The girl ＆ the flame

Ash on the floor

A girl.

A girl with hair as dark as fallen wood laying in a gloomy forest, and lips as red as blood streaming down a drain. Her body was dainty and elegant, fingers slender like a pencil on brown parchment. A face with rosy cheeks, and deep brown eyes like the leaves in autumn, staring at you with affection, incomprehensible to the normal eye, but beauteous to those who looked deeper.

Skin giving off a yellow tint like a Goldspire Ginkgo bathing in the sun, and the air around her always suffused with an intoxicating joy, that only filled you with delusions and lies. Her shrill laughter trapped you in, only to leave you drowning in sorrow, like a flame engulfed in the dark wonders of a single raindrop, falling from a haunting sky.

In the old town, North Hamhing, where the sky was always grey as tin, and the cold air always biting on your nose, the girl suddenly appeared, dancing around in the streets like a flame in the wind, boisterous laughter echoing off the harsh brick houses.

Soon, the streets started bustling with noise, the locals shuffling outside to see what was interrupting their tedious lives. As soon as they heard her laughter, their sorrows were glazed with temporary joy, fogging their view of what the world was really like.

In the early mornings when the sun climbed its way over the dull roof slates, the girl would appear, laughter filling every despaired heart with something to engulf, breaking the darkness, and letting it crumble to the ground. But when the sun swept beneath the dark horizon, it left the village in solitude, as if nothing ever happened.

Diana was her name, and she couldn't take her eyes off of the girl. Every movement performed by the flame-like human mesmerized her. Her whispers of hope that shined through in her dance, left Diana in a golden daze. She only wished to know where the girl disappeared to, when the sun vanished behind the smoke-like clouds.

So one evening, Diana went to watch the girl, as she danced her final dance. Though as the air got cold like ice and the sky went dark like ink, Diana decided to take a nap on the bench she was waiting on. But when she woke up, the girl had perished, leaving nothing of her appearance behind.