Cold.

It's always so cold here. Even in the summer the heat can't penetrate these stone walls. Then again, there wouldn't be much warmth to hold onto inside a prison.

The jumpsuits we're forced to wear don't offer much protection against the cold, and winter's approaching. Soon enough I'll experience true cold I suppose. Back where I use to live, it was always sunny out, and the temperature rarely ever dropped below zero.

Therefor, I never had the chance to get used to the cold, I was caught and hauled off so quickly that there was no time to adjust myself to this damnable cold. Then again, the other inmates here have said it was never this cold before.

One of em, I think he said he'd been here at least five years, said that it may have gotten chilly once it started snowing, it had never before gotten this cold this early.

I've been here, maybe four months, and I've felt nothing but this cold since I first arrived here.

They say the cold started shortly before June, and it's been with us ever since. This cold isn't real, it can't be. I've even heard rumors that the Warden herself checked the temperature, and it read around fifteen degrees Celsius!

And yet, everypony here can feel it, this chill that doesn't exist. However, this cold isn't the strangest thing, nor is it as scary as what else has been going on.

Shortly after June, inmates started disappearing. There are reports of prisoners complaining about how cold it is, like its gotten colder for them then it is for the rest of us, before they're cut off by strangled screams, and then nothing. They just vanish. No blood, no footprints, no traces of whatever has taken the prisoner, Nothing.

At first I didn't want to believe any of this, but a few days after I showed up, I heard one of the blokes in the cell two down from me, a Pegasus stallion with a real grizzly beard, yelling:

''Guard! Something's in the cell with me!''

I couldn't see what happened, but I'm pretty sure he had no room mate, then I heard it. Screams and the sound of the cell door rattling... and then silence.

The guards got there moments later, but from what I heard as they walked past my cell, the only thing different in the cell, besides the missing inmate, was the amount of cold seeping from it...

In the past few months, the prisoners have grown increasingly more paranoid over every disappearance.

A few even took their own lives out of fear that they may be next.

Worst of all, if the guards have any clue as to what's going on, they aren't doing anything about it, although they seem just as afraid as us. It's only a matter of time before they start disappearing too, then they'll know exactly how we feel.

The cold seems to grow stronger with every passing day, and yet it still doesn't seem to exist in the physical realm.

I did an experiment with a few of the ponies here, well, ones a griffon, that I consider ''friends'' and the results of the experiment point to this cold existing...in our minds.

Every one of us placed a hoof or claw on different surfaces, and none of them felt any colder than they would normally. How is it possible that everypony in this hellhole feels this cold, that doesn't exist physically? And yet the chill keeps getting stronger with each passing day.

One of my friends is getting extremely paranoid, she keeps saying she's being watched, that somepony, or something, is stalking her. She mentioned that she's starting to feel like she went out into a blizzard without a coat or a protection spell.

Something tells me she doesn't have long.

She's gone, there was a scream, and then she was gone. During our break time I checked out her cell. It was so very cold around her cell, and her roommate looked like she was freezing to death when I bumped into her later on. However, she didn't feel cold, her fur was standing on end though.

It was almost like it was less about the cold, and more about her fear of what was in here with us. My friends are going frantic, some are crafting shivs, make shift little knives, preparing for a fight. While the others are trying to find a way to escape this prison. The guards won't help, so they feel they have little choice.

I on the other hoof am trying to figure out what this thing is.

The library of the prison is pretty large, so I've been able to research on what might be happening here. Spells, mythical creatures, legends, I've delved deep into all of them, but I'm trying to be quick. I'm not sure how long I have. The cold's beginning to get worse. None of the others have felt it, so I assume I'm next.

The books have many tales and facts on things similar to this, such as a flesh eating virus that once infected a whole town over the course of two weeks, or a unicorn's spell that went wrong and caused ponies who came into contact with each other to vanish.

There's even a myth about Equestria's future, when being's of all species will begin to vanish, without warning, they will simply vanish.

However, this isn't what's going on here.

There's nothing that resembles the horrors of this prison. Nothing that will tell me what this cold is and what it has to do with the disappearances.

I think the guards are finally starting to disappear too. This one I see often, a brown earth pony with a redish mane, I haven't seem them at all today, and the guards seem more on edge then usual. Looks like they finally might start doing something.

I wonder how my family's doing. It's been far to long since I've seen them. I used to live in the same town as them, so I was used to seeing them every few days.

I miss them. I know that because I feel tears pricking the back of my eyes. What's worse is I might not see them again. I'll be dragged off by whatever foul thing stole the other prisoners, and they'll never know what happened to me. I don't want them to wonder, so I'm writing them a letter.

I don't know if they will get this, but if they do I hope they won't weep to much over me. I don't want them to be sad.

And now it hits me, I'm scared. I'm more terrified then I ever have been before. Even when I was committing the crime that got me sent here, I wasn't this scared.

I think I'm starting to understand.

Fear sends a chill up a pony's spine. Griffons shiver when they're frightened. Even dragons feel cold when they're terrified. This cold we all feel, is fear.

We're all scared, of what? This prison? The thing that haunts our cells? No. It's none of those. I'm not quite sure how to explain this, but this fear we all have, it somehow generating an unnatural cold, that isn't really there, but we all feel.

Those of us who fear punishment the most, are the ones that are taken. I'm not sure what happens to those taken, but Ill find out soon.

Why am I being taken first? Why me before those sorry souls who are so scared they never sleep? Because I'm scared. I'm scared of what my punishment will be, and how it effect my parents, my little brother, my special somepony...

The cold is growing, almost like a weed that's been fed to much fertilizer. I sit here in my cell, scared out of my mind, because my punishment is coming.

I can see something, I can actually see something in the cell with me, lurking in the shadows. I know it's not there, but I fear it all the same.

It grows closer, and I now know why the other inmates scream before they vanish. Fear is a horrifying thing, and when given shape, is the most terrifying thing I will ever see.

The last thing I will ever see.

The cold envelopes me, and thousands of blades of cold pierce me, causing a guttural scream to leave my lips.

Frozen.

Author's Note

If you find anything wrong with this fic, and I'm sure you will, let me know in the comments so I can inprove in the next fic.

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