Dora was snoring comfortably while the wind howled in a raging storm. A furry surface was paid out beneath her and warmth finally returned to her body, granting a comfort she had been longing for ever since coming here. No, since being taken here.

  Something soft and jiggly squeezed against her back. Dora yawned lazily and turned around, intending to put her hand on the fur blanket she was wrapped into. However, it landed on something else that she squeezed happily.

  Dora opened her eyes slowly with a content smile.

  Her eyes shot open widely, her smile was replaced with a worried frown and her face turned red.

  “Whaaaat?!”

  Dora’s hand rested on Harriet's jiggly breast. The other girl opened her eyes. Sitting up she rubbed her eyes.

  “What's this commotion?”

  “How can you be so calm? What have you done to me?!”

  “Calm down. A human’s body is the best way to conduct warmth to another. I had to do this or you would've died.”

  Dora stood up quickly and looked down at her body before looking back up.

  “Oh no. Oh noooo. I am naked, too. Enough with your excuses! You're a pervert! Get out, now!”

  She threw a jerry can from the ground towards Harriet who caught it.

  “Heh. I guess you'll come around and thank me when you're less sleepy.” This was the first time Dora saw Harriet smile ever since meeting her.

  However, she frowned and looked around hastily before finally finding some clothes hanging at the wall. She put on a brown jacket with white fur attached to it as well as brown pants. When she returned, Harriet was dressed as well, albeit skimpily as she had her leotard on again.

  “What a horndog. What have I done to God to deserve this?”

  “Either way, we can't do much while there's a blizzard raging. You should sit down and conserve your energy. While we do have ample access to water, we don't have a lot of food in here.”

  “Food? Wait, what is this place?” Dora looked around. There were steel walls illuminated by a gently warm light coming from what seemed to be oil lamps.

  “It's a bunker designed to wait out dangers. I assume they're not limited to blizzards, though. The lamps are powered by whale oil in case you wondered.” She pointed at the Jerry can which depicted a large waterborne mammal.

  “You need to eat. I hope you like beans and spam.”

  While Harriet cooked with a gas stove, Dora was sitting on the fur blanket.

  “What day was it when you came here, Dora?”

  “Maybe the fifteenth. Why?”

  “I see. I arrived ten days earlier. That means time passes significantly faster here.”

  Dora raised an eyebrow.

  “How long have you been in here?”

  “Around three months.”

  “What?!” Dora was in shock. Even with her supernatural abilities, it must have been an excruciating task to survive here for so long.

  “I have been going around, looking for a way to survive. Bunkers like this are strewn around, so they were a big help. However, I haven't a single clue as how to leave yet. The only thing I know is that it must have to do with the mark which acts as a sort of invitation or key in bad taste.”

  “Mark?”

  Harriet left the spoon she used to stir the beans in the metal can and took off one of her gloves. Dora almost retched as a rotting odour waft through the air from the magician’s green deformed hand that had already been covered in grey moulding spots.

  “I saw something similar on your hand. Luckily it's not as advanced for you yet. I intend to get rid of it for you as soon as possible.”

  “How so?”

  “I have no idea. But my guess is that if it allowed us to come here by being in a specific spot, it should also allow us to leave the same way as long as we can find the exit. By the way, just to make sure, you did come here through the school's cafeteria’s frozen storage room, right?”

  “O-oh that's right! Are you a student as well?” Dora got excited.

  “I'm a little too old for that. I'm actually the lunch lady.”

  “That would explain why it smells so good here! Aside from that nasty hand.”

  They both laughed heartily.

  Minutes later, Harriet handed Dora a bowl with piping hot food.

  “Aren't you going to eat, too?”

  “Don't worry about me. I already ate when you were asleep.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I almost forgot.” Dora blew on the spoon and took a bit from the beans mixed with pork. It was hot, but a great feeling after being subjected to merciless cold. Little tears of joy formed in her eyes.

  “Why was I asleep? I don't remember anything.”

  “After we arrived, you lost consciousness. You were out almost immediately, so I took your clothes off, wiped your body with a towel dipped into hot water and went to sleep with you.”

  Dora blushed deeply.

  “As I said, we will be stuck here for a while. So you should get comfortable and try not to think too much. After the storm blows over, we'll head outside and try to find clues on how to escape this frozen hellscape.”

  “I'm boooored. So bored. Ninety nine cans of be-”

  Just as Dora began singing, Harriet squatted beside her and held out an empty spam can towards her.

  “What do you see?”

  Dora raised her eyebrow.

  “It's just a red metal can.”

  “Be more elaborate. Tell me everything you see.”

  Dora scoffed and rolled her eyes before exclaiming in an annoyed tone.

  “There's weird symbols on it?”

  “What kind of symbols?”

  Dora groaned.

  “Ugh, I want to go home! It's boring here and cold! We've been here for how long now, days?”

  Harriet shook her head and sighed.

  “It's only been two hours.”

  “And what do you need me to do to explain this to you? Aren't you an adult here? Use your superpowers to get us out of here!”

  “It's not that simple.”

  “Why not!” Dora raised her voice.

  “There's nothing I can do until the blizzard subsides. We have to stay put.”

  Dora repeated Harriet's words in a mocking tone.

  “We have to stay put.”

  She got up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I'm going outside now. I don't care if I lose a few toes, I'm going home. I want to go to my mama and drink hot chocolate.”

  “Do you really think you can make it home if not even I could?”

  “I'll find a way.”

  She strode confidently to the metal door, placed her hands on the cold wheel and turned it.”

  “Stop!”

  As the door creaked, the blizzard raged with the deafening force of nature, immediately turning coating Dora’s eyebrows and hair in white snowflakes.

  “See? I'm still alive. I'm going home.”

  “Dora-”

  “What?”

  The fifteen year old girl made out a silhouette as her eyes adapted to the endlessly passing storm of white. Her eyes widened and a blood curdling scream escaped her mouth. Spittle came flying her way as the creature before her screeched in an animalistic roar. Dora could not move. It was as if paralysing needles had pierced her skin all her body over and prevented her from doing anything. Her knees were shaking and her legs as well as her arms felt like limp noodles.

  “ABR!”

  A demonically deep and sharp voice exclaimed behind her, in the bunker.

  As the tears in Dora's eyes dried into a painful, cutting icy mess, she could get a clearer view of the thing in front of her. It was a giant squirrel’s head, twitching with rage and suspended from the ground with the help of what appeared to be grey, red and blue tendrils. They wriggled frantically like agitated snakes and allowed the severed head to propel itself forward. It was like a déjà vu.

  Only moments after Harriet had exclaimed, something began to form around Dora’s legs, then abdomen and thorax, then head. They were wooden boxes in different colours, red, green, blue and purple which turned independently into place and obscured Dora’s vision as she was encased into a rectangular box.

  The separate pieces began turning again, making whooshing noises. Dora’s vision became muddled and she felt herself close to passing out. All of this happened so quickly, all these new sensations and experiences, so otherworldly and bizarre that her mind couldn't comprehend rapidly enough to keep up.

  The teenager clenched her teeth and screamed through them in a comically deep voice.

  “Uhhhhhnn!”

  That was due to the fact that the boxes had seemingly anchored themselves to her separate body parts. Every time they turned, her abdomen, thorax, legs and head were turned with them at rapid speeds in an unnatural manner which would have killed a person instantly under normal circumstances. But to her fortune, or misfortune, nothing has been normal for Dora for the past few hours. Vomit came out of her mouth as dizziness got a hold of her; it became difficult to breathe. Her heartbeat reached what felt like the speeds of a bolide.

  “ABR!”

  Dora whined and grinned in pain.

  She knew that she was in a lot of shit now. When Harriet exclaimed those bizarre letters, it was a guarantee that something nightmarish impossibility would creep out of the corner and punch Dora right in the face with sheer brutality.

  However, rather than a punch, it was a stab.

  A thin sword whistled through the air as a blade came flying through the wooden box as easily as a hot knife through butter. It took Dora’s left side vision as the metal entered her eye. Weirdly enough, there was no pain. Which didn't necessarily make it that much better as the sensation of seeing it all happen still persisted as well as the feeling of something entering her head as if she had run into a wall.

  More swords followed; one entered the heart in her breast. The next found its way into her abdomen’s duodenum. Two more for her legs. Yet there was a strange absence of cuts or damage. There was only the feeling of being shoved. Perhaps it was closer to being punched after all.

  Dora hyperventilated and repeated to herself multiple times.

  “This is not real, this is not real, it's a dream, I'll wake up soon, this can't be real.”

  “ABR!”

  Dora clenched her fists so hard, her fingers and nails began to hurt and she was afraid they might break.

  The boxes rotated once more, with the swords still lodged inside the wood of the construct and the flesh of the desperate teenager's flesh.

  Like locked inside a vise, Dora’s body twisted into different directions. The desire to finally close her remaining eye and just let it all happen overcame her, but it was beaten out by the primal need to see all the weird spectacle. Loud creaking and crunching flooded Dora’s ears and finally the expected pain kicked in as her bones and skin twisted and turned in all directions akin to a full body, inside out Chinese burn. She screamed in terror and agony and the split second in which all this happened felt like an eternity. Exhaustion from the sharp pain dragged her spirit down as it would her body if it wasn't locked into place. Finally, everything snapped into place and the wooden magic boxes fell apart. The physical pain vanished alongside the flaps; they simply turned more and more transparent until they were gone. Sweat ran down Dora’s head and drenched her hair. She could only stand in place, paralyzed and slumped over, falling onto the ground as her legs gave in. After all of this happened within seconds, a new type of panic assaulted Dora. For a moment, she didn't understand where she was, but as she saw Harriet in front of her, she began to comprehend that they must have swapped places. The white haired woman herself was in front of the severed head abomination. At her feet, the remains of wooden panels faded out of existence, which meant she must have gone through the same experience as Dora during the process of swapping. Kicking at the monster with full force, Harriet somehow managed to keep it out and seal the heavy metal door without sustaining any damage. Dora allowed her upper body to hit the floor and began laughing maniacally while patting down her own body until tears overcame her.