The Awakening

The Wendigo shrieked, impatient with the metal shell protecting its meal. It grabbed the top of the door frame with both hands.

* SCREEEEEECH.*

The metal groaned. The safety glass disintegrated, showering Leo in diamond-dust shards. The door was ripped off its hinges and tossed into the whiteout like a frisbee.

The wind howled into the cabin, dropping the temperature instantly.

"Please," Leo begged, tears freezing on his cheeks. "Please go away."

* Begging is for the warm-blooded,* the voice inside him rumbled. It sounded ancient, arrogant, and undeniably powerful. *You are not prey, boy. You are the Winter. Let me in.*

"Who are you?" Leo sobbed.

The Wendigo reached in. Its hand closed around Leo’s injured leg. The pain was blinding, white-hot agony that made Leo’s vision tunnel.

* I am Boreas,* the voice said. *I am the wind that strips the meat from the bone. I have slept in your blood for a thousand years, waiting for a vessel weak enough to break and strong enough to survive.*

The creature pulled. Leo felt his knee ligament pop.

* Die here, huddled in your metal coffin,* Boreas whispered. *Or give me the reins.*

Leo looked at the monster. He looked at the endless white void behind it. He felt the absolute certainty of his own death. He had spent his life being afraid—afraid of failing exams, afraid of confrontation, afraid of pain.

And where had it gotten him? Upside down in a snowbank, being eaten alive.

The Wendigo opened its jaws, lunging for his throat.

Something snapped in Leo’s mind. The fear burned out, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity.

"Take it!" Leo screamed. "Take it all!"

The heartbeat in his ears stopped.

For a second, the world went silent. The wind stopped howling. The pain in his leg vanished.

Leo’s eyes rolled back, the brown irises flooding with a pale, luminous blue. The air inside the car dropped from forty below to absolute zero.