waved, Isabel smiled. The woman beamed warmly at both girls, her sharpened grin a tad bloody from eating the deer, and then, she ran towards Anselm and wrapped him into a tight hug, tears falling from her strikingly bright eyes.

Anselm got to see his Mom, but Isabel was still many miles away from her parents. Christmas cookies and presents were waiting, but most of all, her family was waiting.

Isabel felt her heart clench with wretched sadness, despite how much she tried to whisk it away.

She’d get to her family, they both promised. She didn’t need to feel sorrow so binding that it felt like wrath, because they’d take her home.

They promised.

Chapter Nine

“So you get sent out here too? Where is Giorgia? You’ve got to be careful, you know. The faerie could be anywhere.” The woman said.

She had since let go of Anselm and looked left and right, surveying her surroundings.

“I don’t sense her anywhere. What happened?” The woman asked, eyebrows creasing in concern.

“Me and Liz killed her! We’re still faeries, but she’s dead!” Anselm beamed.

The woman didn’t return the smile. In fact, she bit her bottom lip, as though she were trying to stop herself from saying something truly disheartening.

“You’ve killed her, but if the curse is still here, then that means that something else is going on…” The woman trailed off.

Isabel felt her stomach drop, as though she were in a rollercoaster. She crouched on the ground, wincing in pain. Everyone ran towards her, asking her if she was okay, but Isabel couldn’t speak. It was like there were knives in her stomach, stabbing at her intestines, pulling apart her organs.

In her mind, Isabel saw flowers blooming in a grassy field, but someone was yelling, the flowers were bright…too bright…almost like fire…fire burning everything…taking everything…

Chapter Ten

“We’ve got to find the source of the madness. Come now, let’s go.” The woman said, gesturing them to follow her.

Anselm immediately took her hand, Liz ran close to her.

Isabel looked back at the road she left behind. Whatever was going on was looming in the sprawling forest, and it wouldn’t wait to be found.

Isabel joined them.

Chapter Eleven

From underneath her feet, Isabel could have sworn that she felt something beating. Like a heart pumping its way to live.

The woman said that she would take them to the source of the madness, so perhaps the answer to the beating would be found.

Or maybe Isabel was only imagining things…

Chapter Twelve

But still, Isabel felt it and still, they were walking on.

“Do you guys feel it? The heartbeat underneath our feet?” Isabel asked.

The three of them nodded as they continued to walk on. Isabel felt her heart lift a little. At least they felt it. At least she wasn’t alone.

But how much farther till they found out what was going on?

Chapter Thirteen

The heartbeat got louder and louder, shaking the ground and vibrating the trees. Still, the woman led them on, even farther down the forest.

Isabel could smell fresh flowers and cut grass in her nose, which was odd, considering that the forest had no life.

The spring scents were mostly comforting…when there was life.

Isabel’s heart beat with unease. Why was she smelling flowers in the winter forest? Were they getting closer? Why were they still following the woman? Because she was Anselm’s Mom? Because she promised to help them?

Again, would Isabel be able to come back home?

Chapter Fourteen

“I didn’t mean to ruin Giorgia’s flowers, I only wanted to bring them home.” The woman said. There was a hint of sorrow in her voice, as though she wanted to cry, but didn’t want to scare them away.

“Yet still, she saw it as an attack. As me trying to hurt her.” The woman said.

When the snow collided on Isabel, she thought that it would be her end. But she was still alive, she still had a heart.

Even though her time of living might be short-lived…

Chapter Fifteen

“Be careful with who you mess with. You don’t know what you’ll get in return.” The woman said.

The woman stopped. Anselm, Liz, and Isabel all peered out into a space of luscious, abundant grass tangling with the rainbow-colored flowers, the sweet scent of Spring in the air.

The scent that was clogging Isabel’s lungs, making violent coughs spring out of her mouth in a frenzied flurry.

Chapter Sixteen

Flowery vines reached from the ground and wrapped around the woman, Anselm, Liz, and Isabel.

Isabel screamed as they tightened their way around her waist, but then, she saw the woman slash away at the vines.

The heartbeat got louder. There was a way to stop the flowers.

Chapter Seventeen

Isabel slashed at the flower vines, thoughts of her parents circling her mind.

They couldn’t be left wondering what happened to Isabel. Where she might have gone, what she might have done.

As the flower vines were slashed away, she could have sworn that she heard them scream in agony.

But perhaps that was only the wind whistling from the sheer impact of her sharp claws cutting fragile plants down to bits.

Chapter Eighteen

The vines didn’t completely wither away, though. Every time one vine was taken, three more would show up.

Isabel’s heart raced in fear as she envisioned being pulled into the dirt, unable to rise again.

How would they be any match for the vines?

Chapter Nineteen

All she ever wanted was to open presents and eat Christmas cookies with her parents, the TV screen flashing and flickering with warm Christmas movies.

Isabel felt her claws grow longer, her teeth grow sharper.

Surrounded by the love of her family, the boundless, unconditional love of those that truly cared.

Isabel slashed away the vines and swallowed the seeds that fell from the flowers, so that they wouldn’t grow.

She fell to the soft, blanketed ground. A grin spread on her face as the solution presented itself in twinkling colors, like the string lights on a Christmas tree.

“Think of the things that make you happy in life and you’ll kill them!” Isabel shrieked to the others.

Just like any old Christmas movie, pure love and light would save the day.

Chapter Twenty

With almost maniacal joy and wide eyes, the woman, Anselm, and Liz tore apart the vines, thinking of things that made them happy.

The vines broke off into dust, flowers fading into darkness, the space barren and cold once again.

Isabel noticed they were still monsters, that destroying the flowers didn’t change that fact, only…

“I don’t feel hungry for raw meat anymore.” The woman said.

It was true. They seemed to have only the “good” things left over from being a monster, which was speed and flexibility. The hunger for raw meat had disappeared completely. No matter how much Isabel tried to search for that part of her, it was gone.

“I think you saved us by destroying that plant.” The woman said, turning to Isabel with a smile.

Isabel got up from the ground, in awe of what had happened. It was still a winter wonderland, but the springtime threat was completely gone.

All because of happy, good, pure thoughts.

“My name is Dahlia. I wish you well.” The wo-Dahlia-said.

Before Isabel could even say goodbye, the faces of Dahlia, Liz, and Anselm were starting to become blurry, as if they were nothing more than a hazy dream…

Epilogue

Isabel became human once she returned back home, save for her claws, which she could morph into hands herself with pure thought.

She didn’t think to tell her Mom and Dad what happened. They wouldn’t believe her, anyway.

Every Winter, Isabel, Anselm, Liz, and sometimes Dahlia, would meet up and be their true selves in the forest.

But that was only every Winter. What was kept a secret, stayed a secret.

Just as it should be.