The Guardian chosen by the Moon

The last thing I remember is the cracking sound. That sharp, almost musical snap that tore through the night as the ice gave way under the little girl's steps. Her screams pierced me before my brain even registered what was happening. I was already moving, my hockey stick clenched in my hands like a lif

The Thames that night looked like a shattered mirror under the full moon, treacherously smooth in some places, fragile as glass

"Grab this!" I had shouted, thrusting the stick toward her. Her small hands grasped the curved end, and I pulled with all my strength, feeling my own boots slipping on the unstable surface. The cold bit into my cheeks, insidious, as I hauled her toward a more solid patch of ice. Then, a sharper crack. A dizzying drop. The black water swallowed me whole, its freezing embrace stealing the breath from my lungs. I didn't even have time to scream

Now… now there was a different kind of cold. A sensation that didn't burn but lived inside me. As if every fiber of my being had been woven with threads of frost. I opened my eyes—or at least, I tried to—and realized I was floating. No, not floating… hovering above the ground, wrapped in a silver mist.

Around me, cracked concrete walls, crates stacked under dusty tarps. An abandoned warehouse, recognizable by the scent of rust and mold. But something was off—objects were suspended midair: a chair, a fire extinguisher, scraps of paper, all drifting as if gravity had lost its grip.

"What the…?" My voice echoed strangely, as if carried by a distant wind. I looked at my hands and recoiled. They were pale, almost translucent, and a thin layer of frost ran along my fingers. My breath materialized in a white cloud, though I felt no need to breathe.

Hurried footsteps echoed from outside. Three figures burst into the warehouse: a woman in a wrinkled lab coat (Jane, my mind whispered, though I had never met her), a young woman with red-framed glasses (Darcy, with a taser on her belt—because of course), and an older man with wild, disheveled hair (Erik Selvig, the name coming to me like an instinct, as if my memories had fused with another consciousness). A fourth figure followed—a timid-looking guy in a hoodie, clutching some kind of measuring device (Ian, the intern).

"This is it!" Jane announced, eyes gleaming with excitement. Her fingers traced invisible lines in the air. "The gravitational distortions are converging here. It's… it's like a knot in the fabric of space."

I tried to step forward, but my body—if it could even be called that—glided effortlessly, as if carried by a breeze. That's when I noticed the stick. Or rather… what it had become.

Between my hands, the wood of my hockey stick had transformed into a gnarled staff, carved from eternal ice, adorned with swirling frost patterns. A wave of panic surged through me. What's happening to me?

Darcy suddenly shivered, hugging her coat. "Is it just me, or is it freezing in here?"

Jane, engrossed in her instruments, nodded absentmindedly. "Thermal readings are normal. It's probably psychosomatic."

Psychosomatic? I raised an eyebrow (or tried to—my facial expressions felt as frozen as my breath). With a flick of my staff, a swirl of snow rose at my feet. Darcy's eyes widened.

"Did you see that?!"

Ian squinted at the air around him, confused. "See what?"

Erik rubbed his temples. "I… I hear gusts of wind. Like a winter storm."

Jane turned toward where I stood, her gaze flickering as if she sensed a shadow at the edge of her vision. My heart (if I even had one) pounded. She can see me?

But she shook her head and stepped toward a point in the air where it shimmered, strangely liquid. "Stay back. I need to check this anomaly."

Before anyone could react, she reached into the distortion. A reddish flare erupted, swallowing her in a swirling vortex.

"Jane!" Darcy shrieked as Erik muttered incoherent curses and Ian pointed his device at the portal, trembling.

Instinct took over. I lunged toward the portal, staff raised like a shield. But it collapsed before I could touch it, leaving behind tense silence.

Hours passed. Five hours, Darcy later told the police. Five hours in which I wandered the warehouse, horrified at the rules of my new existence. Ian never responded to my attempts to communicate—he flinched sometimes when I accidentally blew a cloud of frost onto his neck, but dismissed it as a "draft." Erik frowned whenever I spoke, as if catching fragments of my voice. And Darcy… Darcy kept staring in my direction with growing intensity, muttering under her breath that the warehouse was "haunted by a Christmas ghost way ahead of schedule."

Then, in a burst of crimson light, Jane reappeared, collapsing to the ground, the Aether coursing through her veins like a glowing poison. Dark lines marbled her skin, her breathing ragged. I moved to support her, but my frozen hands passed right through her arm.

"Don't touch me!" she gasped, curling in on herself.

Darcy, panicked, called the police. When the sirens wailed outside, I gripped my staff, determined to… to what, exactly? I couldn't even control my own powers.

The officer—a stocky man with a suspicious glare—shone his flashlight at us. "You're under arrest for trespassing. Hands where I can see them, all of you!"

Jane swayed, the Aether pulsing beneath her skin. Without thinking, I stepped between her and the officer, staff raised.

"Leave her alone!" I commanded, my voice carrying a crystalline echo.

Erik snapped his fingers. "That voice… do you hear that?"

Darcy, however, looked directly at me. "Who… who are you?"

The officer ignored my warning and reached for Jane's shoulder—only for the Aether to explode in a scarlet wave, hurling him against the wall.