Snowy Days - A Christmas Special
Snowy Days
He
stands by the abandoned bus stop, the warm yellow of a single lamp flickering
overhead. The next arrival isn't until thirty minutes later, but he will wait,
standing in the billowing wind, the icy snowflakes kissing his bare cheeks as
he stares unmoving at the white he dwells in.
Was
it too daring of her to announce the hatred she bore towards Christmas? She had
never believed in Santa Claus, even when she was still a child years ago, nor
was she religious. The holidays were just a scam for people to spill their
money out of their pockets, nothing more.
The
wind was too loud for her to concentrate as it swept by her windows. She stood
up and walked towards them. The snow was still glistening brightly under the lamp
post by the bus stop outside. There was also a silhouette of a man holding his
hand out to shield his eyes from the white flakes which kept on blowing
stubbornly, his back burdened by the seemingly heavy backpack on his shoulders.
Not that it mattered.
She
shut the curtains and put on her headphones. It was time to work.
The
bus ride home was not the smoothest, to say the least. The road was bumpy, and
Adam had already been thrown to the far right of his seat five times. There
were a lot of drowsy drivers on the road, and he would consider himself one of
their victims. The music that blared in his ears had, luckily, drowned out the
occasional honks by the already pissed-off bus driver.
His
family never celebrated Christmas, but they always gathered together to
celebrate the weird day that was his and his younger siblings' same birthday.
They had all been born exactly two years apart from each other, all on
Christmas day. Their parents would bake one huge cake, each third designed for
each sibling.
He
was the oldest, turning twenty tomorrow. He had chosen chemistry for his major,
so for the past two birthdays, his part of the cake had carefully frosted on
equations. Adaline was his sister younger by two years. She had an obsession
with fictional characters, one that struck him as weird and odd, but he
supposed that was what girls did. And his youngest sibling, Adrian, his
sixteen-year-old baby brother was a lover of the arts, as well as a talented
artist if Adam didn't say so himself.
It
was until then the bus screeched to a halt, pulling Adam out of his thoughts.
"Last
stop, boy."
Adam
hauled his heavy pack off the seat. He had stuffed it with his clothes, barely
leaving any space for the presents for his siblings he had hastily squeezed in
the last second. He stepped off the bus and, in the distance, he could see the
blurry outline of his parents' house standing in the distance.
It
was time to go home.
Chloe
paced around her room. College was fair enough for her, not too hard but still
time-consuming. She had yet to finish her first novel, and the deadline she had
set for herself was getting closer than ever before. With only nine weeks left
'til the end of February, Chloe did not like the odds of her finishing on time.
Writer's
block was the cause of all her anxieties, and if she could have one wish that
would grant her anything, she'd choose to rid the world of such a thing as
writer's block. Chloe was stuck on the last chapter of her story, which was a
sci-fi novel with an epic last battle spanning the final three chapters.
Perhaps,
she thought, she'd take a trip to her secret thinking space and walk around.
Yes, that's exactly what she'd do. The idle walk would surely clear up her mind
a bit. Plus, there was no one around to stop her.
Chloe
shut her laptop and took off her headphones. Her house was empty, her parents
had gone out to meet some relatives a couple days ago. She slipped her coat
on, and with a shovel and a packet of salt with her, she opened the front door
and stepped out onto the porch.
The
snow had already piled up around her knees—no one had bothered to shovel out
the snow, and neither did she. Letting out a frustrated sigh, Chloe trudged
through, her boots occasionally getting stuck in the process. Their driveway
was the same as the rest of the front of their house.
It
would take a long time shoveling all that snow.
"Come
on, Adam, let's go. Please," Adrian tapped his shoulder. Adam's younger
brother had been nagging him about going out to “The Cave” for three straight
hours ever since he got home, and Adam himself had gotten exactly one sentence
typed out during the whole time. Maybe, he thought, just maybe he’ll get a
little free time out of this trip.
“Fine.
But only for this afternoon. We aren’t doing this tomorrow, because I have got
to work on my thesis, and also partly because it’s also gonna be my birthday,”
Adam turned to face his brother, smirking.
“You do realize that we
have the same birthday, right?”
“Yeah,
yeah. I’ll meet you by dad’s car in ten minutes. Now shoo. Or else you’ll lose
your chance and I’ll get the time to do to my own stuff.” Adam waved his arms
impatiently, and that was the first time he had seen Adrian run so fast.
Shutting
the door, Adam closed his laptop and began to change.
After one and a half hours of shoveling and driving, at
precisely four in the afternoon was when Chloe got to her spot. It was just as Chloe remembered, the
concealed tunnel hidden behind a pair of pine trees leading to what had seemed
to once been a sea cave thousands of years ago, but now lifted up, overlooking
the clear blue of the ocean. Her parents had used to take her near the place,
to the grassy plain outside, where they’d always have their picnics with
another family every month, yet the tradition had stopped after Chloe turned
fifteen, after she had started high school.
It was the second year of picnics when Chloe found the
cave. She was eight, and she remembered playing tag with the other family’s
kids, two boys and one girl. Chloe had stumbled through the pines, accidentally
finding the path. She remembered the first time she found it, and she had
smiled to herself happily.
It was her own Narnia.
The rest of the kids found it the year after, mostly
because that Chloe couldn’t resist telling them of her discovery. It had become
“The Cave” when the young boy called it that. The name had stuck, but to Chloe,
deep inside her heart, it was her secret hiding place, her secret world to
escape to. Up until her parents stopped bringing her there, Chloe had sat there
sometimes, thinking all sorts of things.
Now she was back and ready to think as she did so long
ago.
The cave was calming, and Chloe could hear the waves
crashing upon the rocks on the cliffside down below. Chloe sat on the edge, dangling
her legs over the edge while also making sure that she didn’t slip. The ocean
spray on her face was refreshing, and the way the rosy sun hung over the vast
blue stretch that was the ocean was poetic. The beauty of nature, Chloe
concluded, was more than any music on her phone.
The scream pierced Adam’s ear before he felt a faint
shudder below his feet. But no one knew this place, no one besides himself,
Adrian—who was behind him eyes wide as Adam turned his head to check on him—and
Adaline, …and Chloe. Chloe, the girl from the picnic trips. Chloe, the girl he
had a crush on when he was just fourteen. Chloe, the girl who found “The Cave.”
Chloe, the girl he had never seen out of school ever since sophomore year.
It couldn’t be her. How could it be her? No one came here
anymore.
“Stay here. I’ll be back. If I don’t come back after ten
minutes, phone up Mom and Dad.” Adrian only nodded his head, and Adam quickened
his pace to the cave.
“Help! Please, someone, any—” Chloe stopped to gasp as
her hand almost slipped once more. Of course, they had stopped coming for those
picnic gatherings. The grounds were dangerous: the lands underneath them had
been eroded over the years, and it was only just a matter of time and a bit of
pressure for the floor to collapse. Chloe clung as close as she could to the
cliffside. She knew that there was no one to save and but herself, but terror
had overcome her and her mind was whirling.
How long until she couldn’t hold on anymore and fell into
the maws of the open ocean? Is there a great enough possibility for her to haul
herself up the edge of the precipice and survive without slipping off the icy
rocks? Would pulling herself up trigger a pile of snow only to push her down?
“Hello? Hello? Anyone here?” There was a male voice that
called out. One that was eerily familiar. And Chloe couldn’t help herself.
“Ad-adam?” She coughed out, spluttering out snowflakes,
“Is it you, Adam?”
“Chloe? Chloe!” Adam’s eyes went wide as he located her,
and he made his way over as fast as he could, reaching his arms out even before
he reached her. Chloe could feel his hands gripping her forearms, and with her
last surge of energy, Chloe pushed herself up as Adam pulled.
The momentum pushed them both of them backward, up onto
the platform of the cave. Chloe had landed herself on Adam, who responded with
a faint “ouch” and a slight grin.
“So, you’ve grown up a beautiful young lady, Chloe. Knew
that when you were just a teeny tiny girl who frolicked among the daises.”
Chloe raised an eyebrow. “I’m only one year younger than
you, mister.” She got off of the boy and dusted her jeans off. She offered her
hand to the boy. “We better get out of here before anything like that happens
again,” she nodded to the crumbling cliffside, “and leave the flirting for
later.”
Chloe
stepped into Adam’s house, which was pretty nice and fuzzy, and also filled
with a whole lot of love evident by the way the rest of his family member took
her in and welcomed her.
Adam
turned to her, smiling once more, “Do you wanna watch a movie? I’ve got Narnia
if you’d like to watch it.”
It
was at that time Adaline hugged her, also conveniently whispering not so
quietly into Chloe’s ear. “Please do say yes. Adam’s trying to flirt with you,
and I’ve never seen him try and flirt with a girl.” There was a mischievous
smirk. “At least, not with someone else other than you. He had pined after you
quite a while when we were younger, did you know?”
As
Chloe glanced back at the aforementioned boy, she could spot the faint blushes
of pink now spreading over his face.
Maybe Chloe knew how to end her novel now.
#
A/N: I got this idea on December 23th, so it was a bit rushed. It's a bit longer than what I usually post, but I do hope y'all enjoy it.
Merry Christmas~
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