The Rose
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived the ladies and guy of Silks Vault. "We've come a long way," one of them said to another. "And now we've finally found it. The single, beautiful, closed, red rose. We've waited so long, our journey, it's been so hard! But now... now we've done it. We've made it."
Rene snuck up behind them. "What are you talking about? It just appeared there. Out of nowhere."
Dyana turned. "Out of nowhere? Are you crazy? It arose out of bed of blood, sweat and tears. Right before our eyes." She turned to look again at the rose. "The roughest, toughest magic around."
"Blood, sweat and tears?" Marissa scoffed. "That's understating it a little, don't ya think?" She pointed at the river, a black, putrid little thing, barely visible in the background. Not a river, three rivers. "There's one for the blood, one for the sweat, and one for the tears."
"They look horrible," Tracy said. "I don't know if I want to associate myself with them. They're evil." Tracy shivered and wanted to look away. Hide her face from the sight, hide her ears from the faint sound of screaming. She couldn't.
Ellen looked at Tracy. "Are you on medication?"
"No," Tracy said.
Ellen continued to look at Tracy who continued to look at the liquid snakes embedded in cyber ground rock. "I'm going to explode if I don't say something," she said, as the authors of Silks Vault all started to back away. "These rivers are anything but evil. On their own, they take. They rip and they saw and they tear and they break. But where they meet, right over there," she pointed to the base of the rose, "they come together and they make something beautiful. Something whole. They run together to produce hope and happiness. Where they meet, our dreams become reality. And look, they all flow in the same direction. They all make it to the pool, and there the water's blue. It's warm, it's inviting. You know it is. You've all swam in it. How could you have forgotten already?"
-
