Worlds

Chapter III

Kila quickly scanned everything that her eyes could see; the frost that covered the ground sparkled in the light. Every glint that she saw made her jump and race over, only to find it was the frost in the setting sun.

At some point it had started to snow, the flakes that fell were thick and stuck to Kila's eye lashes. She threw up her hood, but the snow kept coming down.

Finally, she came to the tree that she had ran into on her way from Mrs. Kallister's. She looked down at her foot prints that were being covered fast and started to dig in the old and new snow. Tears sprung up in her eyes, and fell down her cheeks leaving little icy trails in their wake. She kept digging and finally she hit the dirt below. Kila paused and looked at her hands; they were a bright red color and stung. One of her nails had broken and she had dried blood crusting it.

She didn't want to stop looking, she scanned the ground from where she had ran, looking for anything that resembled the necklace at all. She dived into the snow at one point and was sad to find that it was just a brown leave.

Kila walked the distance from the park back out to the sidewalk near her school, then up the sidewalk to the entry, which was now locked. She paused at the gate, pulling on it slightly before she sighed and started back towards her house. Her body was numb with cold, and her legs felt as if they were made from led as she shuffled down the path.

When she made back into the park she took one last sweep over it with her eyes before she saw a bench. She walked over to it, her entire body convulsing with shivers, and brushed the snow off. She looked down at it for a moment before she sat down, and pulled her legs up to her chest.

Kila sat like that, not aware of how much time had passed, letting her tears fall and soak into her knees, her knees slowly being covered by ice. The sky produced more and more snow, it fluttered down, landing on her hood and back. She didn't move to brush any of it off, just letting it pile up. The numbness that she felt in her entire body spread to her mind and filled it.

Kila didn't want to move, she was numb because she had lost the necklace that her father had made for her, she was numb of the fear of never finding it again, she was numb because--.

"Excuse me," A warm voice interrupted her thoughts, she glanced up from her knees and a mound of snow fell off of her hood, making a soft thump as it landed below. She blinked a couple times to clear her vision. "Miss?" A man stood in front of her, he had neat brown hair that was brushed to one side with a clean shaven face. He wore a red and black stripped lumberjack looking coat with a pair of jeans. He was crouched down in front of the bench. He reached up with a brown mitten covered hand and started brushing snow off of her shoulders and back. She heard it hit the ground with a thud.

"Hey," she looked up into the man's eyes to be met with concern. Kila went to respond and found that her voice seemed to be lost. "You're going to catch your dead out here. What in the world are you doing out here at this hour?" Kila looked around and realized that the sun had gone down, and that the snow was still falling. "Not to mention the weather."

"I--" She stammered, her jaw was shaking, "I was looking for something but it's lost." He looked at her for a moment.

"Come on, let's get your warmed up." He stood up for a moment and looked around the park, and then he looped his arm through hers and hauled her off towards the café that was on the edge of the park.

Once inside he got a table and ordered two cups of tea, in the silence of the clatter, she started to shiver. She hadn't realized how cold she was until her body met warmth again. Her eye caught a mirror; she was surprised to see her own reflection. Her lips were twined with blue and purple and her face white, eyes red and puffy. The dark eyeliner that she had put on her mismatched eyes was gone; lost in the tears of the night.