It was getting cold.

That one thought was the only thing that had registered in Piper's mind in the last half hour. She was sitting in the park on a bench, staring up at the fluffy clouds that stretched across the afternoon sky. She was just staring, not even trying to pick out turtles or giraffes among the endless twist of shapes. Sometimes it was nice to just let her mind go blank and drift away from anything that plagued her. Her fingers were wrapped around a bio-degradable cup of hot chocolate that she had barely touched, but it was doing such a good job of keeping her hands warm that she didn't mind passing on drinking it for a while. It was enough to just sit there with it warming her fingers.

Once that one thought passed by though, it turned around and flitted through again, until she was slowly brought down from her cloud and forced to realize that it was going to be dark soon. The chill wasn't just the cold of mid-fall in Destiny City, it was the chill of approaching night and fading sunshine. As much as Piper had adjusted, her parents still weren't keen on her being out alone at night lest.. something else happen. They had always been so easy-going but they weren't ready to lose her twice.

She sighed and glanced down at her hot chocolate, resigned to finishing it and starting to head home. Instead, she caught herself smiling half-heartedly when she saw that the foam floating on top had formed a crooked heart. She let go of the cup with one hand so that she could prod a single finger at the lop-sided half of the heart, pushing it into a more recognizable shape. The simple act seemed to please her because her smile widened as she reached up to suck the residue from her fingertip. As she brought her hand back down she saw caught a quick glance at her fingernails - a rainbow of chipped paint greeted her and she made a mental note to repaint them later. Then again, Piper had to make mental notes about mental notes just to remember things sometimes.

Somewhere just past her fingers, past the point where her eyes couldn't focus properly, she saw a blur of bluish hair as it passed and started to head down a path away from her. Instantly a dozen dreams pulled and tugged at her brain and she dropped her hand, blinking to try and focus on the person walking in the distance but he was just too far away. Suddenly set on edge and slightly panicked, Piper jumped up without much thought for the nearly-full cup of hot chocolate in her hand. Naturally, most of it went flying onto her bright orange and yellow checkered hoodie and all over her favorite flower-printed scarf. Most days it would have made her frown to waste something so tasty but because the chocolate was barely warm anyway and there was a person she had to see, she shrugged it off and went running as fast as her clumsy little legs would carry her.

"Hey, hey wait up!" She managed to yell at the boy walking ahead of her, despite it being difficult at a full dash. The distance was closing between them but she felt the need to grab his attention, to make sure he didn't disappear without her and leave her feeling more lost than before. Could it really be the end to all those awful dreams, could he really be that boy she knew but didn't?