Shutting my burning eyes, I place one black boot down onto the hard, grainy concrete. The memories that haunt me are ones that are going to be recovered from the back of my mind. Perhaps it would be easier if I was maybe a witness of it and not part of it.

I try not to notice that I am stepping on a sidewalk I haven't walked on in years. I try to avoid the palace on the horizon, trying not to pay attention to the pedestrians along the street with their umbrellas. They don't know that I come here to grieve for everything that was lost. Everything that I lost.

I don't remember who I was before. I don't remember the way it felt when I ran, free, across the fields, feeling the wind play with my hair. I remember her name, and the way it felt to be enveloped by her eyes that felt like the mirror to my soul. I wish I had forgotten all about her and the person I had become with her.

The veil that covers my unrecognizable face is a path to forgetting, and I let the blurry red cover my eyes so that I don't see reality or the life I left behind along with it. I attempt to meditate as my boots carry me all the way to that palace that I dreamed of and visited so long ago. Perhaps I came here to regain the hope that burned away by visiting a monument. The place where she stands, alone, being pelted by the rain with her eyes open and frozen.

I reach the lakeside, with the somewhat grim marble balcony, and twirl one unfeeling finger around a swirling leaf covered with drops from the rain. I stare out onto the lake that is scarred with the pitter-patter of raindrops. I will not dare to turn around today and face her. If I do, the furnace inside me will light up, and the dragon will begin to breathe again. And that is something I cannot allow to happen.

But deep inside myself I know that today is the day I will do it. There is nothing that I could lose if everything was already gone, taken by the shadow that covers the sun and the light. So I turn around.

I stare into her dull, unfocused eyes and my gaze runs down to her pursed lips. I notice she is wearing a gown like she used to, with a silken coat covering her body. As I focus on her cheeks, I can't tell if they are tinted with happiness or if she is feeling anything at all. Her whole body looks so… dull. I don't know if my eyes see the world to be dark or if it is truly covered by the shadow.

Maybe if I'd turned around sooner I could see that she was a statue of marble.

So I leave in grief, willing my legs to move as fast as I can with the wind pushing at my clothes. But something in my heart stops me. I see a tiny candle ignite below her feet, making the stars glow brighter. And I am sure that when I place my hand over the flame, I hear a soft voice whisper:

"There's still a way…"