There once was a time that life was worth living. That there were people who actually cared whether he was okay or not. That he felt like he belonged.

That time is a mere memory now.

He sits in the biting cold alone, completely and utterly alone. No one is here to care for him any longer, not one is here to make sure he's feeling okay, no one is here to stop him from doing something irreversible. Not one person.

That's fine with him though. If no one cares about him, no one will miss him, and why should he try to force his misery on everyone else? Even a fraction of his misery would depress anyone else beyond imagination. He doesn't want anyone else to have to go through what he's feeling right now. It's much too unbearable a pain. It's an overwhelming loneliness, hopelessness, depression. No, he couldn't force anything like this onto another person, not even a fraction of it. He's just going to get rid of it, so that no one else will ever have to be bothered by him again.

He looks hopelessly up at the sky, at the darkening pale gray clouds . The sun is going down, and soon he won't have to worry about anything else anymore. Everything will be gone, and then maybe he can be allowed to feel something again. Maybe he'll even get to feel happiness.

No, that's hoping for too much. With him, there's no such thing as happiness. He was never meant to feel such a thing. He sighs, breath rising in the air and dissolving into nothingness. Just like he will in just a little while.....

He made sure he came to a secluded area, somewhere quiet where no one will ever find him. In the mountains behind the town, hidden by trees, where no one ever goes. He'll be safe here. Here he can have peace as long as he needs it. He closes his eyes, wrapping his arms around his knees and leaning back against the pine tree. The needles droop so far down that they brush against his face, poking him uncomfortably. Sometimes when he moves, they stab him and draw blood. Not too much blood, but enough that it begins to drip down his face. Whenever this happens, he likes to count how long it takes for the blood to freeze and sees how far it can get down his face before it does so. It's a very depressing game, he knows, but it's something to do, and there's not really much that can depress him more than he already is these days.

He's freezing. The sun has already disappeared behind the mountains and shrouding everything around him in shadow. This makes the cold even more excruciatingly extreme, which means his end is coming all the more quickly. This puts him at ease; he knows the end is near, and with every second that draws past, he can feel his body shutting down even more. First it was his ears, nose, fingers and toes that went red and numb. It was a painful freezing feeling at first, but then the feeling left and he felt better. Not that he cared anyway, he knew it would all be over soon enough.

Then his arms and legs began to freeze up, and moving them was painful and hard. He's managed to lock his arms around his bent knees, and that's how they're frozen right now. His fingers won't move at all, and though it's uncomfortable, he's still reassured by this.

He feels the heat escaping out of his body. It's replaced by an unfamiliar cold, a harsh and unstable but final cold. His lips are coated in ice, and small crystals grip his eyelashes. That along with the frozen blood makes his face painfully cold, but he's once again happy to be feeling this pain. He's close, so close.

Gradually, an exhaustion begins to take over. He slowly gets a growing urge to just go to sleep. It won't be sleep, but it just feels so natural to him. He wants to succumb to it, to just do what it tells him. The urge becomes so strong, so overwhelming, and after one last look at the world around him, the last thing he'll ever see, he obliges. Now he can finally be at peace. He'll never be lonely or hopeless or depressed ever again. He doesn't feel any loss however, because he never saw the world as even close to beautiful. Not his definition of beautiful, anyway. His thoughts are dissipating as his exhausted mind comes slowly to a stop. He feels no loss, none at all. A slight smile graces his lips as he falls into an endless sleep, and his chest ceases its peaceful pattern of rising and falling.

If only he knew.