Once upon a time, there lived a pretty little girl who lived in a pretty little house with people much older than herself. She had golden hair, a cute, button nose and eyes that reflected her bright imagination.
Like all little girls, she loved to pick flowers and look at the clouds. Like all little girls, she was scared of the dark and of wasps. She was decent at school and considered herself an okay person, not that she really thought of herself much at that age. If you were to ask her, she would most likely say she's happy, then go on to talk eagerly about her day so far.
The little girl loved to walk to the playground or to her doting grandmother's, as both were nearby. Everything was nearby in a town that small, way out in the middle of nowhere. A town bordered by fields and sparse trees, thickets of thorns dotting the countryside like sandburrs on a perfect beach. A town that- in the blanket of night -swallowed what little streetlights it had to its name and bathed itself in an unrelenting darkness, of which no moonbeams or flashlights could cut.
The little girl lived peacefully all her life in this tiny town, never leaving and never changing, until one day,
Asphalt heaved.
A reckless outsider arrived, of which none dared but speak of in whispers and cast piercing glares when they thought it wouldn't notice, carrying with it a great, tumultuous rot that clung like laden ticks to the ears of wild kitty cats. Parasitic and horrid.
But she didn't understand. She didn't want to. Nobody told her.
She invited the wolf in sheep's clothing over to play one afternoon, and it breathed awful truths down her fair neck. Pulsing and cold and congealed, it forced itself upon her, staining the child's Sunday finest with her own baleful woes.
And thought it funny.
Never again did her eyes shimmer with delight, nor her palms outstretch in a loving embrace towards her peers. Never again did her ears ring with her own delightful laughter, nor her heart soar at the thought of a day on the town.
She knew now, for example, that a doggy screams like a person when its eyeball pops out.