Ekant pushed himself around a building’s corner, dragged his hurting body out of the side-street he had just escaped from. One hand pressed against his stomach, which continued bleeding heavily. The fabric of his jacket was soaked in blood, the cloth drinking it like a hungry plant. His heart beat till his chest, pulsed in a fast pace. At least it let him know that he was still alive.

There should be pain right now – he was certain of it – but the shock and adrenaline still held it back.

He coughed up some blood. The snow underneath him was sprinkled with dots in crimson colour. His surroundings were covered in white loneliness, as if humanity had averted its eyes from the scene.

Ekant increased the pressure of his hand against the wound in an attempt to limit the blood loss, scratched his fingers with the other.

He couldn’t die here. Not tonight. He had just regained hope... there had to be a way. His leaned his back against a tattered building’s wall.

It should be more safe here. Safe enough to send a signal at least. An ambulance had to arrive as fast as possible if he wanted a chance of survival.

Ekant managed to fetch his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it with a shivering hand.

He somehow managed to press down the buttons, his fingers leaving red prints on the numbers nine and one. Then, his vision got blurry for a moment and he almost fell over.

Pictures flashed through his head. He saw Mouna’s face... the view on top of the bridge... his coffee cup.

A silent fight played out over the course of a second. He won. His vision returned.

He managed to press down another button, added the GPS location, and hit send.

Ekant took a groaning breath, just barely holding onto his consciousness as he started to drag himself forward again. He needed to get out of this worn down side-street... out to somewhere they could find him.

And far more important: He needed to stay awake...

He took half a dozen dragged steps before he felt his body give in.

Ekant’s phone fell and got caught by the blanket of snow below.

Another silent fight played out,

but this time he lost the battle.

And the snow caught him as well,

and enveloped him in its comforting grasp.

---

10 minutes earlier

Ekant had spent most of the time walking home calculating odds. He had calculated the odds of the events which had just occurred on this cold winter night. All of it seemed so unlikely in hindsight, almost as if he had had a little bit too much luck.

He had decided to take an unusual path which led through a rather gloomy side-street. It cut around 5 minutes off his trip home, which his cold hands gladly welcomed. He was now able to appreciate the weather much more, but he still wanted to be at home before his clothes were completely frozen. There was a lot of cleaning to be done at home… he hadn’t taken care of himself or his flat in a good while.

Things were going to look brighter from now on, so he definitely needed to get rid of all the crap that had piled up in his home over the course of the last few months.

Too much luck? he thought. Perhaps I just ignored my luck in the past.

The dim glow of the street lamps – the few that were working – appeared to give the area an abandoned appearance. Most would perhaps describe this place as rather scary, but Ekant had used this abbreviation rather often in the past and – for obvious reasons – never met a single person.

And so it came that Ekant halted momentarily as a person came into his view and walked towards him from the direction he was currently heading. He looked the approaching person up and down real fast – just long enough to not catch his or her attention – then fixed his view back on to the scenery around. Ekant put his hands down in front of his pockets… just in case.

Probably just a fellow insomniac, but you never know, he thought.

He walked past the stranger... and…

...nothing happened.

Then, right as his anxiety started to fade, he felt something grab his hood and forcefully pull him sideways. Ekant got slammed against a building’s wall, the metallic blade of a rather short knife entering his line of view.

“Don’t cha dare scream,” a rough, smoky voice exclaimed. “Gimme your money!”

The hooded figure brought the knife closer to his face. Ekant stared at the blade for an uncomfortably long moment, unable to react in shock. But an odd detail caught his eye. He realized the hand of the man was lightly shaking, the knife being held in a rather unusual way.

“Spit it out if ya wanna keep breathin’, cunt!” the person spat while holding Ekant’s jacket with one hand, keeping the knife close to his face with the other. “I don’t have time.”

Ekant felt his body heat up, now sweating besides the coldness of his surroundings.

“Y… Yes of course.” he stuttered.

“Where’s it? And don’t ya dare move!”

“M-my left side pocket.”

The man let go of Ekant’s jacket, opened the pocket with a shivering hand. He pulled out Ekant’s rather worn down, black leather wallet, took a look inside. Ekant didn’t even think about moving a single muscle, the knife still making it impossible to escape without the danger of being hurt.

Screw the money, he thought. Safety is the main priority. I have far more important things than money to lose now.

“Are ya kidding me, bastard? That’s all ya have? Can’t even buy myself a gram o’ smack with that shit.”

The man backed off a bit, varied a little to the side with a delayed step. His eyes appeared to be darting around fast. Parts of a slim, sunken face could now be seen underneath the man’s hood, the glow of a street-lamp shining some light on his pale, old appearance.

Ekant cleared his throat. “Sorry. like I said, I don’t have more than that.”

Ekant tried to back off a little, studied the movements of the man who was now shaking even more. His breath was visible in the air as he muttered things to himself.

“That’s all, ya say?” he asked. The old man started to chuckle, then laugh. “Well… then…”

And he dashed forward, knife in hand.

The tip of the blade barely missed Ekant’s face as he dodged to the side, his eyes now wide open.

The old man hit the wall with his knife, visibly unable to focus on his surroundings. He turned around with a swaying undertone in his movements, tried to follow up with a sideways swing.

Ekant reacted fast enough to pull his arms up as a defensive mechanism, the tip of the knife piercing through his jacket and leaving a slight cut inside of his left upper arm.

He took the opportunity, clenched his fist, and punched the man in the face. It hurt Ekant more than he expected. The force of the blow caused the hood to move backwards, uncovered the old man’s face. The face carried a familiarly lifeless glance with an underlying hint of sorrow as the old man stumbled backwards holding his nose while grunting.

Ekant took the opportunity, spun around as fast as the snow allowed it. This was his chance.

Sadly, the old man managed to get a hold onto Ekant’s leg and brought him to fall. Ekant’s face tasted the cold snow. He kicked backwards with his other leg, hit something as the hand let go of him. The grip hadn’t been strong.

He spun around, managed to regain his footing. He immediately wiped the snow out of his face to regain his sight. But as he wiped the snow away, right before he could see clear again, something sharp and cold pierced through his clothing and embedded itself inside of his stomach.

He felt cold, then hot.

Silence echoed through the street.

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His view cleared. The face in front of him was clearly visible now: The old man’s dark, sunken eyes were locked forward like a deer in headlights. Tears streamed down his shrivelled cheeks, got caught by his unkept beard. He was still shaking, but Ekant was now sure that it wasn’t from being cold.

The man appeared to be more scared than him, and for a moment, it felt like looking into a mirror.

His eyes...

They look… helpless.

For a flash of a second, Ekant remembered what Mouna had said to him earlier: ‘The eyes are the key to a person’s soul.’

And Ekant managed to raise his voice, breaking the silence of the night, “You look... scared.”

The man shook his head in disbelief. He stumbled backwards, pulled the knife out of Ekant’s stomach while doing so. The knife fell into the snow. The man turned his hands, viewed upon bloody palms, then started muttering to himself more loudly than before, stuttering comprehensibly.

His and Ekant’s eyes met.

“I… I’m sorry,” he said, his voice now broken and weak.

Then, he ran away into the dark night, leaving Ekant behind.

Ekant put his left hand on the wound, tried to stop the bleeding somehow. He spotted the blood sprinkled snow underneath him, decided that he had to get moving before it was too late.

As he started stumbling forward, a thought circled in his head:

Why did I want to help him?

Is this the way she felt as she looked into my eyes back then?

He managed to move forward with dragged steps. Heavy clouds of deep icy breath formed in front of his face, but his skin felt like it was boiling. Blood ran through his fingertips, left more sprinkles of crimson colour in the snowy blanket underneath.

As he kept pushing forward, and the end of the side-street got closer and closer, more thoughts started to pop up, repeat themselves as panic started arising:

How long will the adrenaline keep the pain away?

How long can I survive with this amount of blood loss?

Am I going to die?

He shook his head, tried pushing the thoughts as far away as he possibly could. Everything that counted now was a clear head and acting fast.

There were things to lose now, and he knew he was close to losing.

But he didn’t feel like losing. Things had changed. He wanted, no, needed to stay alive. There were things to fight for... to suffer for even.

And so he took one more step, and then another, and another.

“I… can’t die now. Not tonight...”

And Ekant wavered alongside the wall of the side-street, step after step. He managed to pull himself around the final building’s corner, out of the side-street.

“I wont die tonight.”

---

Snowflakes danced down the emptied streets. Old, gloomy lamps cast a yellowish light upon the scenery. Comforting coldness embedded itself onto the scene. Small dancing crystals of ice put a soft blanket of snow on the otherwise so hard concrete street. The stars were hidden between snowflakes, somewhere high up in the grey winter sky, their grasp far out of reach. The moon barely cast its soft ambiance between the snow’s dance, resting on the dark horizon like an ancient presence.

Ekant felt another snowflake hit the bony palm of his hand, the coldness it carried soon overwritten by the hot pulsing present through his entire body. Another snowflake flew by, close to his unmoving face, and added itself into the red puddle of blood-soaked snow which had formed around his limb body. His back rested upon the snowy ground as he could feel his view slowly glide out of consciousness.

Now the time had come…

...His time to be one with the crimson snow.

As his surroundings started to get increasingly blurry, Ekant’s mind started dancing across events and memories, his past flashing by in what felt like a glimpse of a moment. There were some of the most big and important moments of his life, and, more frequently, tiny ones, which had seemed so insignificant in the past. Even though they had been so small before, their presence was now bigger than everything else.

He saw his childhood. He saw sleepovers, birthdays, funerals. There were the slow nights at late shift as well as the fast ones partying out with friends. Everything was shown equally, nothing seemed hidden or locked away.

The heavy pulsing and horrible pain which had spread through Ekant’s entire body after the shock had disappeared was now fading away slowly, as if a burden was lifted off his chest by a force out of his control. The only thing which still clung to him was the coldness, which had replaced the hot feeling from earlier.

It was as if nature called for him. Like it told him to give in.

Then, the pictures of his further past faded and were replaced by newer ones. Repeated patterns, behaviours and views. The same room, the same ceiling, the same eyes, over and over and over again.

Had he really lived his life like this? For how long? It all seemed so dumb and obvious to avoid now, but he also knew that his behaviour had rooted in some deeper underlying pain.

Maybe, if he wouldn’t have lied to himself all this time… if he would have moved on earlier...

Then, the entire night flashed through his mind. At the end, all that remained was the face of the old man. His gaze… the sorrow it had emitted.

His eyes. Maybe, if someone would have helped him earlier, he wouldn’t have ended up like that.

Ekant tried to focus, fought the forces of nature to get back some of his consciousness. He couldn’t move, but he managed to at least regain his sight.

Now, if I die here, at least let me see what kept hidden from myself all this time.

The sky above his head had cleared up a little, just enough to reveal the star sprinkled sky through the dance of snowflakes. Ekant viewed upon the horizon as his lips managed a weak smile.

The beauty which had remained hidden for so long was now so easy to access. All it had taken was a change of perspective.

Ekant felt his body slowly getting more and more covered by the dancing snowflakes. But the coldness faded, and all that remained was the warmth. It wasn’t a painful and hot sensation like before, but rather pleasant and calming. It was the warmth that Mouna had brought to him earlier and had sparked a new flame inside his soul. And so it came that he was able to form one final realization before his mind drifted away.

He finally felt happy...

And as the dance of the white snowflakes turned into the dance of crimson snow,

Ekant’s view started to fade once more.

And as he became one with the crimson snow,

he had found out what it really meant to be alive.

And right before he fully faded out of consciousness,

piercing through the cold winter night,

the sound of a siren echoed through the air.

---

A few days later

“Hello? I think he is regaining his consciousness,” a male voice said.

“Mister? Can you hear us?” a female one added.

As he opened his eyes, a bright light flashed in front of Ekant. His sight returned slowly as his pupils adjusted to the sudden change of brightness.

He stared at a white and sterile ceiling, two even whiter square shaped lamps reminding him of the snow he remembered seeing not too long ago. Ekant appeared to be laying down. Two people – a male and a female – stood in front of the hospital bed he was laying inside of.

Hospital…? Doctor? He thought.

“Hello mister Ekant. Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands. You lost a lot of blood, but we managed to stabilize your condition,” the male doctor said. “You will survive.”

Ekant turned his head downwards, saw the bandage wrapped around his stomach area. A transparent tube was attached to his right arm, red fluid – which was coming out of a bag suspended next to the bed – flowing through it.

The nurse looked at a clipboard, scribbled some words down onto the paper. After she was done with scribbling, she said, “You reacted well with the fast help signal back then. A couple of minutes later and we would have found you dead.”

“Talking about snow…” the doctor said. “The reddened snow was more or less the only thing which made you visible to the first aid team. You were quite lucky and unlucky at the same time as it seems.”

Ekant was at a loss of words. He stared at the two figures in front of him, slowly realizing that he was, in fact, still alive.

“It’s alright, take your time. You might need a couple days of rest. After that, you will be allowed to leave,” the doctor said. “Anyways, I need to check on other patients now. If there’s anything I can do for you, just press the red button on your nightstand.” The doctor walked towards the white door, opened it, then stopped.

“Oh, one more thing. As we pulled your unconscious body out of the reddened snow, you appeared to be smiling. Been a while since I saw something like that.” The doctor then left the room and shut the door behind him.

Ekant scratched his forehead, looked at the nurse which had just finished scribbling down more notes.

“Don’t worry, we already got the necessary infos from your ID, so I don’t need to bore you with generic questions.” Her lips carried a soft smile. An honest one.

Seems as if she likes her job, he thought.

Finally, Ekant returned, “Thanks… for saving me.”

“No problem. After all, that’s our job, right?” She laughed.

“Yea…” He couldn’t help it but chuckle. “Right.”

“I gotta leave as well now. Your phone’s on the nightstand. You should probably tell your family that you’re fine.”

“I don’t have that much family left, to be honest.”

“Then someone important to you,” she said. “Anyways, get well soon.”

The nurse took a last look at her notes, scribbled down something, then left the room as well.

Ekant leaned back, just stared at the ceiling for a moment. He would need some more time to fully unwrap what exactly had happened last night. But through the confusion and relief he felt, through the wondering and storm of thoughts, one emotion clearly stood out.

A feeling which still hadn’t left him, even after being so close to death:

The feeling of warmth which had been given to him yesterday night.

And he turned over to look at the nightstand.

Someone important, huh?

And he picked up the phone.

-----