Of Bone And Ice - Chapter 1

What does it mean to be truly strong? To have power… I thought I had known. I had spent my whole life thinking I was strong, that I was powerful. Only to have it all taken away in a single moment. My day had started like any other. I woke up, went about the normal morning routines most ȧduŀts had. I had a shower, brushed my teeth you know the usual. I had a list of small jobs and bits that I had to do for the day. First on the list was to pop over to the bank and deposit some money, next was food shopping and so on. Nothing was out of the ordinary, nothing seemed off. It was just another day.

I arrived at the bank and joined the Que, I didn’t like waiting but I liked to think of myself as a nice guy, even letting an older lady in front of me because she seemed in a hurry. Today was going to be no different I had thought to myself. Well, that was where I was wrong. I noticed a hooded man pacing outside of the window, he looked flustered. It was finally my turn in the long line that had formed and the lady behind the desk snapped me out of my staring as she asked how she could help me.

I gave her a normal smile before I started to speak, but I didn’t hear my own words.

“Get on the fuċkɨnġ ground now!”

Screams erupted from most of the people there and I turned to see what was happening. It was the hooded man who had been pacing outside, he was holding a gun pointed and walking towards me. I quickly put my hands up and stepped to the side slowly as he glanced at me and then to the lady at the desk.

“Put the money in the bag! Come on move it!” he shouted as he threw a small duffle bag at her. He was shaking and jittery.

I know I shouldn’t have done what I did next, but I did it anyway. My body just moved. Closing the small distance between me and the thug, I quickly punched him in the face, grabbing the gun in his hand I twisted it up and pulled it out of his hand. He struggled and grabbed me with his free hand trying to claw at my face. I dropped the gun and acted on instinct.

Headbutting him in the face to stun and knocking him off balance, I quickly used my strength and threw the man over my shoulder hard into the ground. Other people were still screaming and some even ran out of the bank quickly. Of course, some had already gotten their phones out and started to record the whole thing.

I hit the man so hard in the face that his head bounced off of the floor and he stopped moving. I slowly stood up and shouted for someone to call the police, thinking it was all over.

I had trained in martial arts my whole life, I had been in many a fight and even fought in the ring and other competitions. But this was the first time I had fought someone with a gun. My adrenalin was pulsing and the rush was unreal, it was hard to even breath at the moment, but it was over wasn’t it?

I saw the man move and then it hit me. The gun! I had completely forgotten where it had gone. I tried to move as fast as I could but as I took my second step. Bang.

From what I could tell the shot had hit me in my ċhėst, I was choking on my own blood I knew that much as I was pretty used to the taste. My arms and legs were going cold and the screams and sirens in the distance started to fade. Why did I try and play the hero? Should I have just let him take the money, I was pretty sure it was insured anyway. If only I had been stronger if only I had more power. I should have killed him before he killed me…

All these thoughts were flooding my head as my blood flooded the floor. What happens now was my final thought as darkness was starting to take over. My eyes were closing and I no longer had the strength to fight it, the light faded and I slowly took my last breath.

I slowly awoke to raised voices around me, one sounded like a man and another like a woman. The room was dark and it took my eyes a second to adjust to the candle light’s glow.

“I won’t let you kill him! He is my baby!” the woman’s voice said shouting. I tried moving but didn’t seem to have much luck. ” just what the hell is happening, where am I?” I thought as the voice got louder.

“He is a curse to this clan! I should never have let you keep him during your pregnancy.”

I didn’t really understand what the hell was happening. I slowly managed to look down towards my own body, my head weighed a ton and it took all my strength. To my horror, my body was tiny. “A..Am I a baby!? What the fuċk is happening!” I tried moving and shouting out, but my tiny body had no strength. As for my voice, all I was able to do was cry or scream. So that’s what I did.

The voices got louder again. “That’s enough I will put an end to this monstrosity in an instant!” the man’s voice said in anger.

“If you want to kill him, you must kill me first!”

I stopped trying to scream as it was starting to hurt my throat. “Were they talking about me? Is this man trying to kill me? Just what the hell is happening, I thought I had already died?”

I couldn’t really see what was going on form the cot I ȧssumed I was in as it was blocking my vision. But I could feel the tension in the air.

“You know what his father was! How can you protect him after what he did to you!?” the man’s voice said in empathy.

The tension in the room settled a little and it felt like the pressure did too. “This baby is not his father. He can not. No, I will not let him be blamed for his actions.”

“You know what he will become. The mist will turn him into a weapon or they will kill him out of fear. He has no future!”

It was silent for a moment before the woman spoke. “As long as I live, no one will touch my son.”

Is this really happening? This was the kind of thing you used to read in a made-up story or watch in a funny anime. But this was real, and it certainly didn’t look like heaven.

The woman walked into my view and smiled down at me. “He is the unwanted snow. My Fuyōna Yuki.

I had so many questions about this whole thing. What I was guessing was my mother in this world picked me up and held me tight. She was pretty, very pretty. She smiled at me and I couldn’t help smile back. She looked at the man and put a hard face back on. “No one touches him.”

I turned my small head so I could look at the man who had only a few moments ago been threatening my life. He seemed older than the woman holding me as his hair was starting to grey. From what I could piece together he wasn’t my father. He looked at me with a cold chill in his eyes and then back to my new mother. “Very well Kachina,” he said before turning his back. “From this day he is Fuyōna of the Yuki clan.” with that said be walked out of the room leaving me and Kachina alone.

Wait a minute, where I had heard that word from before?