Etta hid amongst her clothes when she felt the tremors. Her room shook, making her beloved stuffed animals fall from the shelves and the paper origami she liked creating. Her drawing of animals she saw in books strayed far from the walls where they were situated. And also the drawing of other figures. Abstracted with no physical form, yet the eyes were clear and endless.

The pencil jar with various colors fell and shattered into many small glass pieces on the floor, making her curl further inside the closet from the noise.

Her small house in the wilderness – far from any civilization and completely isolated – was the only thing she knew could protect her from the outside. Her father would look out the windows for any sign of danger, but he was outside on an errand. Her mother would calm her down with her soothing words, but she was gone. And her brother would tug her close and never think of leaving her, but he…

She shut her eyes closed and held her ears. She called out to her brother, knowing he would come to save her. She called again and again, but Etta wasn’t sure if that blank name she gave was right.

The tremor ceased, and the house went quiet. Etta heard running footsteps and her closet door swung open.

“Etta!”

It was her brother, five or six years older, she wasn’t exactly sure as his existence was a blur.

Etta called out his empty name with teary eyes and held out her arms. Her brother took her from her hiding spot and held her close.

“We need to run,” he said softly.

“W-why? What about dad?”

Her brother’s gentle smile slightly warmed Etta, but she knew something was wrong as she noticed his shivering lips.

“Dad told us if we would feel the tremors, we should run to the place he showed us, remember?”

She did, a place in the forest where a hatch going deep down was hidden amongst the endless snow. A small shelter with enough food to last a month or two; if it was only the two of them.

Etta didn’t like the outside, it was cold and dangerous. Only the house and her family could bring her the warmth she loved, and only the outside would bring her the endless winter. She wanted to object and hide amongst her pillows and blankets, but her brother didn’t wait for her answer.

They carefully dodged the sharp glass pieces and ran, Etta managing a last glimpse of her room she spent eleven years in. They quickly made it to the front door, her brother helped her to quickly put on her clothes and then get in his. He opened the door, nearly forgetting the two masks that hung close by.

“Put it on, Etta.”

She did, she already felt the filtered air running down her lungs and back out. Etta was used to the mask, her father strictly told her how to fasten it so no unwanted foreign air would seep in around the filters.

The boy fastened his as well but noticeably hesitated when he saw something off, but that didn’t make him halter any more than needed. He took Etta’s hand and ran, leaving the door open for the forever snow to fill.

It was snowing heavily, they could barely see a thing. The ground was newly shoveled, but that was already covered back up. Etta could barely run through the snow, just one small step, and most of her lower legs were consumed. Her brother held her up by his arms, feeling little to no weight from her sister, and continued to run in the direction he learned from his father many times before. Even as he could barely see through the snow, he knew the path around the forest.

A faint icy blue lit up around the fog, Etta peered her eyes and could distinctively see the glowing object that caused the tremors. Movements around it were quick and active. The gas emitting from them was already rising from the ground. She held tighter around her brother as she was carried through the forest.

Then the noises finally emerged from behind. Screeches and odd icicles breaking apart, crystals started to appear slowly from the ground, the infestation already started to spread once the main core appeared.

Glowing azure eyes, stared from the wall of snow, disappearing and reappearing all around them. The broken and glimmering noises followed.

Etta looked up at her brother, though she could only see his obscured face, she did notice his eyes blinking more and more as if something was in his eyes. It wasn’t the snow, his goggles prevented that. She then noticed on the side of his gas mask was a loose tape, and it was on the edge of falling off.

“Your… mask…” Etta said through the shivering cold.

“I’m okay, don’t worry, Etta. It’s just a small hole.”

Their father was going to fix the mask later in the day, but waiting for their father was no longer an option after the tremors came. Etta’s brother quickly used a tape to fix it crudely, but that didn’t last long.

“Why didn’t you use mother’s…?”

There was one other mask besides the door, and above it was labeled for their mother. That mask hasn’t been used for nearly two years, and most likely wasn’t broken.

“You know why. That mask isn’t mine.”

The fog and the stormy snow condensed further into abstraction. Blue, cyan, and other shades swirled to show a fluorescent scene. The eyes clear through it all and staring, they were dots dancing within the low clouds. They quickly moved around them with ice glimmering and sparkling, a hypnotizing gaze.

The brother stopped running. Etta could hear his irregular breathing. Something was wrong.

Etta softly called to him with a nameless existence, urging him to keep going towards the shelter. Yet his blurry face didn’t respond to her words.

He dropped his sister down into the fluffy snow and held against the breach in his mask. He knelt down, completely ignoring the cold surfacing around his legs, and held against his trembling head.

“No… No, no, no! Go away!” the brother shouted, completely ignoring the real world around him.

Etta stood and tugged at her brother, trying to get him to follow. But she had no strength, and her brother made it even worse when pushing her away.

Etta couldn’t see his perspective. She wished he wasn’t alone suffering from whatever made him cower down and scream. Only he could see what was in front of him.

“Dad…” Etta said with concern for her brother.

The eyes behind the scene around her grew closer, their hard surfaces nearly shown. And their glass-shattering screeches surrounded Etta.

She huddled down and held her ears so she wouldn’t hear the beings around her, and she herself screamed, mixing her voice with theirs.

A loud bang rang out, making the eyes scatter and disappear back into the fog. Emerging from the way they were running towards came a man with a rifle in his hands. It was their father.

Etta, with teary eyes and clinging close to her brother, looked up at her father. His existence was hazed, but she knew it was him.

Her father walked closer to them, and she could see his bitter expression behind his own mask as he pulled her brother up harshly from the ground. Father took a close look at the faulty mask.

“Why aren’t you wearing the other one! What the hell have I been teaching you the past years! A fucking tape wouldn’t work! Boy, what were you thinking!?”

“But… mother…”

“She isn’t around anymore, how do you still not understand that? That mask was no longer her’s whe-”

Father choked on his words through his own mask. He looked down with a disappointed glare and pressured the boy to keep moving.

“The disease is only in your eyes, ——, not in your mind. You only make it think as if it is there, but there is nothing. I told you that countless times, and even with your sister by your side you still cower down. Now keep moving to the shelter.”

The boy managed to listen, but he was sluggish with one hand on his breached mask and the other holding his sister’s hand. Their father kept close behind them, making sure they wouldn’t stray into the wrong path. So far, they have gone in the right direction without their father around.

The storm wouldn’t pass for a while, all they had for directions were the marked trees father carved. Etta’s brother had his eyes on them since leaving the house, but within the harsh fog around him, he could have easily gotten lost. Father didn’t carve each tree on the way, he didn’t want any outsider to find their valuable shelter, and he also had the carvings in odd places around the trees, to make it somewhat natural and hard to spot by the unaware.

The eyes came back after a short while, but they kept their distance due to the newcomer and his loud tool. Though they felt the dangers of his weapon, they followed and continued to circle them. Their noises behind the snowfall didn’t decrease or increase, they had the same number trailing them since the kids left the house. There were rarely any animals to be seen once a harsh storm approached, they were most likely hiding somewhere that they could use as a shelter, or simply hunkering down and waiting for it to end.

Etta’s brother started to move more sluggishly. He released her hand and slapped himself hard.

“It won’t go away, dad! Even if I shake my head, they won’t disappear!” he shouted.

“–––, you can do it. Just focus on us, don't think about any-”

Something touched the earth. The familiar tremor came once again, the snow was disturbed before them, and it all cascaded around them. Ahead, shining all color blue by elements that shouldn't exist, a mineral of the heavens.

But as Etta stared at it for a moment, she could only see a black abyss. Wavering and becoming static, the object that suddenly appeared was now just the void.

Like the empty names she heard, this was also empty. A thing that should be in her memories, but wasn’t.

The abyss broke apart, and the eyes emerged once more. And inside the cracks alongside them, their air spewed out. The eyes, fixed on an empty body, charged at them.

Then the scene became null…

The next thing Etta remembered was the shelter being opened up by her weak and young body. She barely managed to lift the handle, let alone turn it and unlock it.

Father wasn’t behind her. Brother wasn't holding her hand. That important chapter in her mind, completely gone, not a sign of what happened.

The storm was still active, and her mask was still protecting her. Her tears were frozen, and the cold was getting more and more dangerous. She grabbed the ladder and slowly descended down the shelter.

She took one glance around the darkness, and once she turned on the lights, she woke up…

Damp eyes and shivering, she had piles of clothes she found around the bunker to warm herself up.

The bunker wasn’t big. Only a small table with scattered papers that held drawings and illiterate words. A bed with no actual pillows and blankets, just the clothes Etta piled on each other.

No windows except for small slivers around the cube-shaped building, and the door is shut closed with ice blocking it from being opened.

On the ground, a small compartment with food supplies, but they were already running dry before Etta found the place when wandering the plains of snow, she could only last for a few days before her end would come.

Only a single, dying lamp to light her bunker, and to warm her up. The sun never appearing, always hiding behind the endless skies of white and gray.