-- what is it like to be lonely? -- (nightbird)

Just another winters day, the snow falling into my blonde hair and melting slowly. Despite my pace I can't avoid them, there where just too many and they where just too fast. I lower my head so I am looking at the snow coated ground, my shoes not really being designed to cope with the amount of water that melted when I walk through it so it made my feet wet, I had no socks, well, none that I could wear anymore. My red face with chattering teeth peeks up, hair completely covering my face before I lower it, making me completely invisible to anyone looking at me really. The white... Well I would say jacket but it wasn't really a jacket so the white jumper I had on with the white tracksuit bottoms that where passed down to me and pretty much where hanging off made my body near enough invisible from the distance with the backdrop of snow.

So apparently I had to go shopping and I was on my way to the grocery's. I love daddy, and I know he needs help but did he have to send me out in these clothes? In THIS weather? I'm 12! I should be asleep or snuggled up on the sofa, in front of the barely smoldering fire we had to at least get some warmth in the house. I turn right off my street eventually, only just noticing I had reached the end of it after the pretty daunting 5 minute walk. It wasn't even a street it was just a pathway, anyway, I turn right, into the edge of the main town bit, hardly anyone was out, or from what I could see from behind my hair and my head being lowered. Maybe there will be no one I can cause trouble to, everyone I seemed to meet lately had something happen to them. It was all my fault as well, even if I just stood there it was me who did it.

Well it just got colder, brilliant, ya know, you just keep snowing, make it worse on me. I get a sigh through my teeth and wrap my arms around myself, forgetting about my, somehow staying on my hips. Trackies. Sure, they where mums, and sure, they made me feel good when I wore them but they are not designed for a 12 year old, and really, really not designed for this weather. If only I could make my own darn clothes, Ya know I probably deserved this, for something I did in my earlier life or a past life, everything was related to me somehow, this was probably no exception. All the suffering in the lower districts, heck, all the suffering was my fault.

I let depression and my usual overactive guilt overtake me, my red face become distort as warm tears, yes warming up my face but still sad, left trails of warm liquid running down my face, always around the more run down area of town I got like this, the area where it felt more like an abandoned city than an actual living area able to support life. I dunno what it was, maybe it was just the suffering of the area. I eventually raise an almost blue hand up to comb my hair to the side before placing it back under my right arm. Maybe I should turn back, I'm going to get hypothermia again if I ain't careful. With that decision in my head I make a turn to the right and smash into something, my body propelling itself backwards and landing in the snow which somewhat softened my fall. Oh god please don't tell me I damaged anything! I look up and I see a sign that had something written it, and with a dent in it. It was reinforced cardboard but apparently walking into it was enough to damage it.

I let my head drop back into the snow, hardly noticing that the collision had left my tracksuits halfway down my thighs, with just this jumper covering up my underwear. "You are such a clutz Caitlynn Nightbird! You damaged that persons sign!" All I could do was listen to my own thoughts scolding me. I was one, too cold to get up and 2, too wrapped up in self loathing. However I notice my legs becoming increasingly cold and uncomfortable and I go to rub them a little, that's when I made the discovery and I scream, quite loudly, then scramble to get them back up. Standing up after and turning even more red in my cheeks, oh god, oh god that would've been embarrassing, I look round to see someone but I couldn't tell if they where looking at me or just walking on their way, hopefully the latter. Either way they where at the corner I needed to turn to go back. Screw the shop, the snow and the coldness was just too cold. My lips where blue, my entire face was a bright red peaking on orange, and my legs where now freezing.

By this point I had given up, and I'm laying near enough spread over the snow, the same substance falling over my face and body as I blankly look up to the sky, all will to move, get up, had gone. What happened to the old me? Where I would only get depressed if something bad had happened, but despite that I would be very happy, always seeing the brighter side of things, where did that go? The snow starts biting at my skin with it's temperature, just adding to my freezing form, and after raising my head to look at myself it just falls back against the snow, my hair spewed everywhere underneath my body, the blonde rebounding any light that hit it lightly to make it look like it was shining. I wonder what a mess I looked like to the person. There was no way I looked tidy.

I begin to close my eyes, now really just waiting for the freezing hands of death to take me in, there was no point in fighting it. However my eyes shoot back open as I here someone speak "Um, ya cold?" the question makes me raise my head slowly to look at the person, I don't know how clear it was from the distance but I was looking at her with a slightly shocked and a slightly annoyed face, then I just let my head flop back down. Did she, really just ask that? I'm not laying in the snow in hardly 3 layers of clothing which don't even fit me, in freezing cold weather am I? I sigh to myself and roll my head to the side, was the world just teasing me now? Mocking me in my last hours of existence or was this person just deciding to be one of those "funny" people? Either way it was cruel, and they needed to leave me alone. However I quickly learn that wasn't going to happen, and I hear her laughing tone as she somewhat pardons her previous statement, was this a joke to her?

I go to look at my tormentor again, it was definitely a girl because of her voice, I clicked that a while a go but really why torture me like this? Then, I hear foot prints and she states her name, my head, slowly then turns to look and my eyes shoot wide, and I make a scrambled move and let out one of the loudest screams I could muster to try and get her away. Then everything seemed to freeze, and the calm after the storm came into effect so to speak, my eyes glued to her, widened and somewhat scared as my lips trembled softly, my body shaking not due to fear but due to the cold still. At least I was sitting up now though, facing the other female... Jasper? Jesper? Or was it Vesper? Either way she crept me out, and I don't want her near me. She was probably just going to cause more pain anyway, then again, this was my fault, if I didn't exist this wouldn't have happened. If I wasn't here I wouldn't be causing a problem. I let my head drop and my body visibly inflates and deflates as I sigh. This was my fault.

I quickly glance up to the girl as she speaks again, my hair covering my light blue eyes gaze but my ears, as red and sore as they are pick up on what she is saying “I didn’t mean to scare ya, ya know that right?” I try to calm her down, I really do. “Here, come with me, I can take ya home, it’s real warm there ‘kay?” As the words calculate in my head, for some reason taking longer than usual to make sense I look up to her a little confused, then I look around, equally as confused before the words click and I snap my head back at her, my light blue lips completely numb but replying with "U-urm, s-sure? Urm, where's h-home?" I look straight into her eyes with confusion instead of fear leaking through them, but aside my question she stands me up, grabbing my arms and pulling me so I balance on my feet. Causing my trackies to fall down again, though this time I pay no attention, my body all of a sudden wildly confused.

I continue to stand there with my trackies around my ankles, my skin a stark red with seemingly peach coloured patches dotting around, my ears a crimson and my lips nearly sky blue, my eyes wide and looking all over the place as the girl starts moving. "Urm... How did I get here? Urr, what am I meant to do now? Was I meant to follow her? Were my trackies meant to be down?" My eyes follow my thought train and eventually end up looking down at my now bare legs, again my underwear being covered by my other sized top but still, was it meant to be like that?