Equius was born in the year of the horse.

The year of the horse, if you have this sign you get these two choices. Have really good luck or really bad luck.

They're not even choices that you can pick. Just things that are given to you by a mailman or something but the mailman doesn't tell you what's inside so you have to open it up yourself. At first you cross your fingers and toes hoping that it will be a nice gift but what you see at the bottom is just dust. So every time you get something after that you can hope that the present can be better than the last time. And most of the time you get a better present.

But just because you get tails the first time doesn't mean you're going to get heads the second time. You might get tails forever and ever.

You get tired of forever getting nothing. You want two front teeth and you get two lumps of coal but instead of getting coal you just get air in a bag.

Then you might stop accepting the gifts that the mailman gives you.

And after a while you feel like you're being robbed. Robbed forever and ever. But who is the robber? You are. You become a thief to yourself. Refusing to have anything nice. Thinking you don't deserve it. Thinking that other people do.

This woman, lying on the ground with rain mingling with the blood on the ground. This woman with a stranger crying next to her, dialing 911 as hard and as fast as he can. She the one that deserves nice things.

But she believes that the stranger with the sad eyes and the sad face looking down on her deserves nice things too. She doesn't need presents from anybody right now. But it's nice that he gave her the present of company.

When Equius finished the call she put a hand on the stranger's face. "Why are you crying? You're not the one hurt here," she said with a weak, shaky voice. Equius just stared at her. Stared and stared. And the woman waited for him to respond but it didn't look like he has anything to say.

So she asked another question, one that most people would know the answer to, "What is your name?"

"Equius," he said. His voice seemed like tin and porcelain. Sounding rough but sounding so fragile at the same time.

Then he muttered apologies, hundreds of them. He melted into them. The apologies were echoed in the water. One apology after another after another being reflected between the droplets.

The woman patted him on the back. It's okay, it's okay, I'm not hurt that bad, see? She probably said and gave him a smile. But he didn't see her smile. His eyes were too blurred by tears and shame.

Then the ambulance came and they let Equius sit with her in there. Even if they didn't let him he would probably force himself in there anyways. But then they would probably have arrested him or something.

She told him her name eventually. She told him her name was Nepeta. She told him when she was hooked up to a hundred tubes and machines. The tubes tangling with each other and the machines making gossips composed of beeping.

By that time Equius stopped crying. By that time he felt the weight of guilt over him. By that time he noticed that she wasn't afraid of him. She didn't scream at him in fear. She didn't do what other people do when they look at him.

Then Equius smiled and she smiled back.

She drifted off to sleep after a while. And so did he.