Snow fell heavy that night- slow, flat flakes muffing the world into silence. She stepped out of her office, her breath ghosting in the air, the streetlight humming above her like it was the only sound left alive.
The - a gunshot.
It cracked through the stillness, sharp and final.
Her body jerked. For a moment she blinked, confused, until she saw the dark bloom spreading across her coat. Warmth rushed down her ribs, sticky and metallic.
She dropped to her knees. The snow cushioned her fall, soft and cold, drinking her blook like it had been waiting.
"It's so cold..." she whispered. "So...cold."
Her fingers pressed weakly against the wound. Her breath came out ragged, dissolving before it reached the night. The red kept widening beneath her, turning the white street into watercolor tragedy.
The she heard laughter.
Light, familiar, cruel.
Through the snowfall stood a teenage girl in a school uniform - ponytail, eyes bright with arrogance, the same grin she once wore like armor.
For a second, it felt like mockery, like her younger self had come to watch her die. But the snow around her flickered, shifted, melted into sunlight. The city faded, replaced by tilted hallways and fluorescent light.
A memory.
The teenage version stood with a metal bucket in her hand. A drenched girl crouched on the floor, hair dripping, books ruined. The young version of herself laughed - a sharp, careless sound - and duped the rest of the freezing water onto the crying girl's head. The bucket hit the floor with a metallic clang. More laughter.
The dying woman watched. Her mouth twitched into a weak, bitter smile.
"How pathetic..."she breathed.
The hallway dissolved. The laughter bled into the wind. Snow fell again, covering the crimson slowly, kindly.
Her eyelids fluttered. A single tear slid down her cheek, carving a clean line through the frost on her skin before freezing halfway.
Her heartbeat stuttered once.
The world went quiet.
And the snow kept falling - white again, as if nothing had ever been red.