He dreams sometimes, familiar things like a memory or a comforting lie, walking in the snow. He's following someone. Someone taller than he, with something big β a drill? - slung effortlessly over one shoulder. Light colored hair curls between collar and heavy woollen cap. Numbers' back aches, but an odd ache β not like the sharp oen he lives with these days β and behnd him he drags something.
On a good night he walks for miles behind this man. Eons spent thinking on the right phrase to elicit a half assed back rub when they're finally somewhere warm. His back will ache, his eyes remain on the shifting curls between collar and heavy woollen cap, and he will walk all night in his sleep.
On a bad night it is much the same. The snow. The ache. The curls. But behind him, oh, behind him he drags something, and on these bad nights he'll turn away from the man and his shifting light colored curls. He'll look behind him to see a snarling wolf tied to him, just waiting for him to turn. To look.
The ache in his back disappears overcome by biting jaws and tearing teeth. He's on the ground, in the snow, blood staining once white a muddy red. He tries to scream, tries to call for help. Tries to catch the attention of the man he'd been following. But he walks on, walks away unhearing.
Numbers' throats in the jaws of the wolf and the man's broad back disappears into the falling snow. And Numbers is left bleeding out in the snow alone. Cold. And alone.
He wakes from those dreams screaming quiet and hoarse from a throat no longer capable of conveying his terror.
And then, yet again, he is alone.
