Prologue
She stood, lifeless, at the crossroads. She was drowning within herself, breathless and frantic. All she could see was the broken white rose lying at the center of the crossroad. All she could hear was the breaking of a thousand hearts. She could not feel, the mirror in front of her bearing no claim of her existence. She remained, doll-like, at the point of intersection, frozen in time without a soul or a heart to hear her silent screams.
The emerald green blocks of stone were worn and cracked underneath her bare feet, the green darkened over time. The mirror of Eve sparkled violently, glittering and blinding, but empty of any reflection of life. Behind the girl was a wide field, charred and blackened by time and in the middle of the field stood a scarecrow, his old gray hat pulled down over his eyes.
The moons stood side-by-side, one about to fade below the horizon of endless darkening sky and the other rising to greet another day of night. Lower and lower sank the one, a shining ivory disk against the bruised and battered sky. Higher and higher rose the other, darker than ebony, its face etched in blood and tears. An intense black emptiness filled the sky until no light shone but that of the bleeding moon, only its crimson stained the wretched night.
As the suffocating darkness surrounded her, the brighter red light fell upon her chest. For a moment time stood still and only the red light seemed to move. The light took on a life of its own, its fiery fingers moving up to the girl's throat and its hand moving as a lover's over her pale face. The light morphed and transformed until it had the shape of a man, its hand continuing to caress the girl's face. As it passed its hands through her snowy curls, it began to dissipate, changing the girl's hair to a rosy pink, then fled swiftly upward. Leaving the girl behind, lying dead at the crossroads, a white jasper lily in her hand and an onyx dagger plunged into her virgin soul.
The scarecrow, in his blackened field, was the only witness, the only eyes to see the death and hear the screams. From one violent green eye fell a broken tear, his sadness hidden partially by his dark hat. He did not move from his field, or move at all, remaining frozen at his post. He only wept, a silent witness.
Quietly, the girl's body withered, burning from a fire within until all that remained were dust and ash. These were picked up by the wind, fleeing the place on her back. She fled to the mirror of Eve, it now opening, as a door, to her remains. On the other side she was once again transformed, shedding all the pain of living like a winter cloak. She seemed to glow, ethereal and unbroken. She looked out of her mirror, seeing with new eyes all the emptiness of the place.
The scarecrow watched as the mirror shattered, sparkling like millions of fiery stars upon the emerald stones. As the pieces faded into nothingness, the moon began to cry, blood and ice falling like daggers to the earth. Everything stood in silence. All that remained of the girl was a broken white rose, a white jasper lily and the onyx dagger, stained with the blood of her virgin soul. And these were consumed with fire and bloody ice so that none may know of the rape of the lifeless girl at the crossroads
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