Curved arms swayed about, and couples took hands as they joined in their dance. All spun, all danced, all jumped and spun on curved toes about him. The ground was coated in a dust of snow that kicked up as the ballerinas moved about him in a whirl of white. While he could make out the confines of crystal glass of the dance hall they were all collected together in, he took more note of the open ceiling, broken, shattered, and letting in the falling snowfall that the white clouds brought down from the skies.
Cold, he rubbed his shoulders, and noticed he was dressed in black. A long shirt and slacks, with simple shoes. The snow collected on his shoulders and shoes, and he batted his hair to get a layer off. None of it melted, but he felt cold nonetheless – but not just cold on the surface. He felt cold inside as well. That deep, consuming chill that felt as if his heart, his being, was being held in a firm grip.
He felt this cold before.
It was her presence that he noticed first. She didn't need to speak or appear, but he felt her. A sadness that crept across the dance floor and touched him. He spun about, and caught a flash of silver hair – then she was gone.
He pushed past the dancers, a sudden feeling gripping him that he was going to lose her forever and if he should so much as hesitate, he would be forever lost without her. A fleeting though passed him that he shouldn't be concerned about her. She was not on his side. She brought only destruction and ruin to his world, but he felt that if he didn't catch her, didn't see her, his own world would still be lost without her.
He gripped cold shoulders and skirts, pushing and shoving past the dances that refused to take notice of his desperate desire to get through and chase after the phantom.
Then he felt her again. Behind him, and as he turned, he noticed through the dancers her simple face, hard to catch in a few seconds before she was hidden again – but he caught that sad, pleading expression. She needed something. Something had happened to her. He was sure something had, and she was bearing something tremendous on her shoulders. Every part of him wanted to help alleviate her pain.
Again he rushed into the crowd, and still she continued to escape. A silver streak of her flowing hair. A gentle sidestep in a flowing white dress, vivid white and standing out from the pure-white snow-dancers about her. In all the liveliness of the dance, the song and her expression stood out of place. It was too sad, too tremendously miserable to bear.
"Stop it." He said, frustrated at another point where their paths failed to meet. The dancers had to stop. How could they celebrate at a time like this? Couldn't they feel her? Know that she wasn't in the mood for dancing?
"I SAID STOP IT!"
Suddenly every dancer bursted in a puff of snow. The music stopped and the world was a slow moving blizzard about him. In the curtain of white, he made her out. Simply standing at the center a ways off, perfectly poised and yet relaxed, and holding out her hands. "I'll be there soon…"
*************************************************
He woke up, jerking from his daydream as he caught his breath. His body was in a cold sweat, and he gasped mouthfuls before looking about for her. Instead, he noticed he was in social studies, with a few confused classmates looking at him. His teacher took notice that he woke up and, in turn, had been sleeping. He was given a look that said he would be talked to after class. He didn't care. He was too focused on something more urgent, but he realized that she was lost again. The girl, and while she promised she'd be coming, his insides still felt frozen at the idea that she was gone forever or might disappear, never to be seen again.
If not worst of all, that there was no way to bring her to him.
