It had been only a few weeks since Marcus died, my husband, and the father of our children, Lucy and Maybelle.

It had only been a few weeks, and another member of my family is gone. 8-year-old Lucy. She has been only missing for a few hours, but I sense something severely off about it.

I don’t know what to do, or what to think. All I _do _know is that it is a frosty cold winter—one of the coldest we have had in years. And the chances of someone lasting more than a few hours in the cold, are well—my stomach twists with worry and tears fill my eyes—unlikely.

————

_I need to find my Dad, bring him back home to my family. _Lucy thought as she made her way across a frozen lake. He had disappeared, and her family had never been the same without him. Especially her Mom, she hoped she wasn’t worrying—Lucy was doing what needed to be done.

She stepped forward across the icy surface, cold eating at the tips of her toes and fingers. Cold seeping through her clothes and into her bones. She knew she didn’t have long before she would freeze to death.

The ice crunched beneath her feet, sending a feeling of dread through her entire body.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

The veins of broken ice spread fast below her like a broken mirror stretching in it’s final minutes of being complete. The layer of ice shivered beneath her, she froze, knowing any further steps would lead to disaster.

Then the ice gave way, sending her into a jet of cold water below. Drenching her and drowning her in it’s icy waves. She fought to stay above, but the current sent her further and further below.

Until her body flooded with warmth, and the icy shards of pain around her disappeared.

She knew what had happened even before she saw the shadowy figure with the sharp scythe in front of her. She knew, because this was all part of her plan.

She had come to retrieve her father from the depths of death itself.