It appeared--the trundling figure from my thoughts. It had staggered up and over a clearing, trying to take hold of a branch, snow warping my senses and blinding me with a greenish white. The world was chalky and too course to describe, the sky above me becoming a painted black, pulsating with the occasional prism of color when -


    Shwik!


    It tumbled backward, collapsing to the ground.


    From the birch’s view, it swayed and shed its chips of crystalline, decorating the bruised-like figure as though it were myself.


    But was it really?


    “Carla”, it calls. Still coltish, still vantablack. It''s something I had recognized hours upon hours ago, even under the lightest shade of Amish green, its voice still soothed me deeply.


    How does it know my name?


    I tried to say something to this form, assuming its plight. I wanted to ask the questions that I''ve held to myself for so long, but my mouth wouldn’t open. Even if I pry for these particular answers, I couldn’t change these actions, decisions, questions. It''s like I''ve lived in this world before


    “Your brain still in there?”, I''d jest in Asana, but why? Why did I care to say such things? I don''t know him, I didn''t even know myself sometimes. It gnawed at me from the inside, an indescribable feeling of dread which welled over like boiling water from someone else, but who, why, was unclear to me while the world shifts and so does the figure, observing my form draped in snow, a presence now all the more alluring. The sky would change its color as it came closer, no longer black, the snow rippling with that of an emerald color with every shift, every rapid movement. I wasn''t scared of it. I never was. It was an oddly comforting thought, maybe I could change its mind. Maybe it''d let me stay if I tried, if I could persist here just a little longer. In protest of consequence.


    "Carla?"


    It moved to my right erratically. My eyes never flinching with neither my body nor self. Instead, I began to concentrate again.


    Concentrate.


    "Lucario?"


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    It was piercing. Pestering. Its breathing, its aura, still that of a familiar black and blue that remained by my side. Still determined to break my focus.


    "Appalachia wears me solemnly." I would repeat to myself, in an attempt to inure anything else but he was persistent. Becoming more and more until its fragile demeanor slipped, turned impatient.


    "It''s freezing out here, what''re you thinking?"


    It was beginning to fumble with its words, the cold sewing its jaw stiff. Gripped by the wind which, I assume, bombarded its face like a whip. I swore I felt something, the same feeling that was gnawing inside of me earlier. The petulant nagging, the worry. It was growing into something. Something out of my control, and I couldn’t stop it. I am one with nature. I kept thinking to myself in mantra.


    I am one with nature.


    “...look at you. You''re covered in snow - come on! Get up! You''re gonna freeze!"


    "Get the hell up!"


    And I did, the stoicism and grace I once displayed turning into a frantic stumble. Frost still amassing in fusillade. My hind legs tripped on something I couldn’t recognize, and onto the birch. He was driving me down, wasn’t he? My heart, my haste. The thought of the night, of it killing me. My inner focus now destroyed.


    "Oh, Arceus...” I kept repeating to myself, my voice shaking. “Fuck-"


    I couldn’t even bring myself to stand, the caked patches of snow had rubbed against my clothes, crunching, nubs flaking off along my hoodie which was frozen solid. I looked up to the sky, a thought of Justin passing, he was just as vulnerable. The clouds turned from a gray to an orange, then a purplish black when it fully started to set. The minutes dragged on for centuries, as I felt it again, of how the trees seethed into its deep, deep sleep, and how their branches forked the clouds and held it up. Each tangling over one other like power lines in the wind. It was a sharp but orderly mess. The moon now an unrecognizable haze as it pulsated. We''re all going into the same place.


    “Carla!” it rang out amongst the chaos ensuing in my brain, the voice snapping me back into place with a magnetic click. Even if it was just for a moment.


    He skipped through the dark. Once again wet, damp, and with a sense of urgency. He could barely see the world, with only the light from his flashlight guiding him, shimmering the newly covered or dented whites. Glittering, flailing with a hurried kick that parted snow.


    My name kept passing through me dully, the light obscuring his movements and figure. The smaller, thinner trees strobed an outline of blue with Justin’s fading aura. Its light was blinding me, wasn''t it? Those scavengers can''t find me again, please Arceus, no.


    “Fucking hell…” he grunted as he approached closer. His hands dragging across the ground, the light obscuring his clumsiness, trying to grab the bough again.


    He kept repeating himself, “Come on - come on…” through gritted teeth, grabbing my arm insistently. I could barely stand. I couldn’t feel my legs; it’s stinging and stiffening. My senses, try as they may, struggle to come back to me, as I sunk oddly warm in a suddenness. What have we become?


    “J-Justin…” I whispered, my voice husked, racing itself out of my own body, tumbling over and onto my trainer violently into the snow.


    I can’t think. Everything has turned itself into a molecular haze, my body and mind melting for Mother Earth, the silhouette of Justin’s leering head began to distort the sky, his body now the very stump I’ve been meditating on. It’s a charred figure that had become obscure by a brightening glow and I don’t know why. He’s trying to break me from my concentration. He couldn’t, he mustn''t. I know I’m one with nature; I am one.


    “I am - -”


    "No." he cuts off, "I already know - I don''t want to come back here again."


    “That’s not what I’m trying to say.” I retorted.


    “Then what?”


    I could see it in his face, the way it mangles into an uncomfortable squint, showing his checkered, repulsive smile. What had he become?


    For a moment, I just sat there. My stare turning to that of indifference, long before I spoke. How hadn''t''ve he taken the hint?


    “Just leave me alone, Justin.”


    I closed my eyes, as I felt the wind brush up against my ears. The figure once again stood to the right of me. Kneeling over as he sighs.


    “Please, Carla. I don’t want you to die out here.”