It was a legend they had heard all of their lives;
There was once a little town, not so far away.
It had once been happy. It had once been beautiful.
But the people in the town had done something very, very bad. Nobody remembers what it was, but it had been awful, so awfully dreadful that a very powerful creature had decided to make sure it was never done again. The powerful creature had put a curse on the town so it would burn forever.
But one little girl had escaped the curse; she had been in the forest playing and picking flowers for her mama while the creature set the city ablaze. She had heard the screams and smelled the smoke and tried to help, but it was too late. Her whole family was dead. And the creature was very angry that she was alive. So he took the girl and froze her in time forever, not to die, but to live with her aloneness forever, as punishment for her town's awful deed.
The Smurfs had lived with this legend, accepted it, and thought it nothing more. That was, until, it became all too real.