Yesterday. The day I saved a child from the cold was terrifying.

Yesterday.

I couldn't even be sure it was yesterday.

Those last words she said always, always dug at me. Always hounded my mind, and clawed at my skull. Those accursed words...

But it was good that she did not know why. I was petty. Just the day before, I had taken four lives because my heart quavered like soft rippling water.

Four lives I wouldn't miss. But that was shortsighted. My judgement, only half operating, was barely good enough to rely on.

I was lost.

Blindly wandering the streets for a day and half a night.

There wasn't a path I could remember.

So what else could I do?

Stumble aimlessly, with blind eyes.

I trusted them to find me.

Eventually.

I felt the fingers.

They were soft.

They were small.

They felt warm.

They were loosely holding on.

They were safe.

I made a grimace.

I still couldn't tell. I felt quite upset.

Why was I insulting them? By being so blind, that even as they led me by hand, I could not remember them?

Even if there wasn't anything I could do.

More helpless than a child at times. If I did not follow them, I had an unnatural tendency to stray from a given path.

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Finding the way back was always exhausting.

They felt my grip tighten by a fraction and rubbed small circles into the back of my hand.

"^#&)2, it's alright. I'm wearing something different than usual today. And your eyes are blurry, since you haven't slept since the day before. You can try to figure it out when we get home, get you cleaned up, eat a quick meal, and get you some rest."

I couldn't even recognize my name.

But that was reasonable.

I despised it. To the point that I filtered it away, letting it go, only remembering what it roughly sounded like, so I didn't ignore someone calling for me.

Their presence was doing wonders. My choppy, incomplete, misshapened thoughts were resembling something with a sense of structure.

Yet was that me?

Or the me that had changed because of them?

Maybe without their presence.

I would never have had the comfort to allow myself a distraction.

I pulled them close as my eyes watched the color red blooming in the distance, and my world which was already so unclear took on an unhealthy pale tint.

"A frozen world."

A lacking imitation of that place.

But as I moved through the cold, and felt the air push and warp around me, I floated on light steps as I pushed aside the bullets, each turning deep blue before shattering on the pavement.

With a single hand, my finger swiped, stabbed, flicked.

And bisection, impalement, decapitation.

A clean and bloodless execution.

Their blood frozen inside their remains.

I simply walked a few more steps and brought us out of the frozen world.

I held her freezing hands and warmed them against my cheek and neck.

They shuddered from the cold and we stayed closer together to stay warm.

I was sorry.

I shouldn't have.

I.

The most recent thing I remembered was the unbearable cold from yesterday.

I was fine with a frozen world.

Few would be.

Dumb.

Foolish.

Inconsiderate.

Me.

My eyes trembled, lightly damp.

What an incompetent me.

She held my hand softly.

As if it was I. Who was hurting.

Softly whispering.

"It's okay."

We walked together as if all the world did not exist. As if minutes before. Lives have not been lost.

I looked up at the sky filled with snow, that only I could see.

"I don't know if it's okay."

I shook my head.

No listering emotions.

But.

"Why do I care so much about the cold?"

My chain looked at me with knowing eyes.

Thankfully, I didn't read them.

I just knew, she knew.

She said.

"Because today is a cold day. And so was the day before. Even though you don't feel the cold vividly anymore, you remember.

How cold those cold days were."

Was that it? Not completely. Not completely so.

I shook my head, shaking off the blurriness.

It isn't important.

Likely.

When we were on the main road, full of people, I let my half open eyes droop a little more. Heavy.

Very heavy.

Throbbing.

Tired.

Strained.

Waning.

Eyes.

I heard the chattering sounds. The nauseating crowd. The caw of crows were more pleasant than this.

My chain was here.

Therefore I did not bother silence the crowd. I just cut the sound before it irritated my ears. Gnawing on them like a pest or mite would.

With this many people, I had no way of isolating my world from those who did not belong.

Surely some of them would find the bodies I left behind. But like a mirage, the moment I was far enough those bodies would vanish, ceasing from both my world, and the world at large.

No trace would remain.

I must have been holding her hand.

Even if I did not remember when.

I was too focused on not letting my frustration or hostility to seep into the air.

These people would not survive a casual manifestion.

What bother they were subjecting me to, they in turn would crumble in my place.

Yet none of them would care.

Unless I stopped caring and decided to ignore my endeavors.

A man bumped into me shoving me off my path. Unusual, she would have most likely avoided most people's paths.

I saw their crooked hand and saw their hand clutched around a decoy wallet.

One which I kept useful items in, rather than money.

I caught their arm.

I looked them in the eye, as they realised everyone went missing.

A gone world.

I snapped their arm and slammed their head into the floor. Unconscious.

Before making my way to a bathroom, tossing him there and making my way out.

Retrieving my wallet in the process.

He would not steal again.

His arm would always break if he does.

My chain watched my actions.

"That was allowed, right?"

They nodded.

They could have stopped them.

But they didn't.

Maybe they wanted me to remove someone from the crowd.

So I didn't hold as much of a grudge.

Hard to know.

I forgot the man.

Holding onto a memory like that was meaningless.

I had more important things to remember.