(Ariadne) Now, you must remember that many years lie between these events and today; and I recall them through the veil of sorrow and the mists of childhood. I will tell you the story as my memory presents it; any inaccuracies can be blamed on the storyteller, not the story.

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(MacIvor) The story begins at the hieght of the rain storm, you know... the part when your almost used to the sound of rain striding purposefully across the old roof slate. We were young of course and the rain meant we had to stay inside, but along with that feeling was the way the sound had an almost magical feel to it; a feeling of new beginnings; and the promise of new adventures in the quiet after the rain.

(Ariadne) Magdalene was tearing the hair off her Cabbage Patch doll. She always did that. Her dolls ended up bald, or if they were lucky, with patches of straggly hair left here and there. I didn't let her play with my toys.

(SydneyF) I always kept them in the small trunk that my father gave to me. A private hiding place for everything that was special, and anything that needed to be hidden. That was the main difference between Magdalene and I. I was always trying to keep parts of me safe. She was the one who expressed herself better, even though she didn't know it at the time. The rain stopped, and a sliver of bright light crept through the crack of the attic door. of the

(Razztrek) The light was piercing bright. She held her hand over her eyes as she felt her chest heave. As she collapsed to the floor shuddering, her eyes closed. And suddenly the memories of her earlier life came flooding back in a dark wave of seemingly endless pain. As the tears rolled down her face she remembered the flowers. Yes, the flowers! The lovely deep red roses that held such beauty, wilst stinging her encircled fingers with their long, sharp thorns. And she remembered how they finally tore through her pale, delicate skin, now looking down at her fingerttips stained with wet, sticky blood-her blood.

(SydneyF) "Aria, Aria, wake up!" Suddenly there was a long, dark tunnel in front of her. She felt herself being dragged towards the dull light at the end. She wondered if it was heaven or just a train. What a strange thought as she shuddered. "Aria, can you hear me?" Through blurred, teary eyes, she saw the familiar face of her doctor. "How long was I under this time?" "Not long enough." As she pulled herself up on the bed, she saw it, the blood still on her fingertips. "Oh god, I remember now, I remember now," she cried hysterically.

(Xeph) It was several minutes before Aria was able to speak rationally again. But even then her newly regained memories were still scattered and confused. She remembered the roses, and their cruel thorns as she tried to run through them. They grabbed and tore her skin and clothing with a vicious and self-righteous silence. She remembered the running. The contrast of the fresh, newly-washed earth, glistening under a bright and warm sun, and her raw, panicked fear driving her away from her family.

(SydneyF) The rose garden was her favorite place, she now remembered. The fog in her mind started to slowly dissipate as the memories started to flow together. Magdalene, mom and dad, they were my family now, even if I couldn't bare the thought of this happening. I miss father. Why did the war happen?

(Xeph) Even now, so many years from that loss, the pain is still sharp.

(G. Scott) One day the had been a scream from the garden. A girl's scream. I had rushed out to see what was happening. I tried to see from the height of the porch, but the girl was crouched in amongst the roses. So I ran down the steps and into the roses. She was off the path, in the middle of a bed of the bushes. The thorned branches, with all their beautiful unopened buds, tore at my clothes and scratched at my skin. It seemed to take me so long to travel the 15 or 20 feet, a minute for each step. I remember wondering how she could keep screaming the whole time.

(Rowan) I leaned over, and shook the girl in my arms. She stared catatonically at my face, muttering "The darkness...the dark." She suddenly screamed and tore at her face, shrieking in my ear. I tried to pull her arms off of her face, tried to restrain her, but she had some strange unworldly strength, and attacked me. Her fists and claws dug into my face and chest, raking through the skin. Hot dots of blood surfaced and ran warm down my skin. Only then did I realize the source of more blood and pain: I had been entangled in the bushes, the thorns digging sharply into my supple flesh. Magdalene, hair mussed, and jaw locked in a frustrated drop, tore off howling through the darkness of the plants. I shouted for hours, slowly dripping blood, but nobody heard and answered, nobody saved me from my fate. It was dark by the time I finally heard a sound other than my own hoarse voice, worn down to a whisper. The hoot of an owl rang out above. I looked up, and it flapped it's wings across the full, bright moon. The sight blinded me temporarily, with the light that shone off of the massive satellite. I shivered in the cold.