The skies seemed to cry down that day, but they had always spilled their stinging tears of cold onto the cracking stone beneath busy feet for as long as time may tell. People within that tiny town have forgotten the sun, it taken to a land lost in sand, the felling of warmth escaping to follow from their cooling skin. Nevertheless, everybody went about their routine days, the same alarm going off with the exact repetitive red, flashing numbers; the looping jobs and back to that never changing bed only to start this cycle again. With this, the town had turned gray with the black clouds of the sky looming over, but then again maybe it was always gray. These thoughts swelled and swirled around the shield-like skull of a young woman’s mind, a garden growing from these seeds. Roses of red, tulips of blue and every color imaginable to the eye were there, trees bearing fruit, and animals scampering without harm. This is the purity of a child’s mind.
Yet as time went on, nobody even once asked about these life-bearing plants and animals she kept, and at one point in time showed off like a prize. But they were locked away now, for society thought different than her. Do this, walk that way, talk a certain way, and on. They only want to top of the line people; the smartest, brightest, beautiful. But she was beautiful, society told her she wasn’t much like everyone else. The sun did not leave on its own, society chased it away with its hounds barking like mad, the names “Expectation” and “Social Norm” imprinted in white upon their leech of a collar. Every year of this poor girl’s life became duller, as she grew older her flowers did too. Despite this, her smile of warmth that brought back the fuzziest memory of the sun to people like that of a drunken memory would slip away as if faded.
Despite her efforts, she began to lose her color too, it leaving those rosy red cheeks and bright green eyes of hers.  With her sun chased off by those murder-hungry mutts, her garden began to wilt, and her with it. Bitter thorns seeping envy, carcasses bleeding anger, and soil fed with sorrow filled that now glass skull of her porcelain body. The girl that only had room to love others was dead, only a shell with a stone heart as cold as the stone beneath her feet remained. Warmth has left her now, and even as she grew, her smile never returned. So the skies roared and cried down more, a never ending sight now, everyone resting in their homes except for her. She had no brick lain upon clay or wood built atop soil; she only as herself, and even that was not home. Not a soul would let her in for even a meal, her stomach continuing to growl for days without end, a sound which her ears fall mute to. Not one spoke to her, she being seen as the puddles their feet splashed through day in and day out.
So as time went on, her garden lay barren of life even if she is broken. But some petals lay among the ash-barring grass lost underneath piles of grey, their cries to be embraced by brethren and sisters alike which fell from the same flower calling out among the lifeless dust. These cries fill the skull with echoes of their pain, the memory of their loved ones soon dying before they did as well, ashen and cursed to see without end. Yet these cries, they are heard by whom they are for, but no reassurance comes to those who hear. Only screams, only pain follows their shouts, nothing good coming from it. Yet they cannot turn away simply for the noise to leave their shoulders, for it hungers and claws until they listen again. Nevertheless, they go on about their days, their numbers beginning to dwindle until more plants meet the same fate, their chorus beginning anew in some sort of twisted game they are forced to play. No sleeping, not a crumb is eaten, what can stop these voices? Whatever it may be, it has not been found, for sleepless nights merge with mercy lacking days, the morning soon being it by the moon and stars while those dark hours are greeted by the flames within the sky hidden away. They try to comfort the cries to get them to leave, to give them that one moment they lusts for; a moment of silence, one where no thoughts enter or leave, just still and calm. Yet this dream tantalizingly just out of their fingertips' grasp, is held firmly within a prison held there by ball and chain. No matter what they try, what  she tries, it seems much like war, never changing and never ending. Trying everything she panics now, wanting only for a mere moment of that alluring silence she oh so pleads for, yet mercy shows a barren hand to which mock her. So she waits, trying to tell people whom she meets to help her, but her voice has long lost her in many ways. Hope died long ago, nobody wanting to listen, even if they heard her words rushed; their ears were not truly open. Their garden was not open enough to bring some sort of suppressant to those shivering petals, so they cried out more.
"Anything, everything, just make them stop for once! "Ye've taken everything but thee feet upon which I stand! Isn' tha' enough f'er ye, or must ye leave me damned t’a crawl!? Wha' will make t'em stop, ye hav'en' shown me! “ These cries from her echo yet unlike the flowers are not heard, only left in the cement air to hang on her shoulders.
With one last cry, the crowd of pain goes silent, leaving for one minute. However, mercy would not show its head to her, only to send a lion in its place. A lion with, upon its forehead in red, engraved its barren hand to show her what monster they protect her from. Upon the lion's head was the word  'Alone.'