He’s not sure how much time has passed. The sobs of anguish come less frequently now.  His knees are sore despite the carpet. Through the film of his tears he can make out the shapes of his parents: his eviscerated father slumped against the wall and his ancephalic mother mercifully slumped over the far side of their massive bed. His breath catches in his throat as a new wave of despair washes over him. The small boy presses his palms into the gore-soaked carpet as he tries to push himself to his feet.<br/><br/>When he finally stands up, motes of light swim in front of his eyes. He staggers: legs completely numb from kneeling for so long. He raises his hands to look at their crimson-stained palms. The carpet squelches as he takes another step to steady himself. This was his parent’s blood. His sister spilled this blood. This blood is the end of his life. Blackness washes over the small boy as he pitches forward: fainted face down on the befouled carpet.<br/><br/>The first thing he feels is cold. Not the stabbing knives he’d felt sobbing over his parents’ deaths at his sister’s hands. Just . . . cold. The small boy forces his eyes to open as he rolls over onto his back. Something soft and wet settles on his cheek. His brain aches. His lungs ache. Something soft and wet settles on his eyelashes. The boy blinks.<br/><br/>Her little brother struggles to sit up. The floor is still wet, but now also biting cold. The boy shivers as he looks around the room. His father’s flesh is blue where the caked on gore isn’t purple. The boy shivers. He tries to stand again, but when he presses his hands against the carpet the idea, “snow” fills his mind. He stands and looks around the room. Snow is falling: inside his dead parents’ room. The boy glances out into the hall where his life had been normal. The hallway was his past. He turns around and rubs his arms as he shivers, smearing the now-black blood of his father on his bare arms.<br/><br/>There is a woman standing near the open window. She is tall: taller than his mother, and pale. Her flesh is smooth and so white it is almost blue. She isn’t shivering even though it is snowing. Her simple cocktail dress is almost as white as she is. She is graceful as she moves from the window to kneel before the boy in the snow piling up on the gore-soaked carpet. He can’t tell the difference between her slender fingers on his cheek and the snow nipping at his cheeks. The boy can feel her hunger, though. He stares into her abyssal black eyes.<br/><br/>She is so careful: this woman. She says nothing, but the boy knows she sees his anguish. Her fingers are soft as she brushes his hair back. But they also burn his skin with cold. A lone tear crystallizes on the boy’s cheek as the woman leans in to kiss his quivering lips. The boy can feel the blood in his veins freeze when the woman’s soft lips press against his. The pain of ice shredding his viscera makes him want to scream, but he is frozen. His world goes white.<br/><br/>Hours later, when the police have broken down the small home’s front door they find the boy standing, catatonic, in that abattoir of a room. Despite the warm breeze ruffling the blood splattered curtains he is frigid to the touch. “At least it hasn’t started to smell in here yet. I’ve seen some sights, man. Some shit to shrink your dick but this . . . this takes the cake.” The only thing her little brother knows is her name means revenge and that his life ended hours ago.