I don't know how long I laid there, toes twitching and breath hitching as a thousand dreams of Fabian, the fox, and Flora swam in and out of my mind. The sunny day had given way to a brutally chilly evening; my window was coated in frost when I opened my eyes. I could have sworn I was still dreaming, still running from monsters even as I leapt into their arms. There was always that bitter melancholy that came with waking up, knowing I couldn't move as I did in the unconscious fantasies behind my sleeping eyes. The loss was exacerbated by the cold. Entire seasons could have passed since I laid myself pathetically to rest, the final dregs of summer and fall drifting into the whirlwind of a lonely winter.

Shaking myself free of the sheets, I pulled my way up to the window. Beyond what my breath melted away, it was impossible to distinguish shapes beyond the glass. Even where I knew the hedges to be could only be seen as shifting masses of gray and white. Despite the evident frost and the painful memories I had being out in the cold, my body still yearned to be outside, crunching barefoot on the frozen grass. My heart wanted fire, wanted warmth, but without the one who seemed summon comforting heat wherever he went, my bones ached to cling to the romantic misery of an early winter chill.

I couldn't even wait for proper clothes - throwing myself into my chair, I rolled to the door and soon, the top of the steps. My breath hung on the air like a lovesick woman, twisting and drifting until it slowly trailed away, icy white fingers sliding past my face. Reaching out, I touched the bannister and gasped as the frost-struck wood slid under my fingers. If it had been possible to stand and take the steps slowly, torturously, one at a painstaking time, I surely would have. Instead, I slipped down to a step and hissed as what little heat remained within me rushed out to eagerly greet the ground. Folding the chair, I threw it, wincing with delirious satisfaction as it crashed at the bottom of the stairs, the wheels spinning with rhythmically angry clicks.

Once I had reclaimed my broken throne and wedged the front door open, I wasted no more time in sliding my way to the garden.

It was even more beautiful and violent than the view from my window had afforded. The hedges were so frosted over in ice that one could have snapped several branches off with the greatest of ease. Looking up at my room, I could see the withering vines of the roses that had so long been the only things of beauty I could touch for myself. In the sudden vanishing of the autumnal heat and crispness, they had nearly crumpled away, mere stalks and petals that drifted to the ground as they curled off their buds.

I closed my eyes and breathed in, letting the frost and the petals paint a picture behind my eyes. I felt hands, fingers caressing me once more, gently in my hair as if afraid I, too, would crumble away under a touch. I felt the curve of lips press against my own, their icy touch stealing away the very blood that rushed desperately to keep me from dying. Each snowflake and gentle caress of the flowers that fell heavenly above me felt like the careful, loving touch of fingers, gentle but firm. Was I being claimed, held down by the melancholic grasp of winter? I shook my head and opened my eyes, surprised to feel the painful sting of my tears, frozen before they could pass my lashes. Had it really only been a handful of days since Fabian left me? I winced as the air within my lungs scraped at the organs within, reminding me that our terrible country suffered seasons and violent changes from one to the next. Would Fabian even know how to come back home? He said he could smell my brother and sister, whatever that meant, but would his freckled nose know the way home when it was so suddenly changed?

Though I felt the keen desire to throw myself into my emotional turmoil and weep against the now stone-like hedges, I also felt a desire stirring forth that I could possess no words for. It was not the same desire that filled my cheeks with blood when I looked at Fabian, covered in sweat from a day's work and cheeks bruised with a heavy breath, nor was it the desire I felt when I watched Petra run in the grass with her feet bared for the mud to reach back to, her movement unimpeded by a crippled limb. Crossing to the nearest gate that separated the violent villagers from our vulnerable house, I leaned forward in my chair and grasped the miserable bars with my shaking hands.

What did I want? What was it, with or without my family or Fabian or the constant, plaguing terror of the man who'd once nearly ruined my life, that I, Evan Hase, wanted out of this life?

I was limited in my ability, but why should I be? My legs were turned wheels, but that should pose no bother, no limits on where I could travel, where I could go and who I could be. I pressed my forehead between my hands, gasping as the cold metal seared a blissful line of frost into my flesh.

This was maddening, truly. Even with my mother's excessive neglect and my father's mindless descent into insanity, I felt as if this not knowing that awaited me, this longing that seeped out from my accursed bones, was bound to spell my doom before the poison of my parents could finish me off. In that moment, I craved a bottle of wine. I longed to see the thick of the red poison spilt across the snow, but also to drown myself in the drunkenness of a bottle. What better time to fully inebriate myself than in this moment of senseless confusion?

Cursing the whole of the way to the cellar that lurked under the aged wooden hatch behind the house, I wondered why my legs had refused to move outside of my sexual exploration. Was it a matter of my heart that I couldn't walk to the misery I knew awaited me in the cellar? While that was all I had to ponder as a possible answer to my disability, I only needed to imagine, mired as it was in shame, how I'd grown excited being held by Fabian, or relive the kiss we had shared in the cemetery to know this wasn't really the answer. Had my heart not pounded itself nearly into extinction then, when he answered my attraction with his own? Had my heartbeat not betrayed me as he leaned over me in bed and wrapped my covers around my cold body? There had been no movement then, and so, all I was left with was the turmoil of unanswerable questions as I pried a bottle from its uniform position in the cellar. As I made my way back out, I paused and turned back, regarding the multitude of bottles as they glinted in the dusty gloom. Was this all really worth the trouble? There was nothing special about the bottles. They all shared the same shape, all possessed the same labels my parents had painstakingly added upon their first acquiring of the damned things, before they were rendered livid corpses in their house. The liquid that lay dormant in the glass was all the same, every last drop. It couldn't have been worth it, but I raised my chin to the glowering room all the same.

"You won't have me," I declared, daring the stifling air that sat for so many years undisturbed to stop me before I escaped its grasp. When nothing moved to restrain me, I pulled myself free of the stink and rolled my treasure to the graveyard that was once our garden.

Having carved away a relatively dry place to curl up, I fell out of my chair and settled against the base of a hedge, the only unfrosted one I could find. Surrounded by the tall monsters of afflicted vegetation and clutching a bottle in my hand, I felt as though I were a mad drunk myself, reduced to the most inhumane of places, if only to keep a hold of my drink.

As it was, I was not a drunk, but only a sad young man, and to me, they seemed worth about the same.

I fumbled with frigid fingers over the cork until it popped free and the intensity of the wine's stench assaulted my nostrils. It was foul, and exactly what I needed. I pressed the bottle to my lips and very nearly spat it back out. Had being with Fabian really been all I needed to ignore the too-sharp sting of the alcohol? Grimacing, I took another swallow and leaned my head back to think aloud.

"What," I started, voice cracking with the first breath, "do you want out of this life, Evan Hase?" If I possessed a middle name, it would have been a fine time for it, but all I could question myself were terms I had never chosen. "Is it adventure, work, or power? Do you desire wealth and" - I took a heavy swig - "stability?" I swished the wine between my teeth, tonguing where the alcohol left a thick residue behind. Already, my blood felt sluggish with the sickly sweet toxins rushing through my body. I blinked, feeling as if I had been slowed by a great weight.

"I want revenge."

There was a hollow wind in my silence, a cold rushing wind that could have been a whistle, a call, a groan from out of sight. It picked up a pile of leaves and small twigs and the last of the petals from my beloved roses and spun them haphazardly across my vision, depositing them carelessly out of sight. The frost creaked and the hedges around me cried out in their muffled voices.

Revenge, was it? I held my hand out, the fingertips already turning pink from the bitter conditions, and poured wine over the skin. It slipped from my palm as if from a cut, rushing over my fingers and spilling into the frost-dusted and greedy ground. Against my neglected skin and the angry white of the earth, it looked very much like blood. Would the rich red liquid draw any monsters to my feet? Would Fabian mistake it for my own blood and rush home? I almost wanted to die again, if only to be torn apart for a worthy cause. Alas, I had decided I wanted revenge, and I could not fight back against the injustice of my parents, my neighbours, and that vile, spiteful fox that flitted across my nightmares and my memories. I knew not who I hated more, out of my parents and that man, but as I took in another great mouthful of wine, I decided it was just fine to hate both of them as equals. In my growing inebriation, even what the fox had threatened in our family - our name, our limited wealth, and Petra's innocence - was nothing compared to the ire I felt bubbling within me at the fool he'd made of me.

"Mark my words, Antoine, I will have my vengeance, and it will be a gloriously bloody thing!"

Realising I had drunk nearly the rest of the bottle, I stood and fell over onto the handles of my chair. I stood? Overcome with shock and confusion, I promptly lost my footing, toppling over the side of the instrument of my movement, falling hard on the crunching dirt. Still, even as I wheezed on the ground, the last of the wine spilling across my chest and blossoming crimson down my sleeves and my hands, I laughed aloud. I had stood! I had pulled my broken, battered legs to a stand and without so much as a thought about the impossibility of such an action!

I could not stand again, not while thinking about the possibility of it I supposed, but I laughed and laughed until my heart gasped for reprieve, for I had defied what my curse deemed possible for Evan Hase.

My newfound purpose was a step closer, and I needed only Fabian by my side to encourage my heart to keep pace with my wretched body.