#nyoopsie

Cold air hangs from her lips in a visible cloud as she stands in front of the window display of a hardware store, arms crossed over her chest for warmth. Strange, how in the span of a year, a pine tree goes from a symbol of Christmas cheer to a source of firewood. Even as she stares down the finely decorated, artificial specimen tucked behind the window, the joyfulness of the season is lost on her.

She supposes it could be worse. Glenn and Beth could be gone, but she has them now. Her heart pangs for her father, for the others, but a beggar cannot be a chooser-- and thus she continues to stare in silence at the illuminated boughs before her, mind working to ignore all that she has lost to focus on what she has gained.

Two faces are burnt into her skull as she pushes open the door to the shop, and promptly exits with a box almost her size, struggling to get a solid grip on it as snowflakes caress her body and decorate her hair. With a huff, she lifts it off the ground-- only to stop short as she catches movement from the corner of her eye, head jolting up at once to look at a stranger seeking to enter the door behind her.