Chapter 1: If I die young

Jack sat on top of a snow-covered cliff, glancing at the marvelous mix of grey, crimson and orange the setting sun created. He listened to the barely audible sound of animals scurrying into their dens to prepare for a long, restorative sleep. A last breeze brushed the snow-covered trees, then there was silence. Just him and the snow - and silence. It was a magical, beautiful moment.

Yet during the last decades, he had always felt some nagging doubt this was what the moon had created him for: Enjoying himself. Many would call his way of living selfish - if anybody would ever notice him. Everything he did was for himself. Yes, he liked the feeling he had whenever he heard the sound of kids cheering on the first snow day, but in the end, he just wanted to have fun for himself. He was only living and striving for fun. Fun was all he craved. He had no deeper purpose, and if he ever died - would anybody even notice? He hoped so.

If I die Young - bury me in satin

lay me down on a bed of roses

Sink me in the river at dawn

Send me away with the words of a lovesong...

That´s what humans sang. If I die young - It didn´t seem like he had to worry about that. But nevertheless, he felt like there was something left to do for him, he wasn´t satisfied with what he had achieved in his 300 years of living, he hadn´t fulfilled his purpose yet. Because if he was honest, he had achieved... nothing. He had caused a little trouble here, a little bit of fun there, but that couldn´t be the only reason for his existence, or could it?

And if he would just end it right here? He wasn´t sure whether he would really die, but wasn´t it worth a try? Just throw away that useless stick and jump down there? Maybe end it with a bit of a bang, one last snowstorm to let people know what they´ve been doing to him all this time? That´s what really got the people´s attention. Die of age? Starve to death? Lose the struggle against some terrible disease? Typhus, Malaria, HIV? Hunger? That happened to a lot of people every day, and nobody really gave a shit. Grab a gun and go on a shooting rampage in revenge for being ignored? Made you a legend. Got you more media blitz than anything else you could ever imagine. Of course, nobody would just be able to show a picture of him on TV. No. There´d be an investigation, the newest developments filling every newspaper´s front pages for weeks. It was so tempting. So easy. So promising. But no, suicide was for the weak. It was the easy way out, and he had taken the easy way out far too often in his life. Whenever he had felt guilty of something, he´d just shrugged it off as unimportant. No, he wasn´t going to jump down there. But what else was there to do, really? He was determined to no longer keep living his life this way. He needed to change something.

Jack froze. There was a sound behind him, footsteps in the heavy snow and an audible groan every now and then. Who could that be?

He swung up into the air and looked over the snow-covered landscape. At the foot of the cliff, he saw a small village with a few lights shining through the iced windows and mistletoes hanging here and there; on top of it there was an untouched forest that stretched out as far as he could see. He attempted to locate the sound and flew off into its direction. But as night fell the wind began growing weaker and weaker, he soon had to land and run. The sound, however, was a deep tone and close to the ground, so when he arrived where he had thought its origin, it seemed to be coming from an entirely different direction. It also seemed to be moving away from him, but it could really be just a last gust of wind that carried it away. Desperate to find the source of the sound, he sped off again. And again, all he found were black branches on withered, snow-covered trees, and silence. The night began to fall and the sky grew dark and darker, but Jack wouldn´t give up that easily.

There! This time he knew the right direction for sure! He gathered all his strength and sped off again. Yet, all he found were more crooked branches and more snow, swallowing all sounds. A chill ran down his already cold spine. This was getting creepy. He decided to try and let the last bits of wind carry him up high in the sky one last time and hope for the best. As he passed the treetops, he realised that he was no longer able to spot the cliff. The forest stretched from one horizon to the other, always the same trees, the same twisted branches, the same snow. It was a threatening sight. What if he never found his way back out of this forest? And somehow, the sky looked menacing as well. It was obvious there would be no stars because it had been a cloudy day, but the colour just wasn´t right. It wasn´t pitch black as it should have been, it was some sort of unnatural violet that made him shiver in fear. What was going on? This just couldn´t be, it was impossible, it musn´t be, there had to be somebody out there, he couldn´t be all alone in this forest - he had heard someone, hadn´t he? - but where, where, WHERE? He covered his head with his hands, but he couldn´t keep the despair from taking over. A booming pain ran through his head, making him unable to think straight. The corners of his vision began to blur, then he started to see dancing black spots, seemingly mocking him and his weakness. Deep inside, Jack knew it was time to give up, to lay down in the snow and sleep until he had recovered his strength, but he didn´t listen to that inner voice. Who knew when he would get another chance like this? He had to find that person, had to talk to her, had to... had to...

Jack lost control, fell down and landed in the snow with a dull thump.

He awakened to the sound of an echoing voice coming from somewhere in the distance. He attempted to open his eyes, but his lids were too heavy. His head was still hurting and his body seemed to have gone entirely numb. Something rocked his shoulder. Jack took a deep breath and finally managed to open his eyes. A blurred scheme was all he saw a first, but slowly, a face began to crystallize. It was a girl. Her whole body was covered by a thick ski suit, only her face was visible. She had dark, grey, slightly greenish eyes. Jack wondered why he noticed that. He had never noticed anyone´s eye color before, so why did he now? 'Hey, are you okay?'

Jack noticed his ears had began working again. The girl was talking to him. 'Yes', he said with a groan, 'I think I´m fine.' Then it dawned on him that she seemed to be able to see him. That was unusual, but he decided it was better to not let her see his excitement over that fact.

'What are you doing out here? You could freeze yourself to death!'

Well, actually, no, I couldn´t. But I probably shouldn´t tell her that, Jack thought. 'Erm.. I don´t know...'

'How can you not know?'

'I guess I have some kind of weird amnesia right now... You just woke me up from unconsciousness, remember?'

'Oh. Sorry.' She blushed. 'I think it´s best if I call you help, I can´t let you lie here...'

No, don´t get me help!, Jack thought. What if the people she called wouldn´t be able to see him? He didn´t want to cause trouble for once... 'No, no! I´m okay. Really. No need to call for help. Don´t bother. I don't want unnecessary fuzz about this.'

He tried to stand up, but tripped and had to grab the girl´s shoulder in order to keep his balance.

'Well that doesn´t seem like you were okay at all... But if you don´t want fuzz, let me at least accompany you on your way home. Where do you live?'

Shite. This really wasn´t going well, but who could blame her? She couldn´t know...

'Ermm... I think it´s better if you don´t see my home... It´s... embarassing.' Jack hoped she would just think of something harmless about his home that might be embarassing, like it being untidy, and just drop the topic. Luckily, it worked.

'Okay... Let´s go to the nearest town then. Can you walk alone?'

'I think... No, seems like that´s a bad idea. Can I shore up on you, please?'

'Ok, no problem. You still haven't told me your name by the way.'

'It´s Jack Frost.'

'Like the guy from all the children's tales?'

'Yeah. Funny, huh?'

'Interesting, to say the least. Who names his child like that? I´m Riley, by the way.'

'Nice to meet you.'

They walked in silence. But it wasn´t an awkward silence, it was the silence of not having to tell each other anything, because there seemed to be a mutual understanding between them. They didn´t need to know the worlds the two of them came from, because they simply didn´t care about them. All they cared about in these moments was each other. It was magical.

As they neared the town, Jack decided it was time to go. He couldn´t let Riley be seen walking with an invisible person. He promised Riley to 'find her' when she asked whether she would see him again. That wasn´t much, just a vague hint of a possible future together, and yet he was already unsure about the question whether he should keep this promise. Could human and winter spirit possibly fit? How should he interpret that she was 'looking forward to meeting him again'? What did she expect from him and did he want to fill her expectations? He didn´t know. He needed time to think.

So here he was, sitting on an abandoned bench at the perimeter of a forest. It was just beside a bikeway, and every few minute somebody drove by, but nobody ever paid any attention to him or the bench itself. A gusty wind blew. It made his hoodie buffet and stroked through his hair with a comfortingly cold touch. As he let his gaze slowly glide over the landscape, seeing the trees bend down under the weight of their snowy cover and the branches swinging in the rhythm of the gusts of wind, a river flowing by in the distance, completely indifferent to the happenings in the human world, Jack felt like he would be able to sit there for hours. Watch the sun go down and the moon come up, the stars swirling around him, unconcerned about his existence. It would be interesting to see how long he could last, wouldn´t it? Reducing his life to pure observation, watching the decades pass by as empires and generations of humans rise and fall while he slowly but steadily becomes a part of the scenery, sitting on that bench like a statue, until vegetation began claiming back the space that had been violently stripped away from it by humans, until the bike path was long forgotten, until humanity itself had been forgotten and he - and maybe some other spirits - were all that was left.

But no, that wasn´t possible anymore. He could no longer keep observing. He might have been able to make that decision just a few days ago, but now he simply couldn´t. Now that he had started interacting, he couldn´t just stop. For the first time in his existence, Jack felt true responsibility, and that feeling kept him from indifference. He did care about Riley, as little as he liked it.

But wasn´t that the point? Liking the responsibilty you took? Seeing it as an opening to new opportunities rather than a burden, a limit? Jack didn´t know. How could he know? It was his first human contact in hundreds of years. He couldn´t know how to behave, what to do. But he was sure about one thing: If he let this opportunity pass by unused, he would regret it later.

And so, Jack used the next gust of wind to swing himself up in the air and search for Riley.

[Lyrics taken from 'If I die young' by The Band Perry]