Come Home, Jack

Prologue

Jack could not believe how much fun it was to create frost. He looked down on his first creation from the tree branch he had caught himself on and smiled, his heart light. Looking around for more places to spread his shining frost, he spotted lights in the distance. Curiosity piqued his interest and he tested his abilities with the wind, allowing it to lift him away from the trees and towards the lights.

Landing, Jack looked around, taking in the smiling faces, the children laughing and playing and he wanted to be a part of it.

"Hello," he said to a woman walking past. She did not even look up at the sound of his voice. Was she intentionally ignoring him? He turned and tried again, with the same non-reaction. Did they know him? Were they purposely ignoring him? What could he have done to deserve this? He could not remember anything, no matter what he tried. Instead of dwelling on it, he tried again, with the same reaction.

Perhaps this was a game? A prank? He did enjoy those. With a smile he crouched down to a child running in his direction and began to ask where he was and what was going on when the child ran straight into... and through him?

Jack gasped an stood. What had just happened? Then it happened again, he turned to see who it was, and it happened again, people kept phasing through him as if he was not even there. How was that possible? He was there, he knew he was. He had to be.

But they were not seeing him, not feeling him. He had to get out of there.

Just thinking of leaving got the wind rustling under him, and Jack took the opportunity to leave.

Every village he visited over the next few years reacted the same. No matter how hard he tried to keep smiling, to keep having fun, no one saw him, no one knew him. All he could do was decorate with his frost and staff.

As the years wore on Jack gave up trying. He stopped wanting to be seen, stopped writing on frosted windows, stopped bringing joy through winter, stopped laughing, stopped smiling, stopped having fun. The bitterness, the anger, the rejection took over. Jack had a job to do, he had to spread winter, he did not have to enjoy it, he did not have to allow anyone else to enjoy it, and when Winter was no longer needed he made a home for himself at the South Pole, as far from civilization as he could get.

There he stayed through the warmer months, in his home, alone, where no one could find him. And when he did go out to spread the cold he made it as cold, as miserable for the world as he could.

Three hundred years passed like this, with Jack alone, uncared for, unseen, unwanted, before anything finally changed.