Author's Notes: An apology for a tardy Salvation posting. This is the product of my melancholy and a rather lovely Ben Folds Five song. One thing I've always loved in any kind of writing is good imagery. Maybe it's because good images can stay with me for a long, long time. So, I hunt for them. And sometimes, I try to write them. This is one of those.

Snowfall

It was snowing.

That alone was a novelty. It rarely snowed in the city.

The snow fell in fat, movie-perfect snowflakes. There was no wind to whip and burn at the people below. Instead, grey clouds were shedding white show on the black city. It was almost poetic.

He stood, looking up. It was strange, looking up.

There was something in the night tonight, something about the snow falling on the empty streets that made him feel vaguely nostalgic but for what he wasn't sure. He was aching but it wasn't the ache he had long grown accustomed to, the feel of too many years heaped upon a too-young body. Instead, there was a subtler, growing pain nibbling at his edges.

The man stood in an empty street, the soft white snowflakes falling against his upturned face, melting against his skin. They caught at his eyelashes and lost themselves in the red of his hair. They fell on his shoulders slowly making a blanket of snow.

There was something he was trying to remember. No, someone. He could almost picture her face. Her name danced around in the back of his head, half-remembered like the melody to a long forgotten song. Suddenly, it seemed desperately important that he remember something about her. Anything. But, like a song that refuses to be remembered, the more he tried to picture her, the faster her face slipped away.

They had warned him, oh they had warned him that this would happen. Short and long term memory lose was an accepted side-effect. Negligible considering the potential gains.

We are moving our race beyond the confines of nature. Science will bring about the next step in our evolution.

Who had told him that?

He couldn't remember if it had hurt or not. That seemed a blessing. He had vague impressions of wires and liquids, metals and knives, but he couldn't really remember. Not really.

Something twinged on his arm and he blinked away the snow from his eyes. His arms hurt.

The man looked down at the fresh scar on his skin. It was red and puckered but already it was healing. It wouldn't take long.

There were other scars too but he couldn't remember them either.

It's like the most amazing feeling in the world. You wake up and for a while you can't remember a thing. It's like being fucking born again Reno.

The man let his arm drop away again and stared up at the cloudy sky. There was nothing to see but the tiny snowflakes falling for miles and miles. He felt cold inside. Numb. With each snowflake that died against his too-hot skin he felt a little bit cooler. They were melting and making tiny rivers on him as they faded away.

There it was again. There was something he was supposed to remember. He had promised her that he wouldn't forget.

If only he could remember her name.