Winter had clasped it's icy fingers upon the English countryside. Snow had crept it's way down from the peaks of the mountains above to blanket the sleepy villages, desperately clinging to their slopes, with a thick blanket of white powder which grew ever thicker with the unceasing onslaught of the rushing snowflakes that attacked in ranks of shivering grey.
And yet, there was a strange warmth to these cold times; the comforting yellows and oranges of the lights in those cosy stone-clad homes, cast a reassuring glow onto the pavement; they were an oasis of warmth in a landscape gripped by cold. In the rare days where the snow ceased to drive itself wildly onto the unmoving mountains, the villages would seem to spring to life with a buzz of activity; children could be seen building snowmen, and the high-school kids of the villages would jostle and shove one another, stuffing snow into each other's faces as they made the trek back up from the valleys below, where they whiled away long, boring hours in school, or, like Noah, College.
That was, if you HAD friends to jostle and shove. Noah, a newcomer to this rough landscape; a slim but not muscular 18 year old standing at 5,9", shuffled through the heaps of snow that had piled up on the pavements, shaking the disparate patches of white powder out of his coal-black hair; his head to the ground and his hands stuffed into his pockets, fiddling with little pieces of paper which had inexplicably found themselves in his possession. They were myriad and incongruous; fragments of wrappers or worksheets that were now useless or intangible. Around his classmates, their features and bodies seemingly alight with the joy of a sky finally clear, his figure stuck out like a sore thumb; appearing hunched against some non existent winds, sea-green eyes desperately scanning the pavement for some excuse to avert his gaze from the critical eyes of others.
