The sun begins to set on the mountains. East of the mountains, lies a snow-covered village. Surrounded by mountains, the village sits alone. Within the village, people rush to lock their windows, doors, and any other openings . Rushing in terror, each person drags a bucket outside simultaneously. For a moment the village is alive. Then gone, the life is sucked from the village and it goes dormant. Yet, deep within a girl is still rushing for her life. She has hope that she will make it, but she knows she’s left for dead.

She drags the bucket outside as she pulls her face away from what lies within it. She gags as the stench floods her nostrils. A mixture of raw meats and blood resides inside of the bucket. The girl puts the bucket in it’s place outside of her cabin. She stands up straight, looks to the mountains, and sees the darkness. A tear runs down her face. She can’t let them have her.

The Cold Ones begin to awaken. The Leader stands up straight, looking down on all of his naked minions. They seem to be resting, but they are not alive. Their heart doesn’t beat and their chest has ceased to inflate any longer. All of them are pale white, as though they have never encountered even the faintest ray of sunlight before. Their lips are blue like the gleam of a sapphire stone. Their finger tips are black, pointed, and able to tear out a heart with no problem. The Leader’s blood red eyes look out on the village and he smiles because he knows that this is the one day where they can feed. The one day where they can create another one of their own.

They began to start down the mountain. The girl hears them screeching in excitement and falls to the ground. She is trying to be still for she knows their hunger. They take no mercy on their prey, which is why the villagers left out the buckets. Maybe they would just choose the bloody meats over human flesh. Yet, they know that one person is always taken with them. The villagers see the flaw in their plan.
The Cold Ones enter the village. They look around ravenously. They notice the buckets outside of the cabins and go to inspect. They are pleased with the decoys, for now. The girl creeps her head out to see that they have gone for the buckets. She sits back down and wipes the sweat from her brow. She wishes that her mother was here to protect her as she clutches the emerald pendant hanging from her neck. She never knew her father, her mother was all she ever had until that night. The girl begins to replay the night over in her head.
The girl, now younger, sits inside of the cabin as her mother rushes outside. It is Feeding Night but the girl is deeply sickened and desperately needs water. Her fever is burning up her young body, her mother is sprinting for the well that lies west of the house. Time goes by and the mother is not back yet. The girl moans for her mother to come back as the sun rises. Her fever has faded away, but her mother has never returned.

The girl sees them coming and crawls along the snowy ground going for the door. She gets inside get lies on the ground sobbing. She knows better than to be so weak like this so she picks her herself up and stops crying. She locks the cabin up and blows out the candle leaving a lustrous trail of smoke lingering in the air. Creeping across the wooden floorboards, she stumbles but gathers herself together. She is forced to fend for herself since no one else will. The people of the village have learned to protect themselves and no one else on this night.
It has been this way for so long in the village that the people began to conform their lives to the Feeding Night. Every villager keeps to themselves. There is little interaction between any of them. They feel that they have to be this way. When the girl’s mother disappeared nobody came to help the girl. Nobody cared about her so she learned to provide for herself. Sometimes the girl wonders if it has always been this way and even if the Cold Ones left would they develop any compassion for their neighbors?

The Cold Ones are done with the buckets. They were just decoys. They now need their new member. The Leader smears his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. He raises his arm and his minions halt. One continues to eat from the bucket while the rest of of them stand still. The Leader walks over to the one still lapping blood from the bucket, he stands behind his minion. All of the Cold Ones turn to watch what is going to happen. The Leader’s upper lip pulls back showing a row of knives for teeth. He dives into the minion’s throat. Blood pours from his neck, he begins convulsing. The Leader drops the dead minion and lets out a screech to the others as a warning. They all drop to their knees as the Leader throws back his head and looks out into the night.

They move in a pack throughout the village. The Leader stops and the others freeze, he turns and looks towards a cabin. He rushes up to the front door and the minions surround the place. They wait for a signal to enter from the Leader. The Leader listens to the rapid breathing of the villagers inside, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He rests his ear up against the door and hears someone within let out a faint squeal. At that second, they all tear apart the cabin without the slightest problem. Inside lies a mother, a father, and their teenage son. They devour the mother and father splattering their blood all over the son. While the son cries, the Leader laughs out as blood drips from his chin.

They leave the son unharmed for he is deemed appropriate to be a minion by the Leader. They drag him into the village square by his hair and leave him on the ground. The Leader leaves the minions to watch over the boy while he signals one of them to come with him. She walks over to him wearing only a pendant around her neck. Together they walk out into the village in search of another person to turn them into one of them.

The girl’s fear keeps her awake. She knows that they take one person with them back into the mountains. She doesn’t want to go with them. She holds the pendant in her hand as she thinks of her mother. Her mother had a pendant identical to hers. The girl lies awake wondering if her mother is still wearing her pendant. The girl hears a sound at the door, as if someone were standing on the other side. The door flies open and the girl starts to scream for help. In the doorway stands the Leader and beside him the girl’s mother.

The girl’s mother rushes into the cabin and picks up her daughter. The girl knows her mother has been corrupted by the Leader’s grip. The Leader walks over to the girl and sniffs her, deciding whether she is acceptable. The girl lays stiff, trying not to move under the Leader. The Leader pricks her with his finger and begins to taste her blood. All is silent as they wait for a reaction from the Leader. His eyes roll back in his head in pleasure, he nods at her mother. The girl starts screaming at her mother, begging her not to take her. The mother feels nothing towards the girl, she is incapable of love. She slaps the girl until she falls unconscious. Together they walk back to the square. Now it is time to decide between the girl or the boy.

The girl wakes up to the icy wind blowing across her naked skin. The Leader is carrying her to their cavern. She looks over to see her mother holding the boy. Behind them is the rest of the minions, all of them walking in the same direction. This is the test. The one who freezes first will be discarded, the survivor becomes a Cold One. The girl is shaking, she is freezing. The gusts are coming faster and colder the higher they go. Her extremities are turning blue and she loses feeling in them. Her life is leaving her as her eyelids begin to close. All she feels is the cold, she is dying in his arms. They are nearing the entrance to the lair as she loses her grip on reality. She lets go of what is reality and her will to live is gone. One last gust sends shivers throughout her body as her eyelids shut.


The sun sets again, but this time it is different. The villagers seem at ease as they enter their cabins. The winds aren’t blowing as hard and the night sky doesn’t looks as dangerous as it had the night before. Blood is still splattered upon the snow, but it is completely ignored by the villagers. Up in the mountains, two Cold Ones look down at the village, both of them wearing identical emerald pendants.