(What the Freezer Holds — Lily Showing the Past Dreamstate)
"Okay… there you are," I whisper into the half-dark, addressing my sister like she's standing right in front of me.
She isn't. Of course, she isn't.
I look back at Eli.He does not look good.
His face is flushed red, sweat shining in the dim light. His breathing is shallow. Every so often, his fingers twitch like he's running from something in a dream he can't escape.
"That's not good," I mutter under my breath.
Lily's voice pushes through the fog in my head—soft, patient, frustratingly calm:
You need to see it all.
"Yeah? Great." I scrub a hand over my face. "What do I do, Lily? Just close my eyes and magically drift off? Because those days are gone."
She doesn't answer.
A hollow ache hits my chest.
"She's gone," I whisper. "God, I wish you would stop doing that cryptic crap, Lil."
Nothing.
Marcus is nowhere in sight.The storage room is cold and still.Eli is breathing like he's losing a fight.
Everything is too quiet.
"Shit."
I stand, swaying a little from leftover dream-weight, and try the storage door. It creaks open easily.
"Good," I mutter. "At least he didn't lock us in."
Lily's voice slides back in—bossy, quiet command, the Lily I remember:
"Third drawer down. Tool shed. Back under the clothes. Sleeping pills.""Take ONE." She is matter-of-fact."Get back in my dreams—before morning."
I huff a laugh.
"That's the Lily I know. Pushy. Bossy. Better than this haunting crap."
Silence.
She's gone again.
I slip out into the shed, careful not to make noise. Dusty shelves loom like skeletal hands. I kneel by the old metal tool chest and open each drawer in turn.
There it is.
A canvas drawstring bag — the same one from the picture on the wall.Stuffed with pill bottles, blister packs, torn labels.
"Lily," I mutter, "if this kills me, I swear…"
I shake out one pill.Then I slip two more into my pocket.
My hand brushes another bottle — antibiotics. Eli needs them more than breath.
Two tablets. Strong ones.
I head back inside.
Eli stirs when I kneel beside him.
"Hey, kid," I whisper.
He blinks at me, fever-bright. "Let me sleep."
"You will. But first—any allergies?"
"What? No." He curls tighter. "Tired."
"Perfect." I hand him the tablets and water. "Take these."
He swallows them without question and rolls back over.
"Good," I whisper.
I settle beside him, swallow the sleeping pill dry.
"This is so stupid," I murmur. "If I die in my sleep, I'm haunting you, Lily."
The pill hits HARD.
The world tilts. The room dissolves.
Before I know it—
I'm back in the dream.
But the scene has shifted.
The freezer door yawns open in front of me.The air is colder, sharper than the first memory.The floor is littered with corpses — frozen mid-curl, mid-scream.
My breath catches.
Lily stands beside me, carved from memory and frost.
"This," she whispers, "is the part that only Marcis and I know about. I never showed anyone at the lab."
The dream pulls me deeper.
A crack splits the silence.
Frost melts off a man's cheek, sliding down like a tear.
At first, I think it's dream logic, but then—
A finger twitches.
Another crack.
A jaw shudders open, stiff from cold.
The temperature is rising with the freezer door open.
"Lil…" I whisper. "They're waking up."
She doesn't flinch.
"You need to see..." She says softly.
One corpse spasms.Another rolls like a restless sleeper.A third drags one knee forward, thawed tendons popping like wet sticks.
A low, dreadful scrape fills the air — skin unsticking from icy floors.
I stagger back.
"What is this? Why show me this?"
The nearest body lifts its head.Clouded eyes searching.
I lean closer — and recognition slams into me like a fist.
"…Mom?"
It rips out of me.
I whip toward Lily.
"You told me she died with Dad. You said they were together when—"
Lily's face goes still. Not cold. Not hard.Just… shattered.
"I thought she did," she says softly.
The thawing thing— my mother — shudders, her hand dragging across the floor, nails scraping a slow, awful line.
"Lily… how did she get here? Why didn't you—"
Lily flinches.
"By the time I found this place," she whispers, "she wasn't Mom anymore. I was too late; she was fully infected."
The corpse moves faster now — thawing, loosening, wrong.
"Stop—Lily, don't—"
But Lily steps forward.
Her blade appears in her hand like instinct, carved into her bones.
"I didn't know then what I know now," she says, voice cracking."I thought she was too far gone. We didn't know cold… preserves."
The corpse lunges.
Lily kills her.
A clean strike.Final.Silent.
I choke on air.
"Don't touch me," I rasp. "You just—Lily, you killed our mother!"
Her eyes fill with a grief so deep it feels ancient.
"I didn't kill Mom," she whispers. "She died long before we got her here." "I killed what she'd become. I didn't know freezing stops it. I didn't know cold keeps them from turning. But the window is small."
She looks down at our mother's body — shoulders shaking once — before forcing herself still.
"And then I learned," she says bitterly."I learned too late for our mother."
Behind her, more bodies thaw.Hands scrape metal.Bodies twitch toward movement.
Lily's face hardens.
"Cold buys time. Cold traps the infection. Cold holds them."
She kills the next thawing infected.Then the next.Then the next.
At least twenty.
Each blow fueled by guilt.
Finally, she turns back to me — eyes burning with sorrow and command.
"If Eli turns," Lily says, "you can save him."
My knees weaken.
"Lil—"
"Freeze him."
The word drops like a verdict.
"Freeze him," she repeats, voice shaking. "Give him the time I couldn't give her."
"Freeze him."