"Kid, first thing tomorrow morning, I'm taking you to the village. Maybe they can treat some of your symptoms. It usually takes three days to hike there, but in your case I'm hoping I can make the trip faster—"

"What?" I jumped in. "No, I'm fine. And again, I'm not a child."

"What's childish of you is to reject help. When this blizzard clears up, I'm taking you down the mountain." From the opposite side of the cave, he rolled over on his side, turning his back to me. "Teenagers," he muttered.

I said nothing, but I was imploding on the inside.

Do not get help. Do not get help.

No help. No help.

By the time the snowman's snores were echoing off the walls of the ice cave, I was so desperate, I would do anything...

I looked out at the cave entrance.

...Go anywhere...

I stood up, dizzy. I wrapped the blanket around me tighter.

...Face anything...

Do not help. Do not get help.

No help. No help.

...To get away.

I searched the snow equipment scattered on the floor.

* * *

I raced through the snow, hanging on for dear life as my sled bumped, jolted, and juddered down the never ending blind slope. The blasting wind froze my cheeks, forming ice at the corners of my leaking eyes.

The chill and pounding of the wind made me sick to my stomach.

Of course, at this point, it wouldn't take much.

Gaining more and more momentum, I slipped like ice through the frozen wasteland. Then things took an interesting turn-- and I found myself sliding uphill on the snow. When I reached the top of the snowy hill, I lifted off into the air, letting go of my sled. My breath was knocked out of me in wonder as I soared through the white wind. The valley around me was beautiful...

My moment of freedom in the sky came to a crashing end when I face planted into the snow.

I sat up, my blue fingers curling around my rock hard blanket. I looked about at the raging white around me.

My sled was nowhere to be seen.

My back spiked in pain.

I rocked back and forth, sticking my head between my knees to shelter it from the wind.

Do not get help. Do not get help.

No help. No help.

I squeezed myself in my blanket, my feet on fire in the snow. Especially my left one.

One... Sock.

I hugged myself tighter.

Another horn burst through my skin.

As pain gripped me, I fell to my side—and was jolted by the shock of banging against metal.

I peered through the wind.

The metallic closet door.

I was given a second chance at life. And now, because of my desperation, I'm right back where I started--

"WHY?!" I yelled, the wind carrying away my voice. "WHY MUST I BE SO... SO—"

I paused mid thought. I stared up at the door, thinking back to what Sullivan, Sulley, Kitty, whatever the blue monster had said...

"Because of your laughter, we had been able to activate all doors in the warehouse..."

Maybe... Just maybe—

I stood up, gripping the burning cold metal frame, the corners of my blanket pinned beneath my palms, the flesh in my hands almost glued to the icicle like metal.

"Oh no!" Mike screamed, opening the unactivated door.

"The power's out! Quick, make her laugh again." Sullivan said, holding Boo up for Mike to see.

I fell against the door, fighting the wind and the immobility of my sickness.

"There he is." Mike was panic stricken, as Randall had found them, as Mike and Sullivan hung to the dangling door that packed against a hundred others in a single row, their world buried from light by the longer, infinite rows of doors surrounding them.

Another jab at my tingling nerves. Pain throbbed through my body.

"Make her laugh!" Sullivan yelled.

Another horn burst through my blistering skin.

I had to escape.

Mike protested. "What?! Sulley—

"Just do it!"

"Haha, hahaha, hahaha!" I forced out a hollow laugh, now on my tiptoes, rapidly losing all feeling in my feet.

I turned the knob, and forced the door open.

Nothing. I stared into a frame and the swallowing blizzard that was slowly killing me.

I slammed the door, and tried again. "Hahaha! Hahahahah!"

I swung it open.

Nothing.

The wind laughed at me, throwing snow through the empty frame and into my face.

"EYE-AH!" I yelled, freezing snow trapped under my eyelids.

I pulled my head back through the frame.

I'm too old.

There is no joy.

There is no light in my eyes.

I slammed the door shut. Hopeless, I placed my hands and forehead on its metal in surrender. "Please," I begged.

Nothing.

"Please." I panted, my jaw spasming from the deadly chill as I spoke. "Just take me away."

I fell to the snow, leaning against the door.

It wasn't enough.

My fingers touched my cheeks, shaking, blue with frost. My spine endured another stab, and I threw up on the snow, the sloshing mix of red, green, and purple the only color in this vast winter wasteland.

Defeated, I let myself drop to the ground. Within moments the wind buried my hands under a layer of snow. I looked out at the blizzard haze around me.

I was going to die.

I rested my head on my knees.

I am going to die alone.

I hyperventilated.

There is no escape.

I looked back at my only chance of survival, focusing on the empty circle above the door planted in the frame.

I closed my eyes, recalling when Randall had unlocked the door, turning the circle to a piercing red before throwing me out into the blizzard.

It was a keypad. It was a keypad he had used.

"This is hopeless." My breath disappeared in the fleece colored storm.

My thoughts wandered further from the door, reaching back to when I was in the chains. I covered my ears, trying to block out the memory of my screams as Randall tore my body apart.

My anger grew as I remembered my moment of weakness.

Wait.

I stopped.

I... I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

I glanced back up at the empty circle of the door.

That red flicker.

I blinked.

That same red flicker.

I took a single step towards it.

It was the door! The red flicker! It was this stupid door in the corner of the room the whole time!

And it—it turned on! It turned red!

When I was—

A gust of wind blew me off my knees, making me fall into the snow, back first. It felt like I was lying on a bed of prickling needles.

Never again.

I reached, and gripped the frame of the door, and pulled myself up. Emotion—anger—was on the verge of erupting inside me.

But why?

Forget the door... Just, why?

"Why am I so angry?"

I looked off to my side, my eyelashes fluttering with ice shavings. "At him?"

No.

I wasn't angry at him.

I wouldn't be angry with him.

It wasn't his fault.

It wasn't. His. Fault.

I breathed in the chilling air.

He did every single thing he could.

To save me.

They thought I was dead.

I looked around me at the endless columns of blizzard.

"What was he supposed to do?"

The truth rang within me.

He cares about me.

I caught my breath, and knew it was true.

Sullivan, Kitty--

He truly cared about me.

Then and now.

I wanted nothing more at that moment than for his silhouette to appear out of the blizzard like a ghost, to protect me from this blinding, drilling wind, and to just take me home.

Just take me away.

I staggered forward in the snow, what little life in my feet left gone.

I hugged myself, my hair waving and whipping through the air like a patriotic flag.

I looked off at the wasteland around me, searching. "Kitty?"

Only the wind howled in response.

I fell to my knees, my palms laying upward, limp in the snow.

"KITTY!" I shrieked so deafeningly my vocal cords felt as if they had been severed with a jagged blade. My shattered voice thundered around me against the blazing white mountains.

My blanket flew away, carried off by the dancing ice.

Icicles formed around every strand of my hair.

"Kitty?"

I was alone.

I had to accept it.

He would never come for me.

He will never save me.

I looked at the circle on the door frame.

I have to save myself.

I have to—

I cut myself.

Never again.

Never again will I give into my pain.

But I must.

I must.

I.

Must.

Scream.

It may have not been Sullivan's fault.

But the anger...

It's still there.

It's still brewing inside of me.

The anger of being abandoned.

The anger of being an orphan.

I winced. My back again.

The anger of being an afraid, lost, lonely little girl.

A little girl forced to grow up.

I leapt to my numb feet.

My thoughts after my torture loomed above my head.

Never again.

Never again will I give in to my pain.

Never again will I scream.

Never again will I look like a fool.

Never again. Never again.

Never... Again...

I shrilled at the top of my lungs.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" My body swayed with the swirling thunder of the wind.

At that moment, I let it go. I let it all go. My hatred giving up its hold on my life, the ghost of childhood resting in peace.

"AHHHHHHHAHAAAAAAAA!" I shrilled at the top of my lungs, pleading from the bottom of my heart. Another shot of pain swelled in my bones.

I didn't care.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" My voice filled the void around me.

The void inside me.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The door woke up, the circle blazing red.

I turned, shooting my frozen self like a bullet at the door.

As I struggled to turn the frozen door knob, I gave one last cry, keeping the flame burning for just long enough--

The door opened.

I collapsed into warmth.