Jack Frost~Sunk

~

The sun sparkled in the clear blue sky on the late morning of April 10th, the air cool, moist from the sea salt drifting in the atmosphere like it always did. Jack blinked, trying to ease the stinging from the burning granules that always managed to find their way into his eyes. He looked down at the crowded streets of the bustling town, observing the rushing ant-like people as they headed for the dock. Jack swung closer to the ground, now able to make out particular people, and what they were carrying. Carts rolled down the street, and Jack could just make out the silhouettes of the esteemed society figures inside. He rolled his eyes. Flying was so much more...fun...than riding in some stupid carriage. Jack flew over children dodging between adults legs, and laughed as the children caused many cursing people to topple to the ground. Finally, Jack found himself at the harbor. He stopped and stepped to the ground in awe. There stood the most glorious, huge, cruise liner he had ever seen. And one of the first. Jack landed softly on the shiny, polished deck, running his staff along the metal railing. A small portion of it froze over, and Jack smiled at the familiar, comforting design. Jack looked around a bit. It was elaborate, alright, and the black and white ship was beautiful, filled with the most pricey things money could buy. Though his visit to Buckingham Palace a few decades ago was still better, though. Jack quickly lifted off from the deck, taking in the clustered group of people waiting to board. Jack landed down on top of a lamppost at the edge of the moor, and grinned, a thought coming to his head. If all of these people were to slip "accidentally"...he probably shouldn't. Bunnymund would probably have his hide for something that large, that close to Easter. He always freaked out about stuff like that. Overgrown rodent always had his ears in a twist about something.

Jack walked along, his staff hung over his shoulder as he strolled through downtown. Many people were filing by him, excited talk about the Titanic filling peoples minds. Jack rolled his eyes. He could go on a cruise whenever he pleased, and even though humans didn't live forever, like Jack, you would think they would have something to do, like work. The air was warm, and Jack felt a stickiness run down his back, through most others were still clothed in heavy coats and gloves. The heat always bothered him. Jack rested the crook of the staff against his neck, sighing at the nice cooling sensation it brought. Jack smiled. He loved England. He always felt connected you Europe, and the outlaying areas. They were just so, beautiful. Even in summer. As Jack wound through the thickening crowd, he spotted a group of children, maybe eight or nine, playing on one of the last ice patches of the season. They were singing some kind of chant, something about a boy. When Jack was about to continue down the street, he heard someone call his name. He turned, his eyes wide as he searched for someone, possibly who could see him. But no one was looking at him; their attention was focused either on the departing ship or their wily children. Jack sighed, but listened for a second more. He caught the end of his name again, and realized where it was coming from. The children. Jack walked closer to them, crouching down beside the littlest girl, and listened to the high-pitched lyrics.

Little Jackie, Jack Frost stings my toes,
Little Jackie, Jack Frost climbs the trees,
Little Jackie, Jack Frost paints the leaves.
Little Jackie, Jack Frost thinks its fun
Knocking all the leaves down one by one.
When the winter wind begins to blow,
Little Jackie runs away, Ho! Ho!"

Jack almost laughed. It was adorable. A simple chant, something passed on from mother to child in the cold winter months while they lay curled around the life-giving fire. The children giggled, and repeated the chant again. Jack smiled to himself. Maybe, with a little assistance, I can...remind...the children that I exist. Jack settled his thoughts, and decided on something simple, hopefully small. He quickly touched his staff to the ground, focusing on a light, dancing frost, one with graceful swirls and intricate frawns that the children couldn't ignore. The ice did as it's master commanded, and the children's voices lowered into awed gasps, their fingertips tracing the lovely designs. Jack smiled. This might be easier than he thought. 

Jack made another design, slower, so the children could trace it's path, their voices lifting into excited squeals, as the frost formed one letter; J. The children squealed, their murmurs now audible. One girl with dirty golden curls spoke, her voice hushed with wonder. She addressed the group, most likely the leader. "Maybe Santa Clause made the pretty ice, to remind us to be extra good this year!" Jack felt his heart drop. He was standing in a second, watching as the children nodded quickly, their eyes wide with wonder. But not over Jack. Jack felt frustration building up in his system, and he cried out, knowing no one could hear him; "What?! Santa didn't make that! I did!" Jack crossed his arms, and mumbled to himself; "Whats a guy got to do to get some attention, now-a-days? You'd think that someone would see me, after nearly two hundred years." Jack leaned back against the brick wall, watching with cold anger as the children agreed to meet at the same place later, and ran to their homes to tell their mothers and fathers about their "amazing discovery". About Santa. Never about him. Jack stalked off, thinking back to all the times the same thing had happened. He would do some feat, to try get someone to believe in him, and he would end up just helping someone like Santa get more believers. Santa, the Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny, even Sandman. Once he even helped a little girl believe in leprechauns, unwillingly. No one believed in him. No one could see him. And the Man in the Moon still wasn't telling him a thing. Fantastic.

Jack glided just above the swirling Atlantic waves, brushing the hook of his staff though the black water, freezing the surface. It was calming, a nice practice when he got especially mad. Bad things had a tendency of happening when he let his anger go unchecked. Jack saw something almost, gleaming, out of the top of his eyesight as he stared down at the waves. He looked up quickly. Against the darkness of the churning ocean waves, a white mass stood out, a beacon of grey light in the black of the pre-dawn. Jack flew closer, and discovered it was a gigantic iceberg. It floated, looking small compared to the reaching shadow that was under the dark water, the hidden underside of the slab of ice. Jack shivered, not from the cold, but from the thought of the darkness, the danger that could be hidden in something so, natural. Jack landed on the misshapen block of ice, and climbed to the smooth-worn peak. The silver moonlight sparkled on the ice and water, a symphony of nature in it's simplest form. Jack lay back, and stared at the moon for a few silent moments, thinking back to five days ago, in Southampton. He had stayed a little longer, just a few more days, trying to convince those children that he really was real. They had never caught on. Only images of Santa Clause danced in their heads. Jack sighed, and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

A thought invaded Jack. Maybe, the Moon was making him invisible to people! He opened his eyes, and glared at the glowing orb in the dark sky. "Are you ever going to talk to me?" Jack raised his voice, though he knew that whoever had talked to him on that first night, giving him his name, wasn't listening, and certainly wasn't going to answer. Jack knew that from two hundred years of experience. "I've tried everything, to get people to see me!" Jack stood up quickly, shouting into the hushed silence of the empty air. "What do you want?! Why am I here?! Why don't you ever just talk to to me?!" As always, the Moon was silent. Jack screamed in fury, whipping the waves into a churning mess, snow falling heavily down on the water, and on Jack as he stood, fuming under his cool appearance. The ice under his shivering body thickened, the weakening ice expanding, growing stronger. The iceberg grew larger, the rounded points becoming jagged peaks, the ice hardening into white rock. Jack sniffed, and buried his head in his knees as he sat down, shaking from the explosion of anger that had overthrown him. That had never happened before. He had always found a way to control his anger spurts. Jack hung his head in fear. Maybe he really was losing it.

Jack sighed, and stood up, brushing a shaky hand through his snow-covered, disheveled white locks. He couldn't lose control like that. Not again. Jack slid his bare foot under the stem of his staff, and flipped it up, grabbing the middle. It was cold to the touch, after that show of raw energy and power. Jack ached all over. He rubbed the back of his neck, and stared up into the sky, were the moon stood, unchanged, though, Jack could swear, it seemed sadder, like something horrible was about to happen. Jack took to the sky quickly, soaring over the wide expanse of the sea, the bite of sea salt no longer a comfort. He knew something bad was about to happen. And he knew he had to prevent...whatever it was. Jack started at the faint alarm he heard going off, somewhere close. Jack gathered a flurry of wind, and bolted toward the sound of the rolling claxon. He felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach, at what he saw when he arrived. It was the cruise ship.

It was the Titanic. Bearing straight down onto his iceberg. The same one that he had strengthened, had sharpened and made into a death trap for the poor passengers. Jack froze at the sight of the gaping hole torn in the side of the hull of the ship, water pouring in through the broken support. Jack rushed forward, and tried to freeze over the break, but it was no use.There was too much water already flooded into the ship. The Titanic was sinking, and quickly. Jack cried out, and changed his tactic. He had to save as many passengers as he could. He spotted a woman barely able to keep her blue face above the still water. She wouldn't be able to hold on for much longer. Jack reached under her, as if to pull her onto the safety of the small chunks of human-sized ice flows, but his arms just passed through her with a achingly familiar shimmer of blue mist. Jack screamed in anger, this time in his uselessness to help. He felt cold tears flowing down his especially pale cheeks, and didn't even bother to wipe them away, as he watched the woman give up, her feeble struggle for life fading into a still rest, her blue eyelids shut as she sunk slowly. Jack pulled away, shaking his head slowly. This couldn't be real. He looked around him, where people, children, women, and men died slow, freezing deaths. And he couldn't do anything about it. Jack shook his head again as he watched a young boy's head fall below the swell of a wave. It had to be a nightmare. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be his fault. But even as he tried to reassure himself, he knew that it was. He had caused this. From a single rush of anger. From a temper-tantrum. It. Was. All. Jack's. Fault. Jack Frost found his way over to the nearest discarded ice flow, and sat, his legs hanging down into the water as he sobbed, as people died all around him.

But a single voice, light and pure, caught his attention. Jack looked up, and his piercing icy eyes found a pair of dull green ones, staring right at him as a small girl with dirty loose brunette curls called for help, her white fingers clinging weakly to the side of a wedge of ice floating freely. She was staring at Jack, her eyes tired with exhaustion and her struggle for life, yet wide with terror. She called out weakly, her voice cracked and strained with the inhalation of water. Jack waited a moment, stiff with shock, before bolting to her side. He lay half in the water, like her, and looked straight into her frightened eyes. He tried to make his voice steady, reassuring, but instead, it came out as a croak, hoarse and raw. "C-can you s-s-see m-me?!" She opened her mouth, and uttered out a faint, "Yes." Jack felt his heart rise. Maybe, just maybe, he could save one, just one person. And it would be this girl. His believer. Jack looked into her eyes, and managed to hold a steady voice. "Okay, n-now, you need to stay calm, okay? I'm going to help you. You have to trust me, and don't be scared." She nodded slowly, her reactions numbed by the killing water. Jack wrapped her against his chest, pulling her close as he hoisted himself out of the water, into the cold air. She clung to him, her grip strong. Jack was surprised at how light she was, and how strong her hands were, despite that she had been in freezing water for who-knows-how-long?

She pressed into Jack's chest, her body cold with lingering water, though Jack imagined he must have been at least a little warmer. Jack landed on the larger ice-flow, and set her down on the frosted layer of snow coating the ice. She stirred a little, attempting to push soggy brown hair out of her eyes. Her limbs were still numb and she had trouble moving, grimacing faintly at her sore appendages. Jack leaned forward and pushed the hair out of her eyes, waiting for her to speak. She mumbled something, something that Jack recognized as 'Others?'. Her eyes were soft with concern for the other passengers, and she attempted to stand up, though she stumbled and fell onto one knee. Jack was there in an instant, helping her up. Jack didn't know how to tell her, since he was still trying to convince himself that he couldn't help anyone else. That it was no use. And if she went back into the water, it was certain death. And Jack was never going to let that happen. She struggled in his grip, and Jack could tell her strength was gradually returning. Her voice was still cracked, though, and her cries tore at Jack's heart. "B-but we h-have to help t-them!" She turned to Jack, and her voice softened into a whisper of awe. "Y-you can help t-them! You can u-use your...p-powers...and save t-them!" Jack shook his head sadly, a lump gathering in the base of his throat. "I-I can't save them." The girl's eyes widened. "But, y-you saved m-me!" Jack noticed just how mush she was shaking, and sighed. "I just can't, okay? You're special. You were the only person I could help. It's not something I can control." Jack looked over where an array of lifeboats were floating on the water, checking for survivors. Jack looked at the willowy girls quivering frame, and realized how cold she must be. Jack quickly pulled her close again, and transferred over to the flow nearest to a boat. Many women and children sat quivering in the small wooden boat, their heads hung in shock at the disaster they had survived. That Jack had caused.

A man steering the small boat noticed the girl, and called to her, though Jack wasn't listening. The girl looked back at Jack one last time, her face filled with a painful mixture of guilt and anger, and called hoarsely back to the man. Jack stood back, knowing the others couldn't see him, and watched as the boat pushed through the drifting bodies of infants and adults, their faces blue and waxy, death emanating through the air. The girl climbed into the boat, and was handed a small blanket and life-jacket. She cast a glance back at Jack, if only for a moment, but to Jack, it was an eternity. Jack quickly turned and lifted into the air, flying to anywhere, as long as it was as far as possible from here. He had to get the images of the people he had killed out of his head, but they were everywhere. And he was responsible for the deaths of every last one of them.