The steady rain fell throughout the morning. She sat alone watching the drops hail down towards the Earth, plummeting to their ultimate demise; actually rather merrily she thought. It was cold, a deep cold that penetrated her bones. Unlike the freezing winter, which numbed her senses, the wet air invaded her marrow and stole any life she had left within her.

Loneliness was a curious thing. Voices drifted past her; through her, but all the same she remained alone. One. Herself and yet uniquely different from whom she thought she was and who she wanted most to be. Once in awhile she would see a familiar face and would forcefully strain her cheek muscles into spreading apart to show her teeth. Whether it was a grimace masquerading as a smile, or the most genuine smile on Earth she could never tell. But it was there and that was all that counted. No one else would have to know.

Generally she kept her space. It was her rule of thumb to stay away from the human population to the greatest possible extent. Yet she had faltered in this agenda, and now she was paying the price. She was paying the price rather dearly, she mused. It seems when one opens their heart they also make vulnerable every other surface of their mind. You can't open the gates for just one person. Once there is room the enemy army will try and invade. Will your defenses ever be good enough?

It was almost time to go to class. It was almost time to be a real person. That phrase sounded so familiar and she struggled to remember where she had heard it from. It echoed through her mind, bouncing off the empty walls and smashing into the soft spots in her brain. Blunt trauma, kid. Just blame it on blunt trauma.

She started to shake. Thoughts came harder to the surface, breaking the status quo with enormous red-capped waves. Her mind couldn't decipher what her neurons fired into the space. Empty space. A void. She was gone. Was she ever really there?

It was dark. Dark and lonely. She existed somewhere, she felt herself feel it. She wasn't even thinking any more. She just was. An eternity passed by. She sat. She felt. She was. She was not. She was not many things. Not brave, or smart, or beautiful, but she was and that had to count for something.

Existence in itself was a beautiful theory. For many years it had stroked her fuzzy mind and soothed her racing thoughts. If she existed then she was someone. If she was someone there must be a purpose to her life. So she continued on her self proclaimed righteous battle. A crusader of sorts for her noble cause, wearing the scarred red cross proudly.

However, invisible as she was, drowning in the corner of the obnoxiously burgundy colored couch, her mind had drawn the conclusion that alone one cannot truly exist. And there was no doubt in her mind that she was horribly, horribly alone. Try as she had to live up to her epic battle with shedding her cactus-like needles, she remained just as she had always been. One. Alone. An outsider witnessing life. The possibility of existence floating freely through the air, but something she would never obtain.

So she sat. And eventually went into her cold classroom, and lost herself in the calm, soothing darkness that cradled her. She had always thought that it had threatened to envelope her, but now she didn't know why she struggled so hard against it. After all, it was lonely too, and they could share the dark.