Her body freezes upwards from her toes, a new ice age to kill out all the hope. She feels like she won't ever feel again. She promises herself she must never feel again.

She can't cry - it's so icy all over, cold and slippery and tough, icy all over. She can't cry and she can't see.

The sky is pink, the air is warm and the clouds seem to dive back from the sinking sun. A flock of birds like rolling waves in a perspective so consuming - scattering across the air, sweeping the evening behind them in sheets.

She needs to be silent, she needs to let you leave her, letting your soul evaporate before she can move. So she stays still and silent.

Life has been a game, a race of who could get there first, a terrifying test of who could escape with the least pain. The only thing to do now is find the one person left who can validate her. And then she won't need a life. She won't need a future.