The withering leaves crackled beneath my fingers, paralyzed with frost. I exhaled through barely parted lips, watching as my breath capturned the air around it, possessing it, almost like a shadow. It was far too cold to be outside, and yet the chill of the ice ridden earth was comforting.

The sun was beginning to bleed watercolors over the horizon, reds and oranges and yellows that drowned the remaining stars in its light. Those that were still visible shimmered with a quiet desperation, as if fighting for their very existance.

My eyes wandered to a leaf drifting down from a nearby tree. It was sad, really, how bare the trees were. I missed the firey colors of autumn, the ones that blazed as if remembering the warmth of Summer.

But now the leaves were brown and dying, too weak to cling to the branches of the rickety old trees. Another reminder that soon, everything would be covered in ice.

The idea of Winter was comforting as well. A too bright sun on a snowy day. Snow. I couldn't wait for snow. I longed for the icy sheets of white that dusted the bushes along the walkway of my house and painted beautiful, swirling designs in the corners of my windows. I anxiously awaited the day when all the trees were sealed in a layer of frozen crystal, making them sparkle in the rising sun.

As my opinion of the approaching season was warming, the air was cooling rapidly. The leaves that encased me in their cristy cocoon were slowly freezing over, and the chill left me completely and comfortably numb.

The frosty air seeped through my skin, causing me to lose all feeling in my body, and I began to grow tired, embracing the sensation. Maybe, just maybe, I would allow myself to get lost in the transition of autumn to winter. And all the while the cold slowly beckoned me to eternal slumber, I would remain comfortably numb.