Winter Song

    Happily bounding down the sweet-smelling forest path, I eagerly awaited his arrival. I was so happy I was going to see him again. He had been away at school for nearly a year... Wow, I had really missed him. A whole year had gone by, I could hardly believe it. It seemed like so much longer.
    After ambling about through almost the entire forest, I reached our meeting spot. I arrived there just as he did. I ran to greet him. He hugged me, but it didn't seem real. It wasn't like before he left. He asked me to turn around; he said something about a surprise. Of course, I turned around. 
    As I turned away from him I felt something harsh and icy on the small of my back. Three sharp pains and then I was upon the ground. I didn't understand what was happening. Each breath was becoming harder and harder to drag into my slowly dieing body; by now I had figured out I was dieing. He came around to face me. I only saw hatred and disgust on his ordinarily soft welcoming face.
    “Stupid girl,” he muttered. “Did you really think I would love you? Honestly. You are stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I would never love you! I never did! You should have been smarter; you would still be alive.” Then he walked away... Leaving me to die.
    'Stupid, stupid, stupid...' The word echoed around my head. A monument to the one I thought I loved. The light faded from my eyes and I knew at last it was over. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid...' echoed no longer through my mind. It was etched forever into my brain.
    I woke up. It was cold, just like when I had fallen asleep. Surely I must have fallen asleep. Why else would I be lying on the forest floor? Sullenly, I walked down the dark winter-covered forest path. Not long ago this place was wonderful and magical. Now, for some reason, I just wanted to leave. I couldn't leave though; I felt bound to this place, the place of my nightmares.
    The forest branches were no longer welcomed touches of friendship on a sun-kissed face. No! Now they were cruel mocking slaps upon a tender tear-stained face, and daggers to a shattered heart. I didn't understand why I was crying. Yet, I knew I needed to cry.
    Horrid winter! Wretched winter! Terrible winter! Horrid, wretched, terrible, awful, annoying, cruel, stupid winter! 'Stupid... stupid... stupid...' For some reason those words meant something to me... I couldn't quite place them though. The more I thought and tried to remember, the closer to remembrance I came. The closer to remembrance, the more enraged I became. I didn't understand why I was angry... Who was I angry with?
    My unexplained rage consumed my mind, overran my body, and made my blood boil. I felt myself sinking to the ground. Every single breath I took was more agonizingly destructive than the last. I couldn't breath, couldn't think, and couldn't function. When I was certain my lungs had shriveled up and collapsed in on themselves and my heart had imploded inside my chest, it was over. What had never become was finally over. 
    Slowly, I felt myself remembering everything... Everything from so many years ago and everything I had wanted so desperately to forget. The memories arose in my head with a life of their own, playing over and over inside my head. I had been murdered, by the person I thought I loved, no less. Well, I thought I had loved them at the time. A knife to the back, how fitting after what he did! One knife, three ragged holes in my back, each as grievously wounding at the others. I never would forgive him; I knew I never could.
    I felt my panic and desperation rise as I succumbed to reality.  Wildly, I clawed at a tree. I wasn't exactly sure what I had hoped to accomplish by this act, but I did it nonetheless. I left no marks on the tree. I screeched wildly hoping to get the attention of someone; I made no noise. My screeches would have turned to racking sobs, had I been able to cry.
    I realized that I was destined to relive the nightmare I had been placed in so many years ago; there was no escaping it. I was stuck in this world for as long as it took me to get over the betrayal I had suffered through. The tears I could no longer cry didn't flow down my translucent face as I sank into the snow-covered ground. Once a year, on this very day, I would be forced back out again; forced out of hiding and forced to relive it all again. Discover once again what I spent an entire year forgetting. Once a year, on this solemn winter night, I would cry my desolate winter song to an unsuspecting world.