It is dark outside, and you are alone. The air is crisp and dry. Your throat and tongue feel raw and itchy, like you've been talking aloud for hours and you've run out of things to say. Your head spins and your eyes flicker from silhoeutte to silhouette, but each one sways away from you, as if disgusted. Your mouth is open, as if mid-sentence. No sound comes out.

You are alone. (Perhaps no one was ever there from the start. Perhaps you always were alone.)

Baring your throat to the trees, you look up at the sky, and there are no stars.