An innumerable quantity of sources could've caused her inability to move. While words could describe her emotions, nothing that existed would ever explain be capable of explaining this feeling. In a fiery wasteland of a home, she sat crouched while fixated on a long-gone image in her head. Pictures of what happened were branded into her mind. Despite staring at a blurry image of burnt grass, those bodies in the sky were all she saw. Oddly she felt nothing. Perhaps it was a shock, maybe insanity, or it could've even been indifference. She didn't think of herself, not her tearing throat, not her singed hair, not the acrid stench in the air, not the stinging tears of acid raining down her cheeks, and not the gaping emptiness within her chest. Her only thoughts were of a hellish painting. A painting that though morbid, could've been called beautiful had it not been real. Who'd've thought of birds hanging people in the skies like angles, surrounded by the flaming love of a murderer? A spectacle was no doubt their intent. Any person to think up such a beautiful horror was surely mad. And perhaps he was, perhaps he thought it would induce enjoyment of a single audience, perhaps he thought it would drive someone crazy to see such things, perhaps he thought it would leave an unforgettable impression. He was right in all aspects. Enjoyment would be induced in seeing that young boy dying helplessly and painfully under her foot, insanity was a certainty, and an unerasable first impression was certainly made. But, her soul was not lost. Everything but life was taken from her, and among those memories of loss, a constant sound played throughout. An absent flute was apparent during its occurrence, but there was a melody setting the stage in every memorable encounter in his presence. A little flute could be heard in her head when she thought about wrapping her hands around his neck. Its sweet tune filled the air in which birds hovered while dangling bloody victims in their talons. And a crescendo of music upon seeing his charming, wicked, loving smile as he lounged in the air wearing the crown of a killer. On her knees, she wailed without a sound. Without opening her mouth, she cried out her sorrow to a deaf world. With no physical change in her posture nor demeanor, she internally expressed every bit of melancholy that could come from losing everything. She didn't hear. She didn't see. She didn't feel. Even as clanking metal pounded, shouts of men flowed, and comforting hands touched her shoulders. She had never left the spot she'd fallen to the ground. Many nights later, her mind remained where she had been. While her sickened body received every amount of physical care possible, she didn't feel any different. Sleep evaded her each night. The light in the sky came and went, strangers, questioned her, doctors made her drink tasteless medicines, but never once did Aislene move or talk. She remained in bed, staring at a colorless ceiling while seeing that madman's art piece. She couldn't remember how long it had been, but outside her bedside window, which was striped with metal bars, she noticed the changing seasons through a beautiful oak tree. She slowly regained her vision enough to see it bloom from beautiful spring flowers to bright summer greens, to alluring autumn yellows and empty black branches. The cycle went on a total of five times before ending. A new face entered her small stone room. An older woman with a cheery smile and a bright red nose. She was wrapped in a green scarf and wore a thin winter coat ornately decorated with red flowers. At the hems of her sleeves and pockets were fluffy white feathers. She wore dark black boots with a single white bow tying her left-shoelace together. The woman's hair was short and curly. On top of the blonde-white curls was a red, white, and blue furry hat. Her whole attire was fit for a festive winter lady. The woman spoke, but Aislene couldn't hear anything except that incessant flute song. The lady pulled a chocolate candy out of her equally decorated purse and offered it to her. Aislene didn't move, but unlike anyone else over her uncountable nights, she looked at the lady. Still not accepting the candy, the lady repeated something before quickly unwrapping and popping it into her mouth. The next thing Aislene was aware of was her body being moved from the bed. She was sat up and put into an odd chair-like machine pushed from behind by the sweet lady. Her expression was changing from indifferent unfeelingness to worried confusion. The lady was bundling her up with an extra scarf and coat she received from a passerby as she was wheeled out on the strange contraption. Outside in the cold, snow blanketed the ground, causing a crunch beneath their feet and wheels. The lady pushed her all-around in the moving chair. They turned left outside of the large building encircled with metal fencing and a single tree from which only one window faced. For a while, the two went with each other down stone streets and tall luminescent lamps, passing enlightened stores of all kinds. Aislene gazed at them as they went by, but she was abruptly stopped outside the window of one in particular. Inside was a collection of glass globes filled with small castles, towns, and forests. Never having seen such things, Aislene took an interest in them. She was so encapsulated that she overlooked the looming architectural marvel a town's length away from them. A real palace went unseen in the place of a smaller fake within a glass toy. For the first time since she was stolen away from her destroyed home, she cried. Tears not from sadness, tears not from pain, but tears long overdue for happiness robbed at such a young age. To feel alive brought along relief, pain, sadness, joy, excitement, despair, hatred, peace, fear, courage, and overwhelming love that radiated from not only her but the kind old lady as well. A love that would care for her in a small house close to a real castle for many seasons. It is a love that would teach, feed, bathe, comfort, spoil, and mother her through holidays and celebrations. A love that would go on until it would then be found cold and unmoving in her bed one morning. Still wearing a cheery old smile, she would be placed in a wooden box that would be sent into a furnace to be forever preserved in ashes. It is a love that would give Aislene life back, love that would heal the many scars of her past. A love that would be what nothing else ever could be. Such love was her true mother, that kind old lady. When the tears stopped, her mother slowly and carefully pushed her into the store to buy the first toy she would ever come to have. And so was the beginning of her new life.

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