Winter arrived with a chaos of cold air and storms, tearing up trees from their roots and churning waves from blue to black, scattering a darkness across the sky. The days were short and the nights were long, as clouds suffocated the sun and what little light there was struck the ground in sharp blues and whites. Outside not a soul ventured into the dead air of the town, all was silent, all was empty. All except for a little boy and his ratty toy.
He sat by the beach, feet dangling over the edge of the promenade as his arms hugged around a tattered scarf, a faded pink with the smell of woman's perfume still clinging to it. His eyes were glazed over as he stared into the distance, his mind not on the storm ravaged beach. He was in a happier time where the sky was soft and the sea was smooth and the scarf was wrapped around another neck, a warm arm around his own.
But that was another time, and that warm arm was now a ghostly cold and that calm day had been twisted into chaos. The roots of his life had been torn up from the ground, and the waves of his comfort had been churned from blue to black. All that was left for him was darkness.
That was the winter his grandmother died and Haru felt truly alone.