Snow day

[Alex's POV]

"We're having a snowball fight at the park today. Care to join us?" the text message from Jasper had said.

Winter break had started and it had started snowing the day before, resulting in a 15 cm thick snow carpet. So when Alex received Jasper's message, he dressed warm and left for the park. But when he arrived there, he was surprised to find more than fifty people there. A little detail Jasper had failed to mention.

They were all there for a large-scale snowball fight. The rules were simple. Everybody was split into five teams. Each team received a flag (helpfully provided by Jasper) and the goal of the game was to capture all of the flags of the enemy teams. When one of the flags was captured, the team that lost its flag had to merge with one of the teams that wasn't the team that had caught their flag.

Once everybody was divided into teams, and each team had received their flag, they all hurried off to roll a mountain of snowballs and build a camp (or something like it) to protect their flag.

And boy, was Alex having a blast!

He enjoyed how other people never saw him coming, while no one seemed to be able to land a hit on him.

At one point, somebody had shouted "Stand still, will you?!" So Alex had turned around to look at a boy he'd never seen before who stood two meters away from him and willed him without words to throw the damn ball already.

The unknown boy grinned, threw and missed. Alex watched the snowball hit the tree next to him and snorted. This seemed to anger the unknown boy, which made him throw a second snowball but Alex caught it effortlessly. He threw it leisurely up and down in his hand as he waited to see if the boy had any more snowballs. He didn't.

When it finally dawned on the boy what had happened, he turned on his heels and ran away as fast as he could. Needless to say, that Alex didn't have a problem with hitting a moving target and laughed when the unknown boy gave a little yelp when the snowball hit him on the shoulder.

After that, the eleven other members of his team had all started calling him "Captain" for some reason. Alex didn't mind. It meant he got the final say on the tactics they used.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Otto's POV]

"Otto! Seriously! It just isn't fun anymore!" Jasper complained to her as she placed the head of the snowman on the other two masterfully stacked large snowballs that made up the body of the snowman.

"And the worst part is that everyone comes to me to complain. I mean, ok we're friends, but what do they want me to do about it? He'd just scold me for not trying my best, or something," Jasper complained on.

"Are you aware that you are complaining to me about it too? What do you want me to do about it?" Otto asked as she halted decorating the snowman to look Jasper in the eyes. He looked startled for an instant.

"Can't you tell him to tone it down? I know he'd listen to you if you told him to," Jasper said.

"You know as well as I do just how competitive he is. Asking him to tone it down would only crush his soul," Otto said apologetically. She wouldn't do anything that would hurt Alex so deeply and Jasper knew it.

Jasper stared stubbornly at her for another few seconds and then suddenly threw his hands up in the air and let out a frustrated growl.

"Then I can't protect him anymore!" he shouted in a frustrated manner. "People are already talking about a pay-back! I could barely talk them out of it as it is!"

"Wait, what? Who told you to protect him?" Otto asked incredulously and Jasper met her eyes in surprise. "Did you think he needed protecting? It's like he always tells you. Just do your best. If people want payback, then do so! He'd be disappointed if you didn't give it your all."

Jasper was quiet for a few seconds. His gaze slid over the army of snowmen she and a bunch of little children had build together. Some large, and some really small.

"That's it! Otto! You're brilliant!" Jasper said as his eyes lit up with a new idea. He ran to her, crushed her in a short but powerful hug and ran off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Alex's POV]

After hours of playing, his team had captured three of the four catchable flags. Sadly enough, that also meant that all the opposing teams had merged together too.

Reason enough to call an emergency meeting.

"Ok, everyone, gather around," Alex said as he motioned the others to come close. "I think we need a new strategy since all the opposing camps have merged together. Any ideas?"

"Maybe we could use a diversion like how we did for the first flag?" Tom from his class at school suggested. He seemed to be the only one who wasn't exactly intimidated by Alex's presence. Alex was so glad Otto had told him about the extremely handsome thing. Otherwise, he would have felt extremely awkward right now.

"No, that wouldn't work. Never use the same strategy on the same opponent twice, that's asking for trouble," Alex scolded.

"Uhm, guys?" Emma, the only girl of the company, said shyly. "I don't want to be a killjoy, but I just did a small mental calculation; there will be over forty people waiting for us there! I don't know about you, but that sounds like a suicide mission to me."

"Hmm," Alex hummed in thought. "That's actually not such a bad idea."

"What do you mean?" Christoph, a boy from a grade higher than most of them asked.

"Lets simply barge in? Take as many snowballs as we can carry and simply go there. A true snowball fight!" Alex said. The others looked at him dumbstruck, obviously not a fan of the plan.

Until now, they had managed to capture the other flags with clever strategies, a high hit rate and a low rate of being hit themselves. But Alex had beat the lot by skilfully evading nearly every ball thrown at him and not missing even one target himself.

"Do we even know if the flag is at their camp? What if they've hidden it?" Christoph asked.

"Hmm, good point," Alex said thoughtfully. "Let's send a scout first. That way we can direct our attack a little better. Any volunteers?"

Alex looked around the group to see a lot of frowning or frightful faces.

"Ok, I'll go myself. Somebody care to join me? Tom? Christoph?" Alex asked. Tom and Christoph had looked the least nervous around him, although he suspected that Christoph had been flexing his muscles for the past ten minutes.

Alex laughed a relieved smile as he saw both of them give a small, determined nod.

"Ok, let's go then. All of you defend the stronghold!" Alex commanded as he stood up and turned to leave. He was met with a general murmur of agreement. It looked like all of them were getting tired. Alex quickly checked his watch. It was about lunchtime too.

"Let's end this," Alex said as he motioned to Tom and Christoph to go in separate directions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few minutes later, Alex found himself wondering where everyone had gone. He was within a hundred meters of the last remaining stronghold, but he hadn't seen a soul. He'd also lost track of Tom and Christoph, so he was seriously starting to suspect a trap.

Forty was not a small number of people to hide though. He surely would have noticed someone hiding somewhere.

There was also the possibility of the whole enemy group currently raiding his home-base, but they wouldn't have left their own camp unprotected, right? So that was improbable.

He sighed as he narrowed it down to two possibilities. One: they had all left to go eat lunch (and nobody had bothered to tell him). Or two: somebody had put together a (very smart) plan to lure him into a trap. He sincerely hoped it was the second.

By this point, Alex wasn't even hiding anymore. He simply just walked to the front entrance of the enemy's camp.

He had to admit, this camp was huge! Much larger than his team's camp. Its walls were made from big snowballs, originally meant to make snowmen. Snow-boulders if you like. They were masterfully piled up to form a sturdy wall that reached up to his shoulder.

Alex peeked around the entrance wall, and as he suspected, the flag was planted in the middle of the camp, no guard, no protection, nothing.

"This is definitely a trap," Alex thought with a sigh but went on anyway. He looked around to see if he could guess what they had planned, but there was nothing. No sound, no movement, nothing. He was suddenly glad that they were only playing a game. If it hadn't been, he would never act as careless as he did now.

He braced himself as he bent over to pick the flag up from the ground and stood up again.

Still nothing.

"Strange," Alex thought. Maybe they really had all left, and nobody had bothered to tell him? He felt his heart sink into his chest, the strange sensation more painful than he thought it would be.

He was about to leave when he heard someone shout "Now!" and suddenly all hell broke loose.

Instantly, three big snow-boulders were placed inside the entrance, blocking his only escape route. Grinning heads popped up all around the camp's wall. All of them holding a snowball in hand, ready to throw.

"Holy sh-" Alex cursed as he quickly threw his arms up to protect his face and shrank into a little ball, right before the first snowballs started hitting him.

It took some time before all the snowballs were thrown. When the firing finally stopped, Alex found himself completely covered, the snow already pilling up at his feet. He looked up from his defensive stance and felt how the snow fell off his head and slid off his back.

When no new snowballs came, he allowed himself to fall on his but, suddenly feeling properly exhausted.

"Damn," he uttered in disbelief as he let his gaze slide over the faces still grinning back at him over the sturdy camp wall. They were saying things like: "Yay, we did it!" and "This game was awesome!"

Alex let his gaze slide over the grinning faces on top of the wall and saw Lindsey who snapped a picture of him when he looked right at her and grinned over her camera towards him. An angry red mark was visible on her brow. Alex had caused that mark.

Lindsey had taken it upon herself to document as much of the whole endeavour as she could and Alex had taken the opportunity to throw one very well targeted snowball square against the lens of her camera. But apparently he'd thrown a little too hard, because as soon as the ball hit the camera, the camera recoiled against a huddled Lindsey's face, sending her toppling over to the ground.

He'd made a mental note to apologize later to her in person, but it looked like she'd gotten revenge on her own.

But all of that left his mind when he spotted an even more familiar face; Jasper.

"What the hell man?!" Alex shouted over the bustle of the crowd as his eyes met Jasper's, and everyone instantly went quiet. "Why'd you single me out?"

"Otto said we could," Jasper said, a big grin splitting his face before it turned serious. "But seriously, dude! Do you have any idea how hard it is to even land a hit on you? You practically forced us to use extreme countermeasures to trap you."

"Ha! Jerk," Alex laughed lifelessly as he threw a handful of snow in Jasper's direction, but because he lacked the energy to throw it, it ended up falling apart in a puff of snow. That was officially the only snowball that Alex had thrown during the whole fight that hadn't hit its target. Several people laughed, including Jasper and Alex. Jasper stood up and climbed over the camp's wall to help Alex stand up.

"Please tell me I can keep the flag?" Alex asked pitifully as he allowed Jasper to pull him up, the flag still in his hand.

"You can keep the flag," Jasper said with a laugh.

"Alright! Victory!" Alex cheered proudly as he held the flag up in the air for everyone to see. He was met with lots of cheers, applause and laughter.

"By the way," Alex asked Jasper once everything had calmed down again. "Where is Otto? I haven't seen her all day."

"Ah, she's over by the playground building snowmen. Yeah... she doesn't like snowball fights," Jasper said as he pulled down his cap and zipped up his coat to keep warm. "I have to go now. My mom's probably already waiting for me with lunch. But say hi to Otto for me! Although, I think you'd better go home and warm yourself before you catch a cold."

"Ok, bye," Alex said as Jasper left and felt a chill run down his spine. Maybe it really was time to go home? Alex doubted for a second, looking in the general direction of both options in turn.

Christoph was going to inform the others of their team that the fight was over, so he didn't have to worry about that.

"Checking up on Otto won't kill me right?" Alex thought with a shrug and took off towards the playground.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few minutes later, Alex was on his way home. He'd passed by the playground and had found an army of snowmen in all shapes and sizes, but Otto hadn't been there.

It looked like she had attracted a lot of little children who'd copied her as she'd made her snowmen. It must have been quite the sight to see. Alex was feeling truly regretful that he hadn't gone to find her earlier.

He was rudely pulled from his thoughts when a particularly slippery patch of trampled snow nearly made him slip and fall.

"Better watch where I'm going," Alex thought as he took in the path he was about to take. It looked like a lot of people had passed by this way, making the whole path one big patch of slippery trampled snow.

From tracks and traces in the non-trampled snow next to the path, Alex could see that a lot of people had misjudged the slipperiness of the path. He found the outline of someone who had fallen in the snow next to the path, and a little further slip marks on the ground and an imprint against a tree.

And then there was a body.

A non-moving body, well wrapped up in winter gear and it's head ominously positioned near a blunt rock. Alex couldn't see who it was because the person was laying with its stomach on the ground and its face turned away from him.

"Hey! Are you alright?" Alex asked as he hurried as fast as he could towards the non-moving body, but it didn't react. He dropped to his knees next to the unconscious person, rolled him or her over for a closer check up and startled.

"Otto?" he asked incredulously.

"Oh, no, no, no... Otto, Sweetheart, wake up!" Alex said as he gently shook her by the shoulders, but it only made Otto's head loll from one side to the other. Alex sucked in a breath of surprise when a big black bump became visible on Otto's forehead.

No wonder Otto was knocked out cold, she'd hit her head! And hard too. Presumably on the rock she'd been lying next to.

Alex reached for the bump on her head, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him, but the second his fingers touched her flesh, a huge spark jumped over from him to her.

It felt like he'd jammed his fingers in an electric socket, or something. The electric-shock started in his core and burned itself a path from there through his arm, to his fingertips, to Otto. He cursed as he recoiled away.

"What was that?" he wondered as he tried to gather his bearings. His heart was beating erratically as if he'd ran a marathon and he was breathing in short panicked breaths.

"Calm down," he thought to himself as he willed himself to breath slower and noticed Otto stir from the corner of his eyes. But when he turned his head to look at her, his vision danced and black spots appeared before his eyes.

The last warning signs of an attack. He was going to faint soon!

Alex scrambled for the phone in his backpack, praised the heavens when he found it blindly and found the button for emergencies between the black spots in his vision.

Once Alex heard the phone dialling, a wave of relief washed over him. He lost all the remaining strength in his body and crumbled to the ground.

"Hello? Alex? Why did you call the emergency number? Alex?!" was the last thing Alex heard his father shout through the phone when he lost all consciousness.