Ow, what the fuck?! My sleep is interrupted by my head slamming into the ground, followed by my entire body. I groggily open my eyes, an action which is made difficult by my tiredness and potential concussion.

While my vision begins to clear up and focus, I pay attention to my hearing. Lots of shouting. I am obviously surrounded by a group of people - mixed between male and female, but speaking a language I don't recognize. When my sight finally fully returns to me, I confirm this. About a dozen people are standing around me, staring at me.

I look down and discover that I'm apparently nude. They're wearing simple brown robes, and every one of them has some sort of blood-soaked bandage on. Many have one wrapped around an arm or leg, but others have a white cloth wrapped around their face.

There are more people in the room past these dozen, as well. These other people are wearing the same brown robes and have the same white-and-red bandages, but seem to be in more severe states of injury. They're lying or sitting in the corners of the square room I'm in. Most are just more generously bandaged, but I see a couple who are missing limbs. There are a few fully-unbandaged people that are tending to their wounds.

Okay, so... what the hell. Let me recall exactly what happened last night. It did end up going a bit weird, so maybe that's why this is happening to me? That night started with...

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I meander down the sidewalk. I don't exactly feel downtrodden; I mean, it's not like today was especially terrible or anything. I'm not sure what I'm feeling, or, at least, I don't exactly know the official vocabulary word for it. Instead, I use one of the terms I've come up with. "Emotional Freezer-Burn."

I honestly don't know if there even is a real word for this feeling, since I don't really know if anyone else has ever felt it. To sum it up in a short description, it's like freezer burn on food. It's when you've put your emotions and desires on hold for so long that they go bad. They ruin.

And, to go along with the food analogy, it's not in the typical way that a food, or emotion in this case, might "go bad" if you leave it out for too long, like how if you hold onto a grudge for a few years, it stops being about the original issue, and just devolves into simple hatred.

In my case, it isn't a natural process. It's uniquely man-made. The rot is different. My bitterness, my disgust, they no longer resemble those root emotions of anger and revulsion. They honestly just feel... dried up. Like there are spots inside where there should be a memory fueling it, or a desire that it's working toward, but the emotional part of my brain just forgot why I even held them in the first place.

My emotions haven't changed state at all, they're just hollow now. The shells of the emotions are still there, and I can pretend that it's all the same and try to feel them, but the emotions will never take over my mind like they used to. They're simply ghosts of their former selves.

So here I am, heading down a sidewalk later at night than anyone should be, thinking about random things for no other reason than just to fight off boredom.

Most people would be wary of muggers or homeless guys who are gonna come out of an alleyway and pull a knife on them, but honestly, I'm not too scared. Partly because of what I've just spent the last fifteen minutes thinking about; any fear I may feel won't inform my decisions. But the other part is because, well, I'm the homeless person with the knife.

That's what got me into this Emotional Freezer-Burn situation in the first place. I don't really have anywhere to work toward. I know the common saying is "Oh well when you're at rock bottom, the only direction you can go is up!" But anyone who says that is both terrible at understanding the world around them, and terrible at understanding the analogy they just referenced.

Yeah, I'm at rock bottom. Homeless, eating out of the trash, and living under a bridge like some sort of troll in a movie. That's rock bottom alright. And sure, there's an endless expanse of potential above me that I'm free to work toward. But when you're at rock bottom, you know what you don't have? Anything to build off of.

Other people might have a helpful family, or a close-knit group of friends, or, hell, maybe even a fast food job that they work at. And they can use those pillars around them to build themselves up. But at rock bottom, there isn't a pillar in sight. So no. You're wrong. I can't "only go up." I can wander around at rock-bottom, going nowhere. Fighting for my next meal, constantly getting food poisoning, and generally just having a bad time.

"Hey, you." Someone calls out from behind me. I look around at my surroundings. Honestly, I was so lost in thought I don't really know where I am; I was kind of just going on autopilot. Ah, I see now. I'm currently waiting at a crosswalk to let me through. Of course, I could really just go whenever, it's so late at night that there aren't any cars on the street, but I guess I wasn't really paying attention to that.

"Hey, fuckface!" A hand grips my shoulder and swings my underweight body around effortlessly. Oh, right. I forgot someone was trying to talk to me. A gruff, unshaven face scowls down at me. I'm relatively short, though, so most faces do. He's standing close to me, so I can feel his humid breath through the bite of winter. He looks me up and down, I guess to size me up or something. I sigh. Do I really look like the type of person who carries cash, dude? Mug someone else.

"You deaf or something?" He growls. "Listen, I don't think you want any trouble, so just hand over your wallet and you can leave here alive." He holds up a knife. It looks like a three and a half inch foldable pocket knife. I guess he uses his relatively imposing figure to pick up the slack of such an innocent-looking blade. I glance around me. There isn't anyone nearby or any security cameras. I thought as much, it's not like this guy would mug me right in front of the police or anything.

"Listen, man." I finally say in a deadpan voice. "I'm literally homeless, can't you tell?" I gesture to my torn clothes and obviously unbathed body. "Leave me alone."

"Fuck off." He replies. "You probably have some leftover panhandling money. Hand it over." He gives me a shove. I stumble back at the light display of strength. Goddamn it. I mean, he's right. Obviously I have a bit of cash on me. It's only, like, thirty bucks, but I can stretch that pretty far into a solid weeks-worth of meals and other supplies. Is he really gonna make me do this? What a waste of calories.

"Okay, okay." I mutter. "Let me dig out my change, asshole." I reach my gloved hands into both of my back pockets. I'm honestly pretty lucky it's so cold out and I'm wearing gloves that cover my fingertips. I'd have to find some way to put them on otherwise.

In one pocket I dig out a few bills and coins from begging. I use the sound of the coins clinking together to mask the sound of my other hand flicking a knife of my own open. While I dig out my cash, I take a step toward him with the same dejected, slightly annoyed look on my face. Facial expressions are a really good way to keep someone's guard down, as is - of course - having such an unassuming body.

"Just leave me alone in the future, alright?" I sigh. "And I promise I won't go to the police." I say this as I hold the money out in an open palm. This creates three stimuli for him to focus on. One - listening to me talk and interpreting my words. Two - forming a response. And three - grabbing the money. While he does this, I bring the knife out from behind my back.

"Don't you fucking dare threaten me!" He asserts as he grabs the money from my palm. Yep. Of course, my statement was intentionally antagonizing. That's going to send him into his head for a little bit while I attack.

I swing my arm forward in a punch, holding the blade out of the side of my closed fist. I aim the knife at his throat, but he ducks back just in time. He immediately raises the knife in his hand, ready to attack me, but I shoot my other hand forward, grabbing his throat.

I squeeze as hard as I can. Of course, I don't have much muscle, so it's not like I'm strangling him to death here, but - at least in his mind - I've clearly landed an attack that needs to be stopped. He drops the money from his other hand and clamps it around my wrist, flinging it off his neck. In the time it took him to do that, though, I've finished the follow-through on my knife attack, and so I swing it back at him, aiming a stab at his throat.

He's gone back to focusing on the offense, though, and so he doesn't notice my swing as he slams his knife down toward me. Mine reaches him first, and it sticks deep into the side of his thick neck with a satisfying thunk.

I dodge the attack he had aimed at me as he yelps in pain. I finish my blow, pulling the knife toward me. This will fully sever the artery leading to his brain. A splatter of blood sprays as me and the man falls to the ground, whimpering.

"P, please..." I think I hear him whisper something at me as he bleeds to death. I don't bother to listen. Why waste time with the words of a dead man? I gather my money from the sidewalk as the pool of blood grows larger and the man grows quieter. It's a rather quick death, the one I dished out to him. Maybe he was just thanking me.

I chuckle at my own joke.

I check his pulse with a gloved hand after I finish collecting my change. Nothing. Now that it's safe, I rummage through his pockets. Two wallets, I guess he mugged someone else today. I go through both. In one there isn't much other than some receipts what looks like a gift card to an online clothing store.

In the other, though, I find a total jackpot. A hundred and fifty dollars! Man, I could get so much with that. Maybe some new clothes, or just something to put away for a rainy day. I often find myself going a day or two without meals when I get a bit unlucky with my panhandling, so it's always good to have a backup.

Alright, I think it's time to go. I'm sure to creep away from the body as the pool of blood gets close to touching my shoes. Bloody footprints are one one of the ways they get you. Once I'm sure I have everything, I depart from the crime scene.

I arrive home. Well, I arrive at my sleeping spot. Like I mentioned before, it's literally under a bridge. Or, an overpass, really. It's late enough at night that not many cars are driving through as I approach my 'bed,' which is really just a semi-level patch of dirt covered with a thin sheet someone gave me for the colder nights.

I lie down and attempt to cover myself with the blanket. It's a little too small, so I have to scrunch up into a slight fetal position. I lie my head on the softest patch of dirt I can find, and close my eyes. For a while it was pretty difficult to sleep like this, but eventually I got used to it. I clear my mind and try my best to ignore the uncomfortable sensations bombarding me. After some time, I drift off.

And then I wake up here. In this hot, humid, stone room, surrounded by bloody people in robes.