Some might say we’ve done the wrong thing…

The song filled Vicki’s ears with a persistence that was frightening. Her hands trembled and her eyes slipped closed. She closed down all of her senses but one. The room faded around her as she reached out with her ears, looking for an answer. Cold sweat ran down her brow, and her eyelids quilted with strain. Her muscles tensed, veins rising beneath near-transparent pale skin.

For way too long…

Vicki shivered, feeling an arctic blast from the speakers of her stereo. Her emotions slowly drained away through her fingertips as they lay clenched together in her lap. Sadness, washed away. Anger, fading fast. There was nothing left to drain, because her happiness had been stolen long ago. Anxiety spiraling out through the top of her head, a rush of tension leaving her body, as her muscles slowly relaxed.

For way too long…

Her breathing steadied, slowed, stopped. She fell back softly onto the bed, but she did not feel the warm comfort of the afghan snuggling her in dream. Vicki herself drained. She slipped out through a hole in her own heart and rose high above her body.

Children crying…

Vicki looked down into a dusk-blue reality. Eveining moonlight illuminated a small, square room with blue walls and floors. A blue-clothed bed sat quietly in one corner, bearing a single burden. There lay a shell of a girl, a blue-pale girl with purpling lips and freezing skin. She lay naked on the bed, blue and broken, cold and lost. Her eyes, closed in pseudo-peace, bore heavy frost-blue shadow and her hair was whitening at the ends with traces of frost and snow.

Left out and neglected…

Running the length of the girl’s forearms were deep red slashes, angry red, lively red. In the moonlight it looked like old scars, but Vicki knew the blood still ran fresh. Below the girl, the comforter turned purple, like blood soaking the ocean. Red clouds formed behind the girl, clouds like droplets of life swimming for saving in a freezing arctic sea.

Only in a world so cold…

As summer turns eventually to winter, the red river began to run slower, more sluggishly. Small patches of frost began to cover the girl’s arms, sealing off her veins forever. Within minutes, all traces of the blood’s warmth was gone forever.

Only in a world this cold…

A single boiling tear fell from Vicki’s eyes as she floated above the cold girl. As it landed between the girl’s blue breasts, the room melted away. Melted away forever. Vicki was gone.