Cover by Kimbeekitty, and posted with permission.

This was my last year's Nanowrimo project. I'm excited for this one, but I must warn you that this will not be a pleasant story, as this is based around several of my personal nightmares. So if being trapped on a snowbound mountain with monsters at your heels is also your personal nightmare, this might not be the fic for you.

The main characters will enter after this prelude.

Good Luck.

A Prelude To Winter Unending

Howling pierced the air, the wind wrapping the sound around the man's ears as his footsteps pounded against the mountain path. It was treacherous to descend at this pace, with easily dislodged stones and the way the route skirted the cliffs, but he had no choice.

They were behind him, with fangs of winter in their gaping maws. He imagined their frigid breaths on the back of his neck, eyes aglow in the fading light and pointed claws grasping for him; to throw him off the cliff or to rend him apart, it mattered little.

What mattered is that the howls were getting closer.

They were catching up.

Sweat beaded on his brow, and his clothes clung to him. It was dangerous to sweat too much in this clime, lest it freeze to skin, but he had little concern for that as warm as it was and so desperate his escape.

This shouldn't have happened. He had made all of the requisite precautions – the key to safe passage hanging from his neck, and resting beneath his clothes over his heart. He should have encountered nothing more than the wind and rock.

The sight of a dark opening in the rock ahead, at the bottom of the path, was a welcome one. His steps slowing to negotiate the final stretch of rocky path, his breaths heavy and fogging in the air, tasting of blood. Reaching his destination and spotting the door nestled in the mountain's side, he leaned against the rock outcropping, and risked a glance back up the path.

His eyes widened at the path he'd just come down.

Frost gleamed on the exposed rocks, and crawled down the mountain towards him, stone cracking and groaning at sudden cooling and the few plants shattering as the water inside their leaves abruptly expanded. Dark gray clouds swarmed on the horizon, swallowing the rich reds and golds of the afternoon light.

A screech – an unearthly thing that belonged to no animal he knew of – sounded from above his position and spurred his sluggish limbs to action. He fumbled with the door's latch, his fingers already aching from the cold engulfing the mountain.

He stumbled into the tunnel, slamming the door shut behind him. Glancing around for something to block the door in the weak light of the wall mounted light lacrimas, his eyes alit upon the stones standing guard, adorned with spears and the skull of some ancient beast painted with symbols as a ward against evil. Fear skittered up his spine as he gazed into the empty sockets, feeling as if it were staring back at him. Not even threat for his life would get him to disturb the pile. It may not have been doing its job properly, but a lifetime of superstition wouldn't allow him the option. Instead, he wrenched one of the light lacrimas from the wall and jammed it under the latch. The crystal almost didn't fit, but to his relief it did.

Following the thin light of the lacrimas and clutching the guide rope mounted to the walls, he stepped carefully across the stone and ice that coated the caverns here year-round. Shivering, he descended into the mountain's bowels, passing many more mounds of stone along the way. These were much smaller, and contained no bones.

A booming echoed through the dark, and the man froze in place, hands gripping the coarse rope tightly. Another rocked deep within the cavern, and another.

Several of the stone mounds fell apart with the shaking, clattering to the ground.

He watched, unable to even cry or whimper, as something shifted in the dark ahead of him, the soft hiss of something sliding across the ice drifting to his ears.

It was then, with cold certainty, that he knew that the mass of ice and stone around him was to be his tomb, and that he'd never see the warm light of day ever again.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

But he'd be damned if he made this easy for them.