5. A Crack in Ice.

Anastasiya Van Houten

“Anastasiya.”

“Anastasiya.”

The voice was faint but unmistakable. My head snapped around, searching desperately in the suffocating darkness, which pressed against my skin like a heavy shroud. I reached out blindly, but my hands grasped only empty air.

I stood still, waiting for the voice to call out again, but the silence echoed like a drum.

“Who’s there?” My voice trembled, barely a whisper, swallowed whole by the void.

No reply. Just empty space.

My mind whirled in confusion. Where was I?

Wasn’t I supposed to be dead? ...Am I dead?

Was this what it felt like to be dead?

I was lost and confused, suffocating in a darkness that had no end and no beginning. My legs pushed forward—I didn’t know what to do but to keep going, hoping that the voice would sound out again. My skin prickled at the possibility of what lurked in the darkness.

As time dragged on, I could feel each step getting heavier than before, so much so that I struggled to lift my legs. Huffs escaped my lips as I supported my thighs with my palms, trying my best to lift them manually.

A ray of hope passed through me as I saw the moon make its entrance at the far end of the clearing. Its light was dim, but it was still a light nonetheless. My chest burned with each step, and the little huffs that escaped my lips had developed into full-blown gasps, each breath resonating deep in my bones, almost forcing me to my knees.

My vision began to sway as I moved closer to the light. I was almost there. A few more steps, and I would make it.

I would make it.

Despite the struggle and determination, I could still feel myself slipping.

My knees shook like the final flicker of a candle’s flame before it extinguished, and in that moment, I collapsed to the ground.

My fall was silent, but the storm that raged within me was anything but. I was confused, exhausted, and lost.

I forced myself forward, crawling now. The rough surface beneath my palms bit into my skin like shards of glass. Each movement sent tremors through my exhausted body, but the pale light ahead anchored me. It was my only guide, a promise I held on to.

A shaky breath of relief escaped me as I reached the edge of the light. Only then did I realize that the ground beneath me was no longer rough. It had become slick, cold, and unnervingly smooth. My hands skidded over its surface, and I froze, blinking down at the shimmering glow beneath me.

It wasn’t just smooth. It was ice.

A shiver ran through me, though not from the cold. The ice stretched endlessly in every direction, a glassy, reflective expanse that mirrored the faint glow of the moon above. I could see myself—my face pale and wide-eyed, hair hanging limply around my shoulders. My breaths fogged up the surface, breaking the illusion of perfection for just a moment.

The more I stared at my reflection, the more a nagging thought crept into my mind.

The face staring back at me wasn’t mine.

I tried propping myself up onto my elbows and moving my head to the side, but the reflection remained still—its eyes, my eyes, staring back at me.

A startled yelp escaped me when my reflection suddenly moved, banging its head against the ice harshly. Immediately, I scrambled away from it, my heart pulsing violently in my chest. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No, this isn’t real.”

“Anastasiya,” the reflection said again, her voice sharp and clear as though it bypassed the ice entirely to reach my ears.

I froze.

I knew that voice.

It was Valencia's.

With a shaky breath, I glanced back at my reflection. “W...what are you? H...how are you doing this?”

“Listen to me, Anastasiya,” she pleaded. Her voice was softer now, almost breaking, and her hands pressed against the ice from below, leaving a faint frost in their wake.

“Who are you?” I whispered, barely able to breathe.

“You know who I am,” she replied, her voice soft and convincing, familiar. “I made my choice, Anastasiya. And now you know what you must do.”

“No, I don’t,” I said, my voice rising in panic. I clawed at the ice as if I could somehow dig through it to reach her—or escape her. “You’re not me. You can’t be.”

Her face hardened, the sorrow in her eyes replaced by something colder, more determined. “You must fight, Anastasiya,” she said again. “For us both.”

Before I could respond, a crack echoed beneath me, sharp and sudden like a gunshot.

I looked down in horror as a web of fractures spread across the ice, radiating outward from her hands. She smiled, but it wasn’t comforting—it was sad and forlorn, a look that chilled me to my core.

“Fight,” she repeated, her voice resonating in my mind even as the crack gave way to the surface, leaving an open space in the ice, filled with water.

I stared around, hoping to catch sight of her on another side, still trapped under the ice, but she was nowhere to be found. I was all alone.

My shoulders slumped as I settled back onto the ice dejectedly, the chill seeping into my flesh.

What was going on?

My eyes snapped back to the crack in the ice, hoping that she would come back and give meaning to her words, but there was nothing there.

I shuffled closer, lying flat on my stomach, with my face inches away as I peered into the water.

I searched aimlessly for a few seconds until a reflection began to take shape. It started out dark and blurry at first, then it took the form of a human.

I held my breath, hoping it was her again—my reflection with answers to this torment. But as the image solidified, my heart stopped.

It wasn’t me staring back from the water’s surface.

It was Valencia.

Her eyes locked onto mine, wide and hopeful.

“Valencia?” I whispered, my voice trembling as it rose above the silence. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

Her lips moved, but no sound came.

I edged closer, so close my nose almost dipped into the water. “We’re both trapped here, aren’t we?” My voice cracked, and a lump rose in my throat. “I need you to tell me what’s happening. Please.”

No reply.

I searched her face, hoping for some sign of recognition or acknowledgment. But she didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. She only stared back at me, unmoving, unyielding.

Then, as if answering my despair, she moved—but not as herself.

Her hands rose when mine did. Her head tilted when I tilted mine.

The realization hit me like a thunderclap.

She wasn’t answering me because she wasn’t there.

She was me.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head violently, but the reflection copied every movement with perfect synchronicity. I touched my face, fingers trembling against my skin. Valencia’s reflection did the same, her delicate fingers grazing her cheek like a marionette controlled by unseen strings.

“Stop it!” I screamed, but the sound echoed back at me in my own voice, loud and jarring, bouncing off the infinite darkness around me.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

The ice beneath me groaned, a deep, resonant sound that sent shivers up my spine.

“No, no, no!” I scrambled to move away, but the slick surface betrayed me. My hands and knees slipped, and the cracks spiderwebbed out beneath me, their jagged edges glowing faintly like veins of light.

I barely had time to scream before the ice gave way.

Cold.

The water enveloped me in an instant, a freezing, suffocating embrace that stole the breath from my lungs. I thrashed wildly, desperate to find the surface, but there was no direction, no sense of up or down. The water pulled me deeper, the faint glow of the broken ice growing distant, like a dying star in the night sky.

Help me