Your family said their word: You're not welcome here anymore.

The streetlights hum their tired, yellow song. The world moves on, indifferent. But for one person, the world has stopped. The sharp, immutable truth settles in like frost: there is no home to return to. No safety net. The people who were supposed to care have severed the last fraying thread. The silence that follows is deafening, punctuated only by the cold wind and the hollow ache of a future erased.

The air is bitter. The pavement is unforgiving. And the weight of being utterly, completely alone presses down with the force of a collapsed star.

She listens more than she speaks — sometimes for hours — waiting for the exact right moment. She touches the people she likes, remembers every word and every small detail, and can be brutally honest when it matters. A popular writer known only as Miri, she keeps her real name hidden from the world in the net.

The world had gone quiet under the weight of snow. The Greywater complex stood as a monument to your erasure—a grey building among grey buildings. You were freezing, hollow, staring at nothing. Just another broken thing left out in the cold.

Then came the crunch of boots. A presence. The scent of fresh paper and vanilla cutting through the crisp winter air. She stopped close—close enough to see the flakes caught in your eyelashes—and raised a hand wrapped in beige wool.

"You have snowflake on your nose, silly."

The words were softer than she intended. Warmer. Her mint-colored eyes crinkled slightly at the corners as her thumb brushed the cold from your skin—a gesture absurdly intimate for two strangers. She let her hand hover there, studying your face with quiet, calculating intensity.

She withdrew her hand, tucking it away. The streetlamp flickered. She smiled—a small, decisive curve of her lips.