"Hey, Frankie! You gonna be okay gettin' home?" 

"Yeah, I'll be fine!" The twenty year old turned to look at the man that had called out to her. He stood in the doorway of the restaurant, warm light flowing out onto the darkened, cold street. "My apartment isn't that far away." She shrugged her small backpack on one shoulder, hearing her school books shift and knock into each other. 

Her co-worker gave her an uncertain look, but nodded and stepped back into the building. The bell chimed as the door closed, shutting out the smell of the dinner specials. He left her lingering on the sidewalk, where she readjusted her bag and turned back in the direction she was going. Before, the walk home hadn't seemed so bag. A little cold, but she could handle the cold. Or so she thought. A shiver went down her spine as a gust of wind sent countless snow flurries into her face. 

Francis Castells, or Frankie as she much preferred, ran a hand through her short hair. At feeling the gel-crusted spikes, she mentally noted that she needed to hop in the shower as soon as she could when she got home. That hairdo seemed like a cool idea that morning. Her hair was stuck as a blue color thanks to a mistake - twenty-four hair dye her ass - so she figured she should at least work with it and go with the flow. Nope. That wasn't working. Sighing, she continued her trek back home.

Her breath billowed up into the air in visible puffs. She blew out another breath, then another, watching as the tendrils slowly vanished. She tugged her jacket closer to her body, though the cold didn't seem to bother her that much. It was much easier for her to accept the cold, as opposed to the heat. Better to be caught in a snow storm than a heat wave in her book. The crunch of deep snow below her sneakers; the bite of freezing air through her plain, black and gray work uniform; she didn't mind any of it. Then again, it helped that her destination wasn't that far away. 

Frankie reached into her pocket and fished out an old MP3 player, and was about to put in her earphones when a strange sight caught her attention. Up ahead, it looked like there was something sprawled out in the middle of the sidewalk. The snow was falling so heavily, it was hard to see what it could possible be. At first, she thought it was just a trick of the dim light. When she had finally trudged closer, Frankie gasped that it was no trick - it was a fallen person. 

She let her backpack slip off her shoulder and into the snow while she hurried to the man's side. She knelt down beside him, noting that he did not seem to be familiar to her. What was she supposed to do? Call an ambulance? It would never get there, not in that heavy weather. And she didn't have a cell on her. Almost frantically, she looked up, trying to spot any other person on the street, but it was empty. Crap, what now? She could try to rouse him enough to get him to the restaurant, though she was already at the half-way mark. It would make more sense to just take him back to her place. Her common sense told her that wasn't a very good idea, considering that he was a complete stranger. But her sense of moral won out by saying that if she did nothing, he was sure to freeze to death. 

"Hey. Are you okay?" She put a hand on his shoulder and gently shook. "Sir, are you okay?"