Chapter Text
Anna races down a long dark hallway, legs pumping as fast as they can, breathes coming out in short gasps, eyes fixated on her destination. Elsa’s door stands beckoningly at the end, slightly cracked open, light pouring through and illuminating it in the dark.
Her dress and long, red hair whip behind her as she picks up speed. She feels rushed, like she’s running out of time. She’s so close.
Anna is exhausted, but pushes herself forward with all her strength.
5 metres…
4…
3…
2…
… BANG! The door slams shut in her face, and Anna stumbles to an abrupt halt.
She’s too late. The light is gone.
“Elsa!”
She calls desperately, banging on the door until her fists start to bleed.
“Please!”
Anna is met with a deafening silence.
She turns around, pressing her back against the hard, cold wood and slowly slides down the door, sinking to the floor. Wishing it would swallow her whole. Completely and utterly devastated, she pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging them close, and buries her head in her dress.
After what feels like hours, she feels a sharp, cold breeze whip past her, ruffling her hair. Anna slowly lifts her heavy head and is met with darkness. She squints her eyes to make out… rock? She shifts onto her knees and looks around. She’s in a cave. The cave. The cave that changed everything, where she had lost everything. But this time, it’s so much colder.
She shivers, pulling her purple cloak tighter around herself as another burst of icy wind whips through her hair.
Anna leans forward and plants her hands against the hard, cold, rocky ground. Hair falls around her face as she rests on her hands and knees, staring at the floor while trembling, heart pounding in her ears.
She feels a strong urge to keep going. To get up. To do the next right thing.
She feels heavy, frozen, stiff. She can feel her body starting to turn to ice from the inside out. Again, but different. This time, she’s all alone. But she needs to get up. The feeling has become urgent, more desperate.
With a grunt, she forces her legs beneath her and pushes herself to her feet. Her knees wobble, her vision blurs, but she stays standing. Anna steadies herself on trembling legs, her breath coming in uneven puffs of cloud.
She brings her hands up, looking down as she sees frost covering them, slowly and painfully creeping up her arms. She watches in horror as it spreads like wildfire, only cold. So cold.
For the first time in forever, Anna is truly, deeply afraid.
Her heart hammers louder, wild and panicked, echoing though the cavern. She staggers back, clutching her hands to her chest, but the cold only spreads faster. Up her arms, across her shoulders, weaving through the fabric of her cloak like it’s alive
Then she feels it. A presence. Anna is no longer alone. The air seems to tighten around her, heavy and still, as if the shadows themselves are holding their breath.
Somewhere in the darkness, something watches. Not kindly. Not like her sister’s loving gaze that she misses so much, but something ancient, distant, cold.
Anna turns her head, her breath catching in her throat. A shadow shifts along the wall, stretching and reaching toward her. Is that… black sand? She wants to run, but her feet won’t move. The frost has already claimed them, trapping her in place like a forgotten statue.
Pain shoots through her body like lightning, sharp and blinding, as she once again turns to solid ice.
Tears freeze instantly against her lashes as an overwhelming feeling of utter helplessness consumes her. The shadow is stretching closer, while the ice creeps across her chest, her heart, then her neck, frost spreading over her chin.
So much pain. Almost over.
The colour in her eyes fades, the inevitable is coming.
Just as her world is turning to white, she hears a voice. An eerie, siren-like call.
“Ah-ah ah-ah.”
Then nothing.
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Anna’s eyes snap open, and she lurches upright in her bed, desperately gasping for air. Her hands are still clutched to her chest, gripping her green nightgown, knuckles white. Her pulse pounds erratically beneath her sweaty palms as her eyes dart through the darkness of her bedroom, struggling to anchor herself in reality.
The room is cloaked in darkness, quiet except for the ragged sound of her own breathing. The faint silver light of the moon spills through the window, breaking the shadows just enough to make out the outlines of her furniture and everything that makes this home. Her home. She’s safe.
Anna forces her breathing to slow, and it improves somewhat but is still coming out in uneven gasps. Her hands still clutch her nightgown, but she pays attention to the feel of the soft fabric between her fingers, grounding herself in the present.
No locked doors, no cave, no slowly turning into an ice stature… just my room. Just the quiet.
But then that call, that haunting voice replays again and again in her head like a broken record, causing her to shiver.
“Get out, get out, get out!” Anna whisper- yells as she finally unclenches her trembling hands from around her nightgown to smack them against her forehead, hoping to knock the memory out.
It was just a dream! She tells herself.
Okay, maybe not a dream; a nightmare. Just a super duper realistic one… and a super duper scary one…
She shivers again at the thought of it, which reminds her of the terrible cold as she slowly freezes to death.
Nope! I can’t stay here anymore.
She clambers out of bed, but her blanket is still twisted around her legs and so she tumbles onto the floor, blanket and all with a loud yelp, limbs flailing wildly. She lands flat on her back.
Anna just lies there for a second staring at the roof, kind of in shock, defeated and exhausted, sprawled out on the cold, hard ground.
Cold and hard, kind of like in the cave…
Anna very quickly scrambles to her feet after that thought.
Once she’s back on her feet, she grabs her blanket off of the floor and drapes it over her shoulders, she’s still so cold. She then sees her mother’s scarf bunched up on her nightstand so she takes that too and places it on top of her blanket.
The end of the blanket trails behind her as she stumbles out of her bedroom, avoiding the mess of dresses and shoes thrown all over the floor.
I really should clean that eventually.
She clumsily shuffles into the castle hallway, pulling her door shut behind her.
Anna needs comfort, so her subconscious leads her to the first place she thinks of; Elsa’s room.
………………………………….. ………………………………….. …………………………………..
Anna comes to a stop in front of Elsa’s door, her breath catching. Even in the dim hallway light, the familiar blue snowflakes painted across the wood stand out. Patterns she’s known her whole life. She’s had a lot of time to study the outside of this door, and it does not bring back good memories.
Those snowflakes are the ones she used to stare at for years, waiting… hoping… begging the door to open.
They’re also the same snowflakes she saw on the door in her nightmare.
Anna’s stomach tightens.
I know the room is empty.
I know Elsa hasn’t locked the door once since The Great Thaw.
I know the only thing on the other side is… comfort and memories?
But that still doesn’t stop that scared part of her, that lonely little girl who spent so long on this side of the door, from hesitating. Her nightmare has really amplified this dormant fear. She pushes the fear down and wraps her shaky hand around the handle and pushes the door open with a faint creak. Relief rushes through her so hard her shoulders sag.
It’s open! Wait…of course it’s open. Nobody is even in here! What is wrong with me?
Once met with the expected silence of the empty room, disappointment rushes over her. A silly irrational part of her had wished, just for a heartbeat, that maybe Elsa would somehow be here, to give her a warm hug.
Warm hugs… Anna sighs dreamily. I’m gonna need to find Olaf tomorrow.
But Elsa isn’t here. She’s taking care of the Enchanted Forest right now, and Anna misses her more than words can express.
I really wish Elsa were here right now.
Her big sister was always the best at calming her after a nightmare when they were children. Before the… incident. But despite the emptiness, the room still feels warm, lived-in, familiar. Full of memories.
Anna climbs into Elsa’s big cosy bed, pulling both her own blanket, Elsa’s, and their mother’s scarf over her. She imagines them hugging her, and it’s incredibly comforting, no matter how impossible. You’d think Elsa’s room would feel cold without her, but to Anna, it feels warmer. Like Elsa’s presence lingers in the air, gentle and protective, even when she’s so far North.
She tucks her knees up and hugs them to her chest, and tries to close her eyes. But every time they flutter shut, she sees herself in that cave. Feels herself freezing again, frost creeping across her skin, shadows reaching for her, that voice echoing. She feels pathetic.
I’m Queen now! Anna scolds herself. Queens don’t hide in their sister’s bed because of a nightmare.
But she doesn’t move. She can’t. Anna stays curled there, wrapped in the soft cocoon of memory and warmth, wide awake until morning, hoping the voice won’t find her again.