I can't get out of this headspace anymore, I don't know what to do. Walls closing in, something clawing from the other side, a change that I'd sooner let take me than live in this stagnant pit. Another nightmare takes me and her arms hold me close enough to feel soothing heartbeat. Except she isn't there and I'm so alone that my eyes yet hurt from yesterday's tears. The skin feels tight, my strained gaze staring out into the dark of early morning. 

Wind take me, a whistling death that gives a rush of fleeting life in its harsh touch. So fucking cold, I shiver and wince against it stubbornly. I've truly never seen a sky more beautiful, an endless blue still kissed by nocturnal hue on this winter's day. It's not enough to bring me happiness, a joy I've gone without for longer than my mind can recall. When I was a child, I was no doubt happy, though I could certainly sense the turn in my adolescence. I was probably happy in my childhood, but that was someone else's happiness. No longer mine. 

I can't get out of this headspace that makes me numb and wrong, wondering why life comes so easy to those who pass me by and chat so idly. It's embarrassing to find oneself so dysfunctional, I feel useless in ways I've no words to describe. See? 

Arms wrap around me again and I realise I can't deny them. Oh, that's right, I've found something I'm capable of. A girl just like me who felt need to take measures to the extreme, I collected her so confidently and now she lays in my bed and makes this apartment her own on my request. No, my command. Arms tighten around me and the walls begin to recede slowly. Loneliness is difficult to unlearn, but I'm starting to try. When I look at her, I slowly accept that even I have my uses. 

"Mmh..." She reacts to my cold fingers in her hair, shuffling so close that we could be mistaken for a single sleeper. I stare out through the window and come to understand that the biting wind no longer reaches if I choose not to let it, I'm still in bed and I've the option to find contentment here. 

Shivering, I pull the sheets over my curled up form and decide to enjoy her warmth for as long as it lasts. Maybe she'll leave by the week's end, but I won't worry about that. As I consider how I brought her here in the first place, I suppose I could always try to hypnotise her into staying! Ah, I was so deep into mind control stories once upon a time and inevitably picked up the gist of things through online roleplay, back in those days my libido was in full swing. When the swing stopped dead, I no longer had the energy nor drive to pursue those fantasies further. All my online friends were horny and feral, I loved that about them while I was the same way. When lust no longer looked my way, I felt an outsider, that I'd lost my fun. Even when my fascination grew into something more academic and I dragged myself to school again like my parent's had always pleaded, it wasn't long before I'd isolated myself entirely. Things remained that way until... 

"Mhhgh... oh uhm, morning..." The girl embracing me looks up with eyes full of life, a far cry from the dull orbs that situated sockets on the night I first found her, reaping that cold look from her tired eyes. "You've been crying." She clocks me all too easily, her thumb gently feeling that red skin and her face leaning close to mine. "That's okay. I'm still so paranoid, haha. We'll be okay though, won't we?"

She's asking me? I guess her image of me must be quite a grand one, that's hard to live up to but I suppose I can only try my best. "You're so cute, of course we will so long as you can still keep warming me up in bed like this. It's been a few days already though and you haven't gone to retrieve any of your stuff or see your folks. I don't think that's living, I... I don't even know your name."

The soft girl smiles at me and nods. "Yeah, I should let people know I'm not dead, hehe. I was just scared that if I left I wouldn't be able to come back. Silly, right? I've been ignoring calls from my college for a week too."

"We both need to go back to school. I want to start living. I think my life might actually be worth something if I can turn a cutie like you onto girls." I laugh despite that usual mental fog that hits me in the morning, feeling it wisp away and leaving me with her. Silken hair between my fingers, all mine. 

"Yeah, so... can I keep staying here, together with you? It's nice being away from home, plus I'm dying to find out where you learnt how to do.... whatever that was, up on the cliff." Her smile heats me up, it's all I really needed apparently. I'm no longer so cold. 

"I'm actually taking classes on 'whatever that was', or well, I should be. I wanted to be a hypnotherapist, I think I still do after seeing the good it can do first hand. I mean, not to boast or anything but well... you're mine now, right? Better than being a dash of red in rocky waters forgotten in a flash. I... I think a pair of arms around you is effective therapy on its own sometimes." Thankful that we woke so early, I decide to enjoy this time in my messy bed for as long as I can get away with. 

"I'll say! I think I really like women after all, there's a girl I used to room with in first year who I definitely had a huge crush on in hindsight." 

"Well, fuck her." Am I really getting jealous already? It's not like we're dating or... well, what else would we be doing here now that I think about it...

"That was the idea, but I guess I'm a dummy and besides, she was definitely as straight as they come. Anyway, are you getting worked up over the thought of me pining for other women? A possessive miss reaper." The girl whose name still eludes me leans forwards and closes her eyes, kissing me sweetly and making me blush uncharacteristically. 

"My former roommate used to hypnotise me, called me her little test dummy. I think those were the days..." I wasn't happy like my innocent childhood self, but at least the sadness could be switched off by that magpie's words.

A hand crawls up my shirt and wraps around my back. "Well now I'm jealous! I can be that for you, if you'd like. A dummy. I don't know if I'd be very good at all that sorta stuff, I barely remember it back on the hill so let's clean the state and start again okay? I'm Mina, by the way, I'm also something of a therapist. I'm studying beauty therapy, if you'll believe it."

"Why wouldn't I? I'm... Saige. Will you be my girlfriend, Mina? I mean... are you mine?" It seems a redundant question at this point but then, I want to hear it from her lips. 

The girl giggles so pleasantly, holding up a peace sign with the hand not currently inside of my shirt. "I'm your girl." 

"It's such a cute name. Like miniature." I blow against her neck and the girl pouts, gripping my waistband.

"I'm not that small! I'm perfectly sized for cuddling, miss growth spurt!" 

The two of us laugh as we play at touching each other so timidly, no longer acting like living dead girls but something much more normal. I'm no reaper, but I'd still like to help people with these words of mine if only to feel better about myself. As Mina reaches to touch my sex, I grab her wrist and decide to give her pleasure instead. I can't explain why, it just feels right. When she moans against my fingers and squirms in the borrowed pyjamas that fit her poorly, I find myself falling for her. 

I can't get out of this headspace, she's so unbelievably cute. And wet. All for me.