What a joke. What a grand joke these places were! Frostbite gets worse when it heals and then comes back, don’t you know that, idiots?

Heal you. Great, you’re all better now, we’ll toss you back out on the streets now, now that you have had an illusion of community and security.

Smiling at the doorway, waving with their happy masks on, as they watch you trudge back out into the cold and your death.

Blowing into her cupped hands, Ulrike sat curled up on her usual park bench and continued her attempts to work the charcoal pencils with trembling fingers. Paranoid eyes shifted occasionally to glance behind her.

Erik had been on her mind since she left the shelter.

Why?

She hated him. And at the same time, everything he said was so right. He pulled out her emotions right from her mind and taunted them in front of her face. He showed her what she thought.

“Don’t you feel cheated?”

Cheated?

A woman in a long, deep brown coat stood over her. Her short, dark hair was glistening with several flakes of the winter snow, her hands shoved into her pockets.

Ulrike only blinked up at her. Then came the feeling...

That sinking feeling in her stomach, the feeling that she was going to be ill.

The way Erik made her feel.

“Why... would I feel cheated?” the artist stuttered.

The woman’s glasses slid down to her nose, as she scrutinized the pale Ulrike over the rims of them. “Then you don’t?”

“I suppose not.”

“You should, comrade. We are all in this together, you know.” A smile.

The skinny artist cringed.

“Who are you?”

“Maybe you should be able to answer that question, before you ask it of me,” the strange female replied, pulling a small book from the inner part of her coat. “Read this.”

Ulrike pulled away from the book as if it were made of rotting flesh, scrunching up her nose in a curious fashion. “Has everyone in this city gone mad?”

“Or is it just you?” was the retort. “Just take the book... give it a good read before you speak again.”

Now she recognized this woman! She had been sitting intently on the front row during the tiny speech Ulrike had made at the meeting the other day. The party was a pitiful one. Only about fifty members, the most striking and influential of them all were three mysterious women that seemed to have a hand in all matters. Ulrike knew none of their names, but she did recognize the sight of them.

Her eyes now went to the book. Nietzsche. As if afraid it would sting her, her fingers met the book timidly, then bounced back on their own before snatching it away from the woman.

“All three of us look forward to the next time you speak, Ulrike. We believe you will be a great help for the future we all envision.”