'Winter Nightmare-land', pt8

TK's bizarre captors had borne her throw that swirling storm and biting cold for what felt like hours. Though already weary and worn when the assault had begun, the indomitable young tigress never stopped struggling once. But for all of that, she was no closer to gaining her freedom than she had been when she'd first been bound, that unnatural, iron-strong ice holding her with a grip of steel. It wouldn't break, wouldn't melt, didn't even crackle as she thrashed and writhe against its implacable grasp. No, this was definitely not ordinary ice...as if the fact that it had come from moving, malicious snowmen hadn't been indication enough of that truth...

Eventually, though, the journey did come to an end, with the snowy trio carrying their valiantly-struggling prisoner down into a cave which TK could never remember having seen in this area before...and she knew the terrain hereabout as well as anyone. That was disturbing enough, but what lay within that cave entrance was even moreso... It appeared to be an underground "palace" of sorts, the walls composed of crystalline blues, glass-clear shades, and icy grays...all seemingly made of ice and snow. An eerie bluish light played through the air with no apparent source, and if it had been "merely" cold outside, in his place it was downright frigid. And yet, for all of that, TK realized she wasn't seeing her breath in the air. She could feel the warmth leave her lips...but it was as if the chill air devoured it greedily the instant it did...as if warmth could not endure in this place beyond the bounds of its source. It was - as so much else in this mind-bending ordeal, a strange and seemingly unlikely impression...but the impression TK's senses and instincts gave her all the same... If she'd have been able to, she would have pinched herself then, in the suspicion that this might all be some odd dream...but she could no more pinch herself than she could escape her bonds, at that moment...

Soon enough, the snow goons carried her into a circular chamber whose precise details the thrashing and growling tiger-heroine at first took little note of. All that mattered to her was the impression that her window of opportunity for escape - no matter how futile the hope and striving for that escape had proven to be - was closing with the arrival in that seeming destination-chamber. And as the snowmen forced her to her knees on the floor and held her there for a few moments, while their hat-adorned "leader" did something to the bonds on her legs, TK realized that this odd room was to become her prison...though for what purpose, she still could not say.

When the snow-leader finished, the bonds on TK's lower legs seemed to have fused themselves to the floor, as well as binding those on her thighs to those around her shins...preventing her from falling over, getting up, or moving from where she'd been planted at all. But though she couldn't move from that spot, she was most certainly doing a great deal of moving in that spot, still struggling for all she was worth against the steel-strong bands of ice. The snowmen all gave her another mocking, malicious grin, their eyebrows furrowed in menace...and then glided out with the same eerie, leg-less locomotion which they had exhibited during the entire journey here.

And TK struggled and fought like a hero of legend, trying to find some way out of this predicament before whatever fate awaited her revealed itself...


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On to "Winter Nightmare-land", pt9