Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, readers! I finally started this book again! To those of you who read the first version of this book and stuck with me for all this time, thank you and welcome back! You will notice I changed quite a bit, but the basic plot is the same. I just really didn't like the original as I thought it was very short and poorly written, so I decided to fix it. As you know, I removed that story from my account and I have been slowly working on ideas of how to change it up, and I hope you like it! If you are just reading this story for the first time now, I hope you like it as well, of course! I'm super excited to finally work on this story againnnn! Well, here you go! :D

Emilynn's frail fingers clenched down tighter onto her thin blanket as another gust of freezing wind blasted by, attempting to uplift whatever it could into the bleak, snow-filled sky. Emilynn's long dark hair flew all around her, the ends of it whipping her face and stinging her eyes. She couldn't feel her toes. She couldn't feel her fingers. They were all just numb stubs, frozen into uselessness by the bitter cold. It was all she could think of. Cold, cold, cold. Freezing, wet, cold. The only thing she had to protect her from the snow storm was the sheet of cardboard that was above her head, held in place by the the lids of the two dumpsters on either side of her being clamped down heavily onto it. With the current weather conditions, it did her little good.

She huddled further back into her small corner in between the dumpsters, continuously scrunching and un-scrunching her toes from inside her worn down and ratty boots, trying to keep them the slightest bit warm. She wished she could cry. She wished she could just let it all out and at least feel a bit better. But, no. Crying was for the weak. And, in this weather, for those who wanted frozen icicle tracks down their face. Instead, she brought the blanket over her face and waited it out.

It's only a memory. She repeated to herself mentally. This moment was just a terrible point in time that will all eventually be in the past, left as nothing but a painful memory. She just had to wait it out, to be strong, then it will all be over, like it never happened.

But that string of thoughts was as hard to hold on to as the freezing wind itself. So instead she tried another.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she can do some kind of act for money. Tomorrow she would do something. Like the song from Annie... besides the fact that the sun was most likely not going to shine for some time now. Tomorrow. That was all she could hope for. If only she could survive long enough to get there. If she did, though, she would do anything. She could even challenge her raw throat and sing again. The last time she had sang had been way back when-

Emilynn stopped. That string of thoughts was one she didn't want to grasp. She wished she could just cut the string away, cut it into little pieces, burn it, tie it into a huge knot and throw it as far as she could. But no, for instead of a small harmless string it was like a huge, heavy chain, attached to her body and following her wherever she went, plaguing her for eternity as they had to Marley after death.

She pulled her sweatshirt further up, burying her face into the skimpy artificial fur that lined the insides.

But, what else was there? Her whole life was in the past. She couldn't escape it. She couldn't go back.

She had to keep living. She had to just fight through day after day of cold, of hunger, of loneliness. No matter what, she couldn't give up. If she was going, she was going out fighting.

A shudder so violent that it rattled the dumpster beside her rocked Emilynn's body, and despite herself she let out a sudden cry of agony. This was by far the worst night she had been stuck outside in the five years that she had been homeless.

"Please help me." She found herself croaking out to the night air. She immediately regretted it as the freezing air struck her bare teeth, sending a painful shock of cold through her mouth. Please help me. This time she thought it, not wanting to have to expose her sensitive teeth to the night air for a second time. She began rocking back and forth, squeezing her tiny body as tight as she could, attempting to retain some kind of heat. Her teeth chattered so roughly that she feared they may shatter and her body trembled to the point where she caused the dumpsters on either side of her to shake loudly.

Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Emilynn repeated inside her head. She continued chanting it to herself, forcing her body to shut off, forcing her mind to focus of nothing but those three words, over and over, echoing though her skull to the point where it made her want to rip her hair out, and yet she needed it. It soothed her, in a desperate, hopeless way. She felt her body getting weaker. So weak, she realized, that she couldn't move. She couldn't lift her head from her knees, she couldn't even bend a finger if she tried. She began to panic, to loose the sense of detachment she had just a moment before.

Am I dying? She suddenly thought. Is this it? Is this what death felt like? She had never imagined it to be like this. She had never imagined what it would be like to actually be dying, to know that you only had moments left. She knew that she was going to die one day. She had known for many nights that she could die at any moment, due to the weather, to illness, to lack of food, almost anything. Death was not something she had never thought of. Yet, she had never really expected it to happen. She could remind herself that she could die at any moment, and yet she somehow felt as if it wasn't actually possible. Dying is one of the things that you always hear about, everyone dies. But somehow it's hard to believe that it will happen to yourself. The very idea is unimaginable, because dying is something you can never understand until you experience it.

Emilynn found it hard to believe. She couldn't be dying. And yet, her mind told her that logically it had to be true. She was starving, she was sick, and now she was going to die from the cold. Her mind seemed to continuously grow slower, and she felt even more panicked, but, somehow the more panicked she became, the more calm she became. The more accepting. She didn't want to die. But she was going to, and that was okay.

She continued to think this way, until even her thoughts seemed to fade away, and she fell into a deep nothingness.

There you go! I hope you liked it! I hope all you people who read the original like the changes I made, and I hope all you people who haven't read it like it just as much! Please review and tell me what you think! Byeeeeeeee!