The wind, sharp and biting, howled across the desolate landscape of Iceland, a mournful cry that echoed the despair settling over the small coastal town of Vik. Winter had arrived with an unusual ferocity, bringing not just snow and ice, but something far more sinister. A silent dread had gripped the community for weeks.
Bjorn, a man weathered by fifty-one Icelandic winters, stood at his window, looking out at the bleak expanse.
The sky was a bruised purple, heavy with unshed snow. The usual cheerful colors of Vik, the red roofs and vibrant buildings, were muted, swallowed by the encroaching gloom. He wrapped his thick wool sweater tighter around himself, a familiar comfort in this unsettling season.
It had started subtly, almost imperceptibly. A sense of unease, a prickling on the skin whenever the sun began its rapid descent. Then came the stories. Whispers at first, quickly escalating into terrified pronouncements.
People found frozen, statuesque, in positions of everyday action. A woman reaching for her door handle, a fisherman mending his nets, a child chasing a gull. All frozen, as if time itself had turned against them.
The silent voices were blamed. No one could describe them, no one could explain them, but everyone felt their presence. A cold pressure, a voiceless command that permeated the very air after 6 pm. Stay inside, they seemed to say. Or become ice.
Bjorn had initially dismissed it as mass hysteria, winter cabin fever amplified by the isolation. But the frozen bodies were real. He had seen them himself, stark and unnatural against the white snow. The jovial postman, Mr. Olafsson, now stood frozen mid-stride on the main road, a grim monument to disbelief.
The town had become a prison of fear. Everyone hurried home before six, doors bolted, curtains drawn. The once lively streets emptied as the afternoon light began to fade.
A tense quiet descended, punctuated only by the wind and the distant roar of the ocean. This was not the normal winter quiet. This was something different, something oppressive.
Bjorn's daughter, Solveig, called him every evening before five. It had become their ritual, a check-in against the encroaching darkness. "Papa," she would say, her voice tight with worry even through the phone line, "are you inside?"
"Of course, my love," he would reply, trying to keep his tone light, though fear gnawed at him too. "Always before six. You know me."
But did he know himself anymore? He felt a strange pull, a morbid attraction to the forbidden hours. What were these silent voices? Were they truly voices? Or something else entirely? The unanswered questions clawed at his mind.
Today, Solveig was late calling. Five fifteen, five twenty, five twenty-five. Bjorn's stomach clenched. He paced his small living room, back and forth, like a caged animal. The shadows outside deepened. The wind howled louder. He glanced at the old grandfather clock in the corner. Five thirty.
He tried calling her number. Ringing. Ringing. No answer. Panic began to bloom in his chest, cold and sharp as the winter air. He called again. Still ringing. Where was she? She was always prompt.
He knew her work finished at five. She usually left immediately to drive home, a short fifteen-minute journey. What could be keeping her? An accident? Or… could she have been caught out?
Five forty. The light outside was almost gone, bleeding into a uniform, oppressive grey. Bjorn felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead. He couldn't stay here, waiting, not knowing. He had to check on her.
He pulled on his heaviest coat, his thick gloves, his warmest hat. He knew the risk. Everyone knew the risk. But the thought of Solveig, alone, out there in the coming darkness, was unbearable. He couldn't just sit and wait.
He opened his door, the hinges groaning in protest, and stepped out into the freezing air. The cold was immediate, a physical blow that stole his breath. The wind tore at him, trying to push him back inside. He leaned into it, his heart pounding, and started to walk. No, run. He had to run.
The streets were deserted. Eerily, utterly deserted. Not a soul in sight. The silence was profound, broken only by the wind's scream and his own ragged breaths. It was a silence that felt alive, pregnant with something unseen.
He ran towards the main road, the road Solveig would take home. His boots crunched on the snow-covered pavement.
He scanned the sides of the road, his vision blurred by the wind-driven snow. Nothing. Just the empty street, the darkening sky, the oppressive silence.
Five fifty. He was almost at the edge of town, where the road climbed slightly uphill before turning towards Solveig's house a few kilometers away. He pushed himself harder, his lungs burning, his legs aching. He had to reach her.
He rounded a bend in the road, and his breath hitched in his throat. Parked at the side of the road, halfway up the small incline, was Solveig's car. It was empty. The driver's side door was slightly ajar.
"Solveig!" he yelled, his shout swallowed by the wind. He stumbled towards the car, fear gripping him like ice claws. He peered inside. Empty. Her purse was on the passenger seat. Her phone. Everything was there, except her.
"Solveig!" he called again, his voice cracking. He stepped out of the car and looked around. The road stretched ahead, disappearing into the growing gloom. On either side, the snow-covered fields rolled away into the darkness. Where could she be?
He saw footprints in the snow, leading away from the car, towards the fields to the right. Small footprints. Solveig's footprints. Why would she leave the car? Why would she walk out into the fields?
Terror squeezed his heart. The silent voices. Had they called to her? Had they drawn her away from the safety of her car? He didn't understand, but he couldn't waste time. He had to follow her.
He climbed over the low snowdrift at the side of the road and stepped into the field. The snow was deeper here, reaching almost to his knees. The wind was fiercer, biting through his clothes. The light was fading rapidly. It must be almost six.
He followed the footprints, his eyes straining in the dim light. They led him further into the field, away from the road, away from safety. He called her name again and again, but only the wind answered. The silence was pressing in on him now, heavier, colder. He could feel it, a presence just beyond the edge of his perception.
The footprints led him to a small copse of trees, bare and skeletal against the darkening sky. He pushed through the low branches, his heart hammering against his ribs. And then he saw her.
Solveig. Standing among the trees. Frozen.
Her back was to him. She was facing away, looking out into the field. One arm was slightly raised, as if reaching for something. Her stance was natural, almost casual, but utterly, terribly still.
"Solveig?" he whispered, his voice barely audible above the wind. He took a step closer, then another. He reached out and touched her arm. It was solid, unyielding, cold as stone. Frozen.
He moved around in front of her, his breath catching in his throat. Her eyes were open. Staring. Not at him. Staring out, beyond him, at something he couldn't see. Her expression was not one of fear. It was… transfixed. Almost peaceful.
Tears froze on his cheeks as he looked at her. His Solveig, his bright, vibrant daughter, turned to ice. By the silent voices. By something he couldn't understand, couldn't fight. Something that had stolen her away in the last minutes of daylight.
He sank to his knees in the snow, clutching her frozen hand. The cold seeped through his gloves, but he didn't care. He felt numb, inside and out. The wind howled around him, a mournful dirge. The darkness deepened. It was past six.
He was still kneeling there, hours later, he didn't know how long, when they found him. The search party, braving the forbidden hours, driven by the silence from Solveig's phone, by the empty car, by the gut feeling that something was horribly, terribly wrong.
They found him kneeling beside his daughter's frozen form, his own body stiff and cold. He was not fully frozen, not like Solveig.
He was alive, barely, his body temperature plummeting, his mind drifting in and out of consciousness. They rushed him back to town, to the warmth of a fire, to the desperate ministrations of the town doctor.
He survived. Miraculously, he survived. They thawed him out, slowly, painfully, bringing him back from the edge of the frozen abyss. But something inside him remained frozen. Something vital, something irreplaceable.
He woke up in a warm bed, in the doctor's house, the smell of woodsmoke and disinfectant filling the air. The doctor, a kind, weary-faced woman named Martha, sat beside him. "You're awake," she said softly.
He nodded, his throat too tight to speak. He looked at her, his eyes hollow. "Solveig?" he managed to whisper, the word catching in his throat.
Martha's face fell. Her kind eyes filled with pity. She reached out and took his hand, her touch gentle. "Bjorn," she said, her voice low, "I'm so sorry. She was… gone. Before we found you."
He closed his eyes, a single tear escaping and freezing on his cheek. Gone. His Solveig was gone. Taken by the silent voices. Frozen in the fields as the darkness fell. And he had failed to save her. He had been too late.
He stayed in bed for days, numb to the world. The town rallied around him, bringing food, offering comfort, but nothing penetrated the wall of grief that had encased him. He was alone, utterly and irrevocably alone. The winter wind howled outside, a constant, cruel reminder of his loss.
One morning, Martha came to check on him. She sat beside his bed, her expression grave. "Bjorn," she began hesitantly, "there's… something you should know. About Solveig."
He looked at her, his eyes empty, waiting.
"When we found her," Martha continued, her voice barely above a whisper, "she… she wasn't just frozen. There was something else. Something… strange."
He frowned, a flicker of something like interest stirring within him. "Strange?" he repeated.
Martha hesitated, then nodded. "Her eyes," she said. "They were open, as you said. But… they weren't just staring. They were… focused. On something. Something… above."
He waited, his breath held, his heart beginning to beat a little faster.
"And," Martha continued, her voice dropping even lower, "there were marks on her face. Faint marks, like… like tears. But not tears of water. Tears… of frost."
Frost tears. On Solveig's face. Tears that had frozen before they could fall. Tears focused… upwards. What had she seen? What had she heard, in those last moments, that had brought frost tears to her eyes?
A new kind of dread began to dawn in Bjorn's mind. Not just the fear of the silent voices, but a deeper, more profound terror. What if the voices weren't just silent commands? What if they were… something else?
What if they were showing people something? Something so terrible, so beautiful, so utterly captivating, that it froze them in place, tears of frost on their faces as they looked… up?
He looked out the window at the grey winter sky, at the heavy clouds that seemed to press down on the town. He thought of Solveig, frozen in the field, her eyes fixed upwards, frost tears on her cheeks. And he felt a chilling realization settle over him.
The silent voices weren't just a winter phenomenon. They weren't just a warning to stay inside after six. They were… an invitation.
An invitation to see something beyond this world. Something that froze you, yes, but also… perhaps… transported you.
Solveig hadn't been taken. She had gone willingly. Drawn by something he couldn't comprehend, something beautiful and terrible and irresistible.
And he had failed to understand. He had failed to see what she had seen. He had only seen the danger, the cold, the death. He had only tried to save her from something she perhaps hadn't wanted to be saved from.
His grief shifted, morphing into something colder, more desolate. It wasn't just sadness anymore. It was… emptiness.
The emptiness of knowing that he had missed something profound, something that had called to his own daughter, and left him behind, alone in the fading light of a dying world.
He was left with nothing but the howling wind and the silent, frozen truth of what winter truly brought. Not just death, but a terrible, beautiful, and utterly incomprehensible departure.