It was black and white, a city made of coal, and her breath turned to frost. She was cold, but she didn't shiver. Her body felt as if it were made of oppressed stone. She would soon deteriorate and her name would no longer be remembered. The adolescent girl did not know that her body was too fragile and young for this. She did not know the place that embraced her. She did not know the arms that would soon take her away from the unfamiliar place and the people with blurred faces. Their bodies, long and narrow, dance around the city like zombies. Their lips, eyes, and noses were gone. Only skin showed on their faces, and the girl called them The Forgotten. They were the people who were once like her. They turned into these blurred creatures with no name or backgrounds. They felt their way to the girl, crawling and climbing around curbs. The girl did not know what they wanted, only that they continued to their destination.

     She sat on a bench and looked at the gray lake. It was surrounded by gray grass and trees which were covered in white ice. The birds were black, and she could barely see them. The sky was also black, but it did not feel like the time of day where the sun would die. There was no wind, no air, and the water was still. A dark fairy tale in which she inhabited.
     There she sat, looking at a red beauty which blossomed beside her. She plucked it, the thorns clutched her skin. Her body grew stiff, aware that The Forgotten had moved closer to her. Her eyes darted back and forth, wide and cautious. She played with the petals of the rose and fingered the velvet that wrapped itself around her fingers. The rose, pleasing and pulchritudinous, illuminated off from the lake. She could feel the radiance of it bouncing around her and she never wanted to let go. It was too beautiful, and she knew that it would soon die as Limbo grew colder.
     She wondered if the waters of Christianity would have saved her. She wondered if her loved ones knew of the torment she endured. She did not know that they were never coming back and that her small fingers would never grip onto theirs. She wanted so badly to just shout out her pain and anxiety, but in a place like this, it was quite impossible for anybody to hear. She was petrified, lost and living in solitude, but not completely. The Forgotten inched closer, searching for her, but she did not move from the bench. The girl's heart banged against her chest. Her palms were wet and salty. She could hear The Forgotten moaning as they climbed over ash colored cars and park benches. Her grip on the rose tightened and the thorns thrusted into her palm. She looked at it and saw that the blood slowly traced her fate lines.
It covered her hand and the rose, being the only thing living, was warm and the red liquid reminded her of a time when her father would hug her tight and tell her, “It was just a dream. Go back to sleep Kathleen.” She would cling onto him, his warmth, his love, his secure arms, but there she was, sitting on a bench, looking at the gray lake.
     A nightmare would send her shaking at night, but the good part of having a nightmare was that she could wake up. They were places that she could escape anytime she wanted to. They were places that would wake up her parents and they would come running to her to tell her that everything was okay.
     “Okay,” she said. Her voice was faint and raspy, swallowing the lump that caught in her throat. She got up from the bench and turned to face The Forgotten. The blood dripped onto the black grass next to her shinned shoes.
     “Okay.” Her eyes closed.
     They approached the girl, The Forgotten, and reached out to her, trying to touch her face. Three of them were touching her head, pulling out the black bows which held together her braided hair. One blurred face had a body of a female with hair down to her knees, black and matted. She cupped the girls face moving her fingers across her nose and eyes and her small gray lips, using her finger tips as an antenna.
     She fought it, trying to twist free from their grasp, and it seemed as if her skin tightened and her vision darkened. Her lips closed shut and her nose faded. The rose fell from her grip and the petals turned black, reconstructing to ash. The beauty became extinct. She felt no more. She was one of The Forgotten. She had been taken into the arms of death. She then knew the place that embraced her. She then knew the arms that took her away from the unfamiliar place, the arms that had created her. She wanted to take her body back into control, but she only carried on to dance around with the others. Her family. She was the life in death, in Limbo. A place she'll never leave, a place that turned her into The Forgotten.
     It was black and white, a city made of coal, and she was no more.