Crystals hung from the icy walls, emitting a glow that seemed to lighten your soul. Occasionally, snowflakes would start to fall, taking its own sweet time to touch the polished ice floor that was actually a layer of transparent layer on an ice carving of the floor. However, this time, the surroundings weren't as welcoming any more. The ice and snowflakes were flickering, the light it emitted was stingingly bright. On and off. On and off. Like a warning. The snowflakes, every single of them, howled and cried.

Immediately, footsteps could be heard on the well polished ice and a woman, around her twenties, scurried past the corridor. Her face was drawn tight, worry was etched on her face. But as she rushed into a much smaller room and ran towards the small bed at the corner, she heaved a sigh of relief. A young boy that was probably only five to six was fast asleep, deep in the realm of slumber He looked peaceful, but was completely oblivious to the situation that he was about to face.

The woman cautiously picked the boy into her arms and immediately left the room, looking back as though to check if she had left anything. During the process her white curls accidentally touched the boy's face, making him giggle and wake up. Big eyes, like pools of water, looked up at the woman whom immediately tried to make him sleep again but her efforts were futile as he begin giggling and tugging her hair playfully.

"Jack, not now." she chastised.

Then suddenly a man appeared, looking disheveled, saying between pants, "they-they are sti-ill attacking. In fact ha-alf of the court is now dominated."

"Is anybody hurt?" the woman asked, full of concern.

"No, but they are capturing them. Our forces are weakening. I urge you to hide at the hidden chamber."

The woman nodded and swept down to the seemingly endless corridor, the boy looked up at her and tugged at her gown, as though wanting to play. But the elder person ignored him and continued until she placed Jack down the floor at some point and started trailing her hands along a bare wall, then as she brushed over one of the areas repeatedly, a door seemed to materialize from the wall and the woman turned to retrieve her son.

He wasn't there.

Panic flooded her and her eyes immediately turned to search for any sign of Jack. But what greeted her vision was only an empty corridor that seemed to be taunting her. Abandoning the door which melted into the wall again, she rushed sown the corridor to search for the boy. She knew he was a very curious and playful boy, but it wasn't going to help in this drastic moment. Calling out his name a few times, the woman gasped and stopped when she saw another person standing at the end of the corridor. But she know that the person wasn't part of her court, what made her shudder was the blood that was dripping sickeningly off the ice spear the man was holding. And he was staring straight at her with his cold blue eyes which radiated the power of cold, death and hunger. The most dreadful part of winter.

"Say goodbye to your son." the man said in a low resounding voice and sent a barricade of ice towards the stiffened woman whom was unable to do anything but to stand there and watch herself about to get trampled by the snow, her feet seemed to be stuck on the ground as though the ice had sticked her foot to it.

But instead of being sent straight into death's arms, the snow encased her and slammed her unconscious. Then man smiled sadistically, his job was done.

Jack was now playing with himself in another room, when out of the corner of his eyes the door opened with a rather frightening force that jolted Jack to see who was the person or whether it was the wind playing with him again.

But instead a young woman appeared, Jack immediately thought it was her mother as she looked just alike his mom and immediately ran towards her, shrieking in excitement along the way. He did not question about the change in her clothes, her icy gaze, full of hatred and that her hands were stained in red.

"Mother!" he pounced on her playfully.

The annoyed woman expression immediately changed to surprised and looked down, for a moment she didn't do anything but to stare in awe at the boy that was trying to seek her attention.

"My sister had a son?" she asked, most likely to herself, then looked down at the boy who seemed to be relentless of hugging her, "I wonder what's your name?"

She bent down and lifted him to her lap and caught sight of a few words embroidered at the edge of his cloak. Jack Frost. She smiled and petted his hair, no doubt he did inherit some of her sister's features. Speaking of her sister, she couldn't control the growing rage that bubbled inside her. It was she whom took away all my fame and just as I was about to be the queen of winter- She seethed, unable to recall about her past. Though she, Cylinus, was a complete shadow of her sister, they looked complete alike and people always mistaken them. Like this unfortunate boy here. She smiled again, gazing at the now dozing boy whose hands were loosely fisted against her clothes. Though it was tempting to break her sister's heart by killing Jack in front of her, she had a better idea.

"Where is he?" Jack's mother seethed while asking.

They were leading her to another room, and she wanted to crumple to the floor upon hearing the shrieks and cries of her people, for she had failed them. For not protecting them well and lead them to these devastating situation. Her thoughts were cut short as she was whisked off to a colder room. It was big, and that it was strangely empty, the four walls were similar, however one was transparent.

The spying room.

She had recognized immediately, this room was used to observe the winter spirits that had committed crime and were sent to interrogate, they would usually be trapped in the room beside the spying room. However, the transparent wall was opaque to them from the other room, and that it wasn't sound proof so that the conversation can be heard clearly inside the spying room.

"What do you want?" she hissed the question at her captor whom was the man that knocked her unconscious.

"Keep quiet Cylienne, just watch!"

She had no choice but to shut her mouth and gasped when her sister appeared and in her arms lay her son, Jack. She squirmed against the restraints and noticed that Jack's eyes were closed. She hoped he wasn't dead, but asleep. Yet the thought conjured fear in her mind, what is my sister going to do to him? That made her scream out and squirm harder but she realized there was a gag that prevented her to make anymore noise. Jack's mother cursed, my sister, how dare she lay her hands on my son. It made her more determined to get out of here and get to her son now since she doubt her evil sister wasn't going to help much in this situation.

She eyed warily as Cylinus gently shook Jack awake, then from her robes, she took out a vial with liquid inside. It was blue and shimmered constantly. Jack woken up and stretched his arm out at the vial, intrigued by the color of the liquid but the woman that held him kept it out of his reach.

"What's tat?" he called out and struggled to reach the vial again but the woman smiled and shook her head.

Cylienne had never been so shocked before, he had mistaken her sister as her! And that he was going to trust Cylinus whom might do who know's what with the liquid.

"Come, drink it."

The voice was soft, and encouraging, but it scared Cylienne out of her wits.

Jack whom was sitting straight was frowning at the liquid that was literally shoved at his lips and shrank away when an overpowering odor hit his nose which was emitted from the aqua blue liquid. It made him wrinkle his nose and turn his face away. Now that the evil woman was rejected, she tried tipping the liquid at his mouth, but the albino tried to brush it away and she nearly dropped it once because of it. And one thing for sure was to never ever test her patience. Now Jack had caught her very frustrated and furious gaze, he tried to scramble away. Slightly puzzled on why his mother was acting so weirdly.

Before he knew it sharp nails dug into his cheeks and forced his mouth open, and that a sudden gush of liquid invaded his mouth. It was so unexpected that he started to choke on it, whenever Jack panics, he tends to freeze things and it certainly did turn the bitter liquid to solid as well as freezing the fingers that were over his mouth to ensure he swallows the liquid. The sudden coldness that burst on her hands made her pull her hands away, it was so unexpected. She would have never imagined such a young child to have this much great powers and before Cylinus knew it the boy had spit out the little pieces of liquid-ice which was actually the frozen liquid in his mouth. Even faster than she imagined, the boy ran away, with the help of the north wind of course.

The guards tried to stop him, but Jack was so fast, he swept pass the guards easily, occasionally brushing over their head and dodging the arrows and spears and bolts of ice that were casted towards him.

"GET HIM!" Cylinus commanded loudly, almost sounding maniacal.

More of the spirits appeared with deadly weapons in their hands, all strangers to Jack. He was very sure that he knew each of the people from the winter court, but these people were different, they had this negative energy though he could sense they were also winter spirits. While the albino was thinking on what the heck was happening and where was his mother, he felt the wind lose control and slam him against the hard and cold wall. The young boy lay on the floor to catch his breath then rolled away as he saw a bolt of ice shoot towards him. What had happened? The wind!

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a stranger that seemed to be gathering all the sources of wind towards himself, the minute he flicked his hand the wind would blow harshly to his commands. A wind tamer. The winter court always have on of this spirits that has special ability to control wind more easily than other spirits. But again, Jack had to flee and there was no time to think of those things. He saw a wall of people advancing towards him and Jack did not hesitate to start scaling the wall behind him for a hidden door that leads to a room. There had to be one. Then to his relief, he managed to activate the door to open and fell into another chamber and before the door could seal shut all the havoc and cries of anger and exasperation, he was running again.

This time Jack used the ice and frost he produced to slip through the long corridors and hallways, until-

The young boy halted immediately, looking horrified, down at the cliff that fell straight down. If he had not stopped in time, Jack sworn that he would be falling to his death below if the wind haven't picked him up in time . To add on to the horror, he heard footsteps and turned to look at the strangers that were threatening to kill him but they stopped when they saw the cliff edge barely centimeters from Jack. Then the silence was broken when Cylinus appeared, looking pleased as Jack started to tremble fearfully, was he about to die in their hands or fall to his death?

"Who are you? Where's mother?" he asked, voice trembling.

"Oh, you clever child. Finally realized that I'm not your mother?"

Then Cylinus suddenly melted into the floor with a flurry of snow. Jack watched wearily at the snowflakes she stirred up as they slowly land on the ground again. He could hear his heart pounding at an unbelievable speed and the other spirit's labored breathing as they wait for any sign of movements. Jack knew if he even shifted his foot by an inch they would start attacking. It was as though he was a trapped animal at the corner of the room, about to get killed. Then Cylinus sudden materialized in front of Jack, trying to grab him. But the shock was too much, he lost his balance and felt the woman's fingers brush against his cloak, trying to get a hold of it. But it was too late, the fabric tore and he fell straight down.

Just like hail and snow.