Shake of the head.
I’ll miss you, but only for a while…
Pat the empty pockets, look up in shock. Forget home, forget love, forget everything. Step forward and accept your fate.

Cold. Not like walking through Boston at midnight in the dead of winter- more like the exact opposite of Hell, but not heaven. Ice numbs in an agonizing instant before the skin turns blue, stiffens, turns deathly white, then finally black. Somewhere underneath the skin bones go brittle, joints stiffen, muscles freeze.

It was all so fast. The uncontrollable shudder shook him violently and joints snapped, muscles disintegrated, bones turned to dust, the remaining blood veins burst. Still alive, his heart frozen and stopped, all thoughts instantaneously frozen at the tip of the synapse. And yet there was pain, agony such as he had never imagined possible. His body crumbled, fell rag-doll to the suddenly smooth white powder ground.

And she smiled behind him, shook her head.
I will miss you.
Step forward.