Marvel ad Aeternitas; Killer Frost

Killer Frost #1 - La Fille des Neiges (1)

A woman, tall and beautiful with a rush of platinum hair, slinked into the room. She was careful of the noise, pressing her opened palms against the heavy door as fractals of ice sprung to life under the merest graze of her fingers upon the stained wood. As indescribable as her beauty appeared on the surface, much like that in the first moments of a freshly fallen snow, there was a murky, chaos beneath her fair façade. Her sapphire eyes, once considered to be kind and affectionate, were as desolate as the barren Arctic from which she'd come. There was no response to the familiarity of the room she now stood in. This was no longer her room. It was little more than a distant memory of a life she could scarcely remember, and yet she had longed for it. Much as she had longed for a semblance of the warmth that had been forever stripped from her.

Instead, to the lulling sounds of the lark, she moved forward and slid into an antique chair beside a paper-strewn desk. Carelessly, perhaps even disinterestedly, she brushed aside the scattered papers. In another time, it would have brought a smile to her tensed lips. The woman remembered the feverish search for knowledge, the drive of academia, as she had scrawled across countless pages such as this. Her handwriting, precise enough to be considered graceful yet closer inspection of the ramblings would've shown the true depths of her greatness. She held an intellect that was unmatched, certainly not matched by her male peers who saw themselves as superior simply because they'd 'won' the genetic lottery. She wasn't sure why she'd come at all. Perhaps she'd held a vague and fleeting hope that connecting with her past would reinvigorate her, calm the baser desires that now ruled her formerly logical mind. Regardless, her hopes had proven false. She still felt like an outsider looking in at her own life.

Lazily, she reached for a pen and a fresh page and allowed her ramblings to commence.

Papa,

I want to say that I love you. Or at least, I did in the past. Before the incident that claimed my life, the life as I knew it. These words may seem confusing at times, perhaps they'll even present a conflicting report of what happened to me. I just wanted you to know how this came to be. How I was transformed from your little girl into the monster that will permeate the lives of those who wronged her. Returning home, even for the briefest of moments, was something I dreamed of as a reprieve from all that rages within my mind. I hoped it would offer clarity yet as I stood at the foot of the stairs, listening to the silence of the house, I knew my time here had passed and I don't want to drag you to the depths of hell that this journey will take me to. I suppose, in a way, I'm sorry. This could even be kismet for going against your wishes, for turning my back on you when you asked that I take a moment to consider. That is the folly of the young and I will always have to live with that.

Even if I'm not sure that I can consider this new chapter of my life to be living.

It seemed unfair that I should simply disappear into the night or close the loving relationship we once held on an argument. I understand reports of my demise will reach you in the days or weeks that follow. To that end, I needed you to know the truth. I needed to leave knowing that you understand this wasn't a freak accident or fabricated incident. I chose to do this. It may seem irrational, something you always taught me not to be, but in the moment when it occurred, it was the logical decision to make. Despite all that I feel now, and the general apathy that fills all I do, I wouldn't change the decisions I made. They were pure at conception, a defence for all of those who have been wronged and discarded in the name of scientific endeavour.

She paused. Her mind was uncertain of how she should continue. In many ways, she wasn't even sure that she should continue. It all seemed to be so surreal, like something in a science fiction book she would have easily thrown aside, that the young woman wasn't sure how to begin her tale. It was a tale of blood and ice, of betrayal and a misguided interpretation of justice. Her actions would be weighed morally, she would never come away from the incidents that followed with her integrity in check. This was the end of the line for the woman she had been and the morally corrupt demon that echoed its taunts in her mind would ensure that. Still, was she remorseful? Did the momentary lapses of sorrow that washed over her mean that she was repenting for the sins she intended to commit, or was she simply longing to have another pathway offered to her?