i.
Won't you help me, please, I lost something the other day. I can't recall but I need it back, you see, I'm lost. It's so important I can't stop looking, but I can't see. There isn't a light at the end of this tunnel, because, really, someone stole my light, and I am not the candle, you know, I am only the mirror—
(oh please please please let this be not the end)
ii.
An empty beach is the worst sensation, hollowed out curves in the sand no match for cruel memory. Her hair blows, brittle, in the wind and her big wet blue eyes watch the sea for something. She wonders if the waves have ever stopped, left this little world suspended, and why they have not yet, with so much so far gone.
iii.
He dreams, sometimes, deep in the flowerprison. Without so many memories the early ones—children on beaches, free of wanderlust—become the latest ones, reaching hands, yellow eyes, the sick sound of metal sliding down metal. He thrashes and screams, mute behind the heavy walls and the slick crayon on paper.
iv.
His hands press desperately on the blindfold, fighting the sensation to rip it from his trembling eyes. The rain weighs down his hair and his clothes, makes his movements slow and deliberate, save for his frantic hands and frantic eyes. Instinct propels him and blindness consoles him during the fall, but there are dives so deep you can never quite find your way back.
v.
He comes sometimes to watch the witch work, to see the countdown for himself, until it becomes almost too much for him and he vanishes in a whirl of darkness and flames. He knows everything is for the best, but he doesn't care, couldn't, wouldn't even if he could. They'll be a story for the books, they will, every last one of them, right down the wicked white witch.
In high tragedy bad things happen to bad people, in ludicrous tragedy bad things happen to good people, and he doesn't know whether they should be laughing or crying.