I was driving once, I remember that. It was winter, it's been winter for so long, I can hardly remember anything else, but the roads were clear. I can't...I can't remember exactly what happened, but I know I was in an accident. The front of my car was caved in - "wrapped around a tree" but without the tree. And there was a girl. She was lying in a heap in the middle of the road. I ran to her. Her skin was like ice.
I tried calling 911, but I had no signal. I was about to leave her to go find help when she said "Don't leave me. Keep me warm." She was barefoot and wearing nothing but a nightgown. I looked around for her car, but it must have rolled over the side of the road. Glass crunched like snow as I sat on the ground next to her, put my arms around her, and told her I'd stay with her to keep her warm. It had started to snow. Every time I thought to leave her, to go find help, she sensed me pulling away and said "Stay with me. Keep me warm." The snow piled higher and higher, and soon we were buried. I felt it get colder and colder as the snow piled on top of us. I felt my heart beat slower and slower. I could no longer feel my limbs and I distinctly felt like my eyes had frozen solid. "Stay with me", she said. "Keep me warm."
I awoke lying on a sheet of ice beside a roaring fire. My body was stiff and cold and I could feel icicles dangling comically sideways off of me. I felt droplets of condensation on my back as I thawed and beads of sweat on my face as it roasted and blistered near the fire. The girl I had hit yawned and tip-toed over to me. "Time to roll you over, I think", she said. and I felt her roll me onto my other side so my back could thaw. She was wearing the same whisper-thin nightgown. "Thank you for trying, but you're just not warm enough. We'll have to make you better."
Before I had finished thawing, she carried me over to a table. She took a sinister pair of scissors and sliced off all my clothes. She sliced into my arms and back and stuffed the open wounds with goosedown. She rammed handfulls of feathers down my throat. She took scraps of fabric and sewed them into my skin. My tear ducts and lungs were still frozen solid. I couldn't cry. I couldn't scream.