00. PROLOGUE

She laughs and the moon rises. Everyone's eyes are on the blindingly brilliant girl, the one whose mind is beyond her time and whose beauty is beyond compare. She breathes in the milky moonlight, polished jade eyes dancing across the faces before her.

And she cries. Quiet silver tears glisten on her ashen face, dripping onto her trembling hands. She chokes out, hands grasping the sides of her head in a desperate attempt to stay sane. The air around her is sickening, cloying. It makes her knees buckle before she drops to the ground. Laughter escapes her chalky lips, stilted and hysterical and painful all at once.

"I'm going to die," she says, strands of pale pink hair splaying in the wind. "Can't you see this is killing me?"

Not a single word is uttered between her and the people before her. There is only a heavy silence, the kind that makes her feel like she's being strangled or drowning or both. She lets it smother her, lets it swallow her whole.

And finally, finally someone speaks: "You'll survive this, Sakura. You always do."

The smile on her lips is tinged with tragedy. "No. No, not this time," she murmurs, voice distant.

She cries and the moon falters.