It was a long and hot summer....

How hot is it? Not as hot as Texas, but nearly a month of a heat index in the triple digits gets to you. That kind of heat is enervating. When you start praying and dreaming for temps in the eighties, something is wrong. LOL! That's why I posted this snippet. It made me feel cold just to write it.

First draft, please don't quote or repost. Thanks!

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The area was not empty this time around, nor was it even an enclosed room. The area stood open to the sky, ceiling long gone. The floor looked like one sheet of solid ice, feet thick. Cold rushed over her--cold so deep and so thick that she felt as if she could cut through it like something solid. Her breath pushed out of her in visible clouds. As she looked into the depths of the ice, she sucked in her breath in one great rush. Staring back at her were faces in the ice. Some weren't even what she would even call human. Their eyes stared up at the sky with no knowledge or life in them.

Katie's gaze swept ahead, and she saw a dark heap of something marring the shining pool of ice. She hurried toward it as quickly as she could, slipping and sliding with the treacherous footing. The nearer she came, the more the dark heap resolved itself to a figure lying on the ice.
Katie's feet slipped out from underneath her and dumped her on her backside. She got up on her hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way to the huddled figure.

The person lay facing the opposite direction, but a lock of red hair spilled out from the hooded cloak. Katie moaned in despair, and reached her hand to touch Treyga. She pulled down the hood to reveal Treyga's face, blue and still. The other girl was so cold that Katie felt it even through her gloves.

"Treyga!" she said. "Treyga, wake up! You've got to get up!"

She tugged at an arm. She could not move Treyga at all. Katie saw with a sense of horror that Treyga was in the ice itself, partially swallowed by it, as if it had melted then refroze around her.

"Oh my God!" Katie cried. Her teeth were chattering so badly she could barely speak. "This is all my fault, I should never have let you come with me!"