Cold Fire [SAMPLE]

[2]

 CHAPTER TWO

"I don't understand. Why do you have to leave?" A tear trails slowly down Sarah's small face, her permanent smile falling away. We're in a barn on Sarah's farm. Outside, the snow is falling lazily from the sky, drifting in the soft wind. I wrap my arms around my small, five-year-old body as a gust of wind blows in through the open doors, but I can't really feel it: all the shivering is for show.

"My mother says that's it's too cold for me to stay here; she doesn't want me playing in the snow," I lie. Mum told me that I couldn't tell Sarah about my disease.

"But we can wear jumpers," Sarah says softly, looking down at her bright pink joggers.

"Jumper's don't work on me," I whisper, and then I slip my small hand into Sarah's. Both our hands are ice cold.

Sarah doesn't hear me. "I'll miss you."

A tear rolls down my cheek, my young heart breaking apart. "I'll miss you too."

In the morning, the sound of my pounding heart wakes me from my dream-filled sleep. I've been having dreams of Sarah – my childhood friend – for a while now. Most of them contain memories of my last day with her, others are completely made-up. Either way, I can't shake the feeling that their recent appearance means something – that each dream is trying to tell me something important.

I shiver when I feel the morning air on my skin and reach for my blanket, which has somehow fallen off my bed in the middle of the night. Halfway through reaching for the covers, I freeze and slowly glance at the window to my right.

A light breeze drifts in through the open window, sending the white curtains into a mild frenzy, fluttering and dancing in front of my eyes. The moment the wind reaches my arms, I know something isn't right.

It's unlike anything I have ever felt before: this strange sensation that makes me want to fold in on myself and find warmth. Goose bumps rise on my arms and I feel frozen in the clutches of the freezing wind. Its icy fingers seem to reach out and grip me, holding me firm until I swear the cold has burned into my skin. It feels sort of like a cold fire; like it's too cold to just be cold.

And then it's gone. The goose bumps disappear and the icy sensation vanishes as if it was never there. The breeze blows again, but all I feel is a slight trickle of cool air – the same as always. The last time I felt the cold, I was too young to remember it. But my body has remembered enough for me to know that what I just felt was, in fact, the cold. Warning bells ring in my mind, but I quiet them immediately. It could be nothing.

Choosing to forget about the incident, I hop off my bed and slip into a blue and grey skirt, which is part of the uniform of the school I attend. When I first moved to Australia, I found it strange to wear something other than casual clothing, but after attending several different schools across the country, I've gotten used to it. I've been wearing this particular uniform for the past five months, and in one month's time, I'll be selling it and moving to America. Six months is my deadline. If I stay too long after that, the whole area will become uninhabitable, which means water will freeze in the pipes, plants will wilt and shrivel, the wildlife will have to migrate or freeze, and people will start dying from the cold. If I stay too long after six months, the effects grow irreversible.

Quickly, before my train of thought can take me any further, I cease all thoughts on the topic. I grab my white short-sleeved school shirt and do up the buttons before quickly slipping my hair into a ponytail, my hands shaking the whole while. I don't touch the school jumper that hangs in my closest, gathering dust. It's useless to me.