In the endless white plain, there stood a single girl. The snow reached her knees and the wind blew her long black hair like a broken flag. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon, where there was nothing but white. In her trembling hands, a small flame burned; a fire that was neither wood nor a match, a fire that seemed to have been pulled from within her chest and was now the only remaining warmth in her being. With each breath, the smoke turned white and mixed with the flame. She knew that if she opened her hands, the fire would also go out, and she, for that reason, held it tighter, like someone holding her last hope in her fist. The plain was silent. Only the small crackling of the flame could be heard, and sometimes, very softly, the sound of her heart.
