Wonka was outside. There was ground outside of the factory, and he could see other buildings. The unfamiliar air and an environment which he had not himself designed, one out of his control, felt like an assault to his senses. He stood, unsure of himself and the world that awaited him beyond the safety of the only walls he had known for so long. Finally, he breathed in. The fresh winter night air was ice when it hit his lungs.
Wonka took a few, echoing steps across the courtyard. Then the sidewalk, the street, and his feet were carrying him forward without instruction. Dark facades of buildings rose out of the cobblestone around him, entrances gaping little mouths shrouded in shadow where the weak glow from street lamps did not reach, window shutters like closed eyelids, revealing nothing of the humanity inside.
The quiet, nighttime streets swallowed the chocolate maker up. The world seemed to spin, the infantilizar contours of the outside overwhelming the caged man. His steps faltered. Snow glinted with light out of illuminated patches, small beacons dancing in Wonka's vision. He veered left, towards the wall of the nearest house, and a gloved hand grasped at the slippery brick front as he settled himself against it.
His eyes closed, and he took a deep steadying breath, the chilly air oddly calming. After a few moments. Wonka felt steady again, and cautiously opened his eyes, gazing out over his left shoulder. As he peered out into the darkness, in his state of heightened awareness, the man's eyes picked out the slight movement of something further down the street. Close to the ground, by a street lamp, there was a dark shape that seemed to be shifting slightly before it lay still once again.
Out in the street, Arya felt a giddying sense of freedom despite in the various aches and pains plaguing her battered body and soul. Holding onto the icy exterior of Allen's apartment building, she stumbled her way through the snow and dirt, thinking of nothing but getting as far away from the apartment and the man inside. She was smiling, hot tears stinging cheeks that were becoming icier by the minute.
She made it only halfway down the street before the pain in her ankle became too much for legs shaking with cold.
"Sh-should've brought a damn coat" Arya muttered to herself, realizing her frozen form would carry her no further, before she took one more shaky step and collapsed in a heap on the ground. The snow beneath her hands and the floating glow of the streetlamp above her were the last things she noted, tiredly. before slipping away into darkness.
Awake, once more, to the sound of muffled footsteps somewhere in the distance. The woman attempted, then, to lift her arm, which felt like lead and dropped back down after only a few inches of movement. A head tried to move, lift up, but only managed a slight roll. Her ear was now pressed into the snow, which she no longer felt, and wide hazel eyes, glazed over, stared unseeingly into the night.
A figure crouched down near the young woman lying in the snow, a gloved hand reaching out to check her pulse, touch icy skin. The man muttered to himself, thinking more clearly now, shocked by the presence of the lonely dying soul in the empty night. Arms reached gingerly around the frozen shoulders and legs with purpose.
She was in the air now, moving, face pressed against velvet she could not feel but imagined to be soft. The girl wanted to speak, to call sound to her throat or move her lips. She wanted to question her transporter, ask about their purpose and presence out in the sleep-hours. She was not afraid to die out on the snow, or wherever she was being brought, but she wanted her end to be in peace.
She gave up trying. Oddly, she felt safe for the first time in months, with this unknown newcomer, safe enough to allow herself to succumb fully to unconsciousness. The irony of this did not escape her, even now.
