The sky was dark, and she was cold. Her body convulsing in wracking shivers that shook her small frame from head to toe. She wrapped scrawny, dirty arms around her thin frame and clutched the tattered remains of clothing to her in a futile attempt to trap the heat emanating from her body. Fingers threading through the once fine linen, now stained and torn, unrecognizable unless one looked closely enough to see the quality of the weave.
She sniffed, her nose was running and her feet scrunched in the thin layer of snow, they had gone numb a long while ago. The supple leather sandals were in tatters on her feet offering little protection against the bitter bite of the frozen terrain. Her mouth opened repeated in a silent litany, mouthing words through cracked lips. Nothing escaped but her wheezing breath. Sounding harsh in the quiet of the woods.
Her mind was unfocused, coherent thoughts harder to find as time dragged on, how long had she been walking? Minutes or hours…Days? She didn't know, she couldn't think. It was too cold.
With each step she took the darkness got closer, different somehow, she couldn't think how, it was too cold to think. Where there women, children, screaming nearby, or was it in her head? Did it already happen? Her head hurt and she was cold, so cold. Maybe it was all a dream and she would wake up soon, soft and warm, in a feather bed.
Her feet were dragging and she had to concentrate on lifting each foot of the ground, placing it back farther ahead, each slow movement torturously and unbearably demanding. Her eyes felt heavy, drooping and shutting on their own accord and the darkness was narrowing in, she was so cold. The stars were winking out, one by one until there were none left in the sky, and when the last one made it's disappearance so did she, falling down, down into that welcoming dark abyss.