In Heathton, on an early January morning, the air was bitterly cold. It nipped at bare flesh and left a thin coating of frost on the ground. It made the warm comfort of being in a house seem even more appealing for most people. Most.
In the centre of the little town, there was a park. It was almost deserted, as it was only early on in the day, yet a young woman, of roughly twenty years or so, was taking a stroll out from home. It was the first time she had stepped outside in months and the crisp air made her feel alive again - something the pills certainly didn't help with. They had made her feel sick and drowsy, so she had stopped taking them. Her mother was not impressed, but so far, nothing bad had come of it. Yet, still, she kept them tucked away in her pocket, for a "just in case" moment, or perhaps because the weight of the bottle gave her comfort.
The girl passed by a bridge, which hung over long-gone waters of the past. An empty, dry hole resided where a river should have flowed. It was such a long way down to fall and the bridge was such an old, rusty thing that she walked around it, wondering to herself why it was left there, unattended, in such a usually busy park. It was quite clearly a safety hazard, but she walked on past it, not looking any closer.
Suddenly, a sharp movement caught her attention and she paused mid-stride, her head darting to the side (where the bridge was), to see a small child, a boy, huddling up to the railings of the bridge. His skin was ghostly pale.
"Hello?" The girl called, her voice croaky and unused.
There was no reply, so she ventured forwards, reaching out an equally pale hand. "Are you okay?"
The child stood up with impossible speed, as if someone had jolted him awake from a deep slumber. For a short moment, he locked eye contact with her, chilling her to the core, his dark irises penetrating through the barriers she had tried so hard to keep up for months, before running off into the distance. He disappeared almost instantaneously.
Despite the fact that the early sun was shining down on the the park, its temperature was beginning to plummet, until the girl felt frozen to the spot. A pained gasp escaped her lips. Her hands trembled and her lips quivered, partially because of the freezing temperature and partially because the child she had just seen was no ordinary boy. He had been so pale and all fuzzy around the edges.
She reached for the pills in her pocket and popped one on her tongue, swallowing it as she slowly made her way home.
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