The snow had fallen for days. It seemed endless. Every morning, Lucy stared out the window and saw it piling higher. First, it had been a beautiful thing, soft and quiet, a winter wonderland. But now, it was just a barrier. A wall of white. The world outside seemed to disappear, like it was being erased piece by piece.
She could hear the scraping of a shovel as her father cleared the driveway, but even that sound was muted by the thick blanket of snow. It was as if the whole world had been swallowed by this never-ending storm. It was cold, but not in the way it used to be. No, this was different. The cold felt wrong, unnatural. It sank deep into her bones, made her feel heavy, like her body was being weighed down by the world outside.
"Enough, already," Lucy muttered, her breath fogging up the glass. She watched her father's small figure move back and forth outside, his shovel carving a path through the white. He was trying, she supposed, trying to maintain some sense of normalcy, but it was useless. The snow wasn't stopping. It just kept coming.
She turned away from the window and grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair. Her parents had been quiet for the past couple of days, only speaking when they had to. There was a certain heaviness in the air now, a stillness that was unnerving. No birds. No traffic. No sound of life, really.
When she opened the door to the living room, her mother was sitting in the corner, staring at the wall. Her fingers twisted nervously in her lap. Lucy didn't need to ask what was wrong. She could feel it, too. The silence in the house, the oppressive weight of the snow outside. It was like everything was holding its breath.
"Mom?" Lucy said, her voice almost tentative.
Her mother didn't look up. She just stared ahead, her face pale, her lips pressed tight together. There was a faint tremble in her hands.
"I'm going out," Lucy said after a long pause. "I need to see if the road's been cleared."
Her mother didn't respond. She didn't even move. Lucy hesitated, then left the room, stepping carefully into the hallway. The snow had piled so high that the door barely opened. She forced it wide enough to squeeze through and then stepped into the cold, her boots crunching on the snow as she walked toward the road.
The world was a blur of white. The snow had fallen so heavily that she could barely see the outlines of the houses across the street. It was as if everything had been swallowed by the storm. She pulled her coat tighter around her, the wind biting at her skin. She didn't know where she was going, just that she couldn't stay inside anymore.
The road was a mess, the snow piled high along the edges, turning everything into a maze. Lucy trudged along, her breath coming in short bursts as she fought through the thick snow. It was difficult, like the world itself was trying to keep her trapped.
"Why's this happening?" she whispered to herself, her voice lost in the wind. It felt like the storm was alive, like it was punishing them for something. There had been no warning, no indication that this would happen. One day, it was just snow. Then more snow. And now it was everywhere.
The road was silent. The houses were silent. There were no cars, no people. It was as if the whole world had been abandoned.
As she walked, she heard something in the distance. It was faint, almost like a low hum, but it grew louder. The sound was like something scraping against the earth, like metal on stone. She stopped, her heart racing, her breath quickening as she listened.
It was coming from the direction of the woods, the area where the old power station used to stand. No one had lived there for years. The place had been shut down long before she was born, but every now and then, strange sounds would come from that direction. The locals always joked that it was the old machines waking up, but Lucy knew better than to believe that.
The snow crunched beneath her feet as she turned toward the sound, a knot forming in her stomach. She had to go see what it was. She couldn't help herself.
She made her way through the snow, heading toward the trees. The scraping noise grew louder, until it felt like it was right behind her, echoing through the white silence. She glanced over her shoulder, but there was nothing there. Just the white expanse of snow stretching out behind her.
It was only when she reached the edge of the woods that the sound stopped.
Lucy stood there, panting, her heart pounding in her chest. She was sure she had heard something, but now the silence was deafening. She looked around, trying to see anything, but all she could see was the snow, the trees, and the blurring white sky above.
Suddenly, she felt it. A cold breeze, sharp and biting, cutting through her jacket. She shivered, but it wasn't the cold that made her skin crawl. It was the feeling, the feeling that someone—or something—was watching her.
She turned quickly, her eyes scanning the empty woods. But there was nothing. No movement, no sound, just the endless, swirling white.
The hum started again, faint but unmistakable. It was close, so close it felt like it was inside her head. She backed away slowly, the hairs on her neck standing up. She could feel it, that pull. Something was out there, something that didn't belong.
"Hello?" Lucy called out, her voice shaking.
The hum stopped, and the woods fell silent once more.
She didn't wait. She turned and ran, her boots sinking into the snow with each step. The world around her seemed to close in, the snow blurring everything. She was losing her sense of direction, but she didn't care. She needed to get back. She needed to escape.
As she neared the road again, she saw something that made her stop dead in her tracks.
A figure.
It was standing in the middle of the street, just outside her house. A silhouette against the white, tall and unmoving. The snow had stopped falling for a moment, and in the stillness, the figure seemed to loom larger, darker. Its features were indistinct, like a shadow carved out of the snow.
Lucy's heart thudded in her chest as she took a step forward. The figure didn't move.
"Dad?" she called out, her voice trembling. There was no response. The figure remained still.
The wind picked up again, and the snow began to fall harder, swirling around the figure, hiding it from view.
Lucy took another step, then another, her body frozen with fear. She couldn't tell if it was her father or someone else, something else. The snow made it impossible to see clearly. The only thing she knew was that she needed to get closer.
"Dad?" she called again, her voice more frantic this time.
The figure moved, just a little. It shifted in place, and Lucy's breath caught in her throat. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.
Then the figure turned, slowly. Its movements were unnatural, jerky, like it wasn't used to its own body.
Lucy froze, her stomach twisting. She couldn't move, couldn't scream. She could only watch as the figure faced her, and she realized with a jolt of horror that it wasn't her father.
It wasn't human.
The face was pale, too pale, and twisted in a way that made her stomach churn. Its eyes were wide, black pits, and its mouth was stretched into a grotesque smile that didn't belong on a human face. Its teeth were jagged, sharp.
"Lucy…" a voice rasped from the figure's mouth. It wasn't her father's voice, but it sounded like it had been waiting a long time to speak. Like it had been buried under layers of snow and ice, waiting for someone to listen.
Lucy's legs gave out, and she fell to the snow, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She wanted to scream, but her throat was dry, her body too numb with terror.
The figure took a step forward. Then another. The snow around it seemed to bend, to swirl in strange patterns as it moved.
"Lucy…" the voice said again, each syllable dragged out, like it was savoring the sound of her name.
She turned, her hands scrambling to push herself up, but the snow was too thick, too deep. She couldn't move.
And then it was upon her, its cold hands grabbing her, pulling her into the snow. The world went dark as the snow closed in around her. And Lucy knew, without a doubt, that it wasn't the snow that was burying her.
It was the figure. The thing that had been waiting in the storm.