“Aria, breakfast is ready!” Mother Julian’s gentle but sturdy voice vibrated through Aria’s bedroom door with a rhythmic knocking on the door that only her mother could create. Aria struggled to open her eyes. Her eyes are blurry. At last, she opened them with great difficulty.

    Aria blinked and withdrew the curtains for just a crack, to check on her handmade sundial in the backyard. “Sundial, a device used outdoors, especially in the past, for telling the time when the sun is shining. A pointed piece of metal throws a shadow on a flat surface that is marked with the hours like a clock, and the shadow moves around as the sun moves across the sky.” Aria recited the definition of Sundial to herself. She saw this word in a book, it’s called a dictionary. It was filled with uncanny and advanced things from the gods. She found it in a box that was buried in their crop field by some unknown entity. I

    She rubbed her eyes open-mouthed. Nothing, there was nothing in the backyard. The sun has not fully risen yet. Only sparkles of light dyed the morning sky in a dusty and melancholic blue, which barely lights up her backyard.

    Something was buzzing in the air, she could feel it. It’s an extraordinary and unusual feeling. Her backyard was covered with a sheet of peaceful whitish sparkling “dust”. It was flawless, just like the serene water in an undisturbed lake. She toward the sky. White flakes are still whooshing endlessly down from the sky, the white blanket covered as far as her eyes could see.

    All of Aria’s sleepiness was blown away by this prodigious and uncanny sight. “This must be the snow!” Aria pressed her face tightly to the window, ignoring its bitter coldness that stung her cheek. “Small soft white pieces (called flakes) of frozen water that fall from the sky in col-old weather; this substance wh-en-en it is lying on the ground.” She recited the dictionary, while her teeth chattered with excitement.

    Her mother entered the room, her footsteps soft on the hand-made carpet.

    “The fire is out, I told you to add more wood to it last night. And you’re never the child that listens to warnings.” Mother Juliana signed with exhaustion and dragged Aria out of the warmth of the bed.

    “Who knows it’s going to be so cold today? It’s hot yesterday, who would be dumb to light a fire in the fireplace, and boil themselves to death?”Aria complained about her mother’s criticism.

    Mother Juliana sighed again with “despair” and threw Aria’s winter clothes onto the bed, “The gods are coming today.” she jerked the curtains fully open.

    Aria looked at the clothes Mother Juliana gave her. An overall cotton shirt, work boots, and a heavy leather jacket. Aria had never seen such a thick garment before, and the weather had never been this cold.

    “Quickly! Make haste!” Mother Juliana said with a small tremble of her limbs, realizing her tone might seem a little too odd, she tried to cover it up by saying “You don’t want to be late for the welcoming ceremony. Now, get dressed.”

    Aria put on her winter clothes clumsily after taking off her nightgown in a rush. She suddenly realized that this was the day that the gods would come. 40 whole years have passed since they last came.

    The breakfast on the table was already cold. Nevertheless, she stuffed them all into her mouth and rushed outside.

    The snowflakes fell onto her hair, like pearls hanging on a string. Aria lifted her head towards the grey-blue sky. The sun was just slightly above the two mountains on the horizon, while the snow shimmered in the golden sunlight. Father Derik waited on his horse Pablo, holding the reins of Aria’s horse. She ran to his side and climbed onto it.

    “Ready to go?” Father Derik asked. “His voice was a little bit too shaky.” Aria thought, “He is anxious too. What for?”

    The horse trudged through the snow-covered road with difficulty, since half of its legs were buried deep in the snow.

    “Where are we going?” Aria called to her father through the thick, and unstopping snowstorm, when she realized that they were following a road that she had never seen before. The bellowing wind slapped her on the face consistently until she felt numb.

    “We need to be there by noon, at the edge of the world.” Her father yelled back to her on his horse, “That’s a real bad place, well last time…”Her father has clearly fallen into memories while his last words died in the howling wind. Aria knew that because her father has always been a nostalgic person who falls into memory when he tries to pull them to the surface of his mind. What was left, is the howling of the rigorous unstopping wind, the sound of hooves heavily trudging in the snow, and Aria’s excited heartbeat.

    “The edge of the world…” Aria pondered, whilst her consciousness floated away from the horse, the storm, and the snow. It dived straight into her memories, where the term exists. The howling wind is very good for picking up memories, it takes you back without you even noticing.

    There were stories about this place, there still are. Maybe after this visit, there will be more. Aria never believed in that nonsense, she thought they were made-up ghost stories to make sure kids don’t get out of the village and get lost. Now, she feels doubted about this old opinion of hers.

    The story was told by an elder in the village. The old man was as thin as a lath and had tattered skin covered with swell that stink. Aria’s conclusion is that he looks like a walking dead. Nevertheless, he told her about that evil place. It is where the forest of death starts. When the wind blows through the forest, the cries and howls of the demons, accompanied by the bells from hell are carried for miles afar. Once, People went into the forest, only half of them came back. The villagers were astonished because they were not hurt for even a tiny bit. However, they had their souls banished, and their sanities fractured. They became hysterical men who roamed the village and spoke about imprisonment with balderdash. After a few days of unsettlement, their flesh will begin to rot， just like a pound of flesh that has been put in the cellar for too long. Then, their skin and hair started falling off, and their body was covered in pustules swelled with pus. At last, what is left of their flesh festered. They were being tormented like the devil took the matter into his own hands. And that’s not the end, after that, their whole family could not escape from this horrible fate. This they called the punishment from God, only they have the power to commit such atrocities.

    Even though Aria wasn’t entirely convinced by this story, the thought that she is approaching that accursed place made her shiver. The transformation of the landscape caught Aria’s attention and pulled her from her memory void. The shadows of huge trees loomed over them. “The snow-covered tips of the trees were just like the icing on the cakes that my mom made.” Aria thought but immediately tried to shake the thought out of her head. “That association was too absurd, how can this sinful place be compared to the cakes that Mother made?” She tried to clear her mind by extracting fine and happy memories, but the story of the edge of the world still weighed her down heavily.

    “Where is Mother?” Aria asked through the wind.

    “Women are separated from children and men.” Father Derik answered stiffly, “The gods are going to give them children.”

    “If women are coming to have children, then what are we doing here?” Aria asked.

    “I don’t know.” Her father shrugged. Then silence came again.

    Looking up at the sky with frustration, she could see nothing but a piece of grey tapestry stretching across the horizon like the prelude to an endless nightmare, A gush of wind flowed by, carrying the ringing and howling deep within the forest, forming an unearthly song.

    The whole village was crowded around the clearing. The freezing weather made Aria tremble violently, but she did not dare to speak a word. Something huge in the sky cast a shadow onto the crowd. People began to chant, and Father Derik followed too, yet standing beside him, Aria could see something incomprehensible in his eyes. Was it anger? Or was it pain and hatred? She could not tell. Aria stared wide-eyed towards the sky.

    “It is a helicopter; the dictionary must be from the gods! An aircraft without wings that has large blades on top that go around. It can fly straight up from the ground and can also stay in one position in the air.” Aria cited in her mind flabbergasted. Under the cover of the earsplitting helicopter blades, Aria’s father bowed his head down a little bit and hissed into her ear, “Don’t let them inject you, and don’t let’em catch you. Run when you have the chance. Run Aria, you must Run!” She turned her head wanting to inquire more, but her father kicked her in the leg, telling her to stop. They both resumed chanting. “Did her father go mad just like the stories tell?” Aria wondered.

    Then, the huge helicopter landed with a thud, and a huge gush of wind blew the snow that accumulated there which then revealed the yellow and withered grass beneath. Aria covered her face with one of her arms from the wild wind. They seemed to be cutting through her jacket and right through her body. Her hands felt numb, she could no longer feel the tips of her fingers. It was painful, but Aria liked the feeling. She likes things that are rare and uncommon.

    Then there were the gods, they descended the stairs of the helicopter gracefully with boxes in their hands. Their clothes don’t seem to be made of cotton. Instead, it is pure white without even a hint of impurity. Their shoes are peculiar, with no laces, no buckles, just a block of pure white. As Aria knew, no leather could make white.

    The Gods called all the children forward, and Aria followed with the chatter of her teeth and the stomping of her foot. The gods pulled a thin instrument from one of the boxes. Aria knew that it’s called a syringe, and it’s used to inject. Something greenish was sent into the child’s inside elbow with the syringe. Which made him wail in pain. Aria became uncertain about whether she should accept the injection. Something is wrong with those Gods. She felt like a pig in a pen. And what father said earlier furthered her suspicion. Suddenly, a God grabbed her from behind. And started taking off her jacket. She shrugged them off and started sprinting. When she looked back, the children looked like animals that are waiting to be slaughtered. She cringed.

    Aria caught several words from the gods. She had never heard of it before, One of them was “experiment”. Even though the word was not in her tongue and therefore she didn't understand it she felt fear flowing in her veins, and going right to her heart. She couldn’t control it.

    She hasn’t realized that one God already stands in front of her, hands open trying to catch her. This one is different, it was taller and more robust than the rest of the ones.

    She stepped backward and began to escape from this nightmare, she wanted to wake up. The gods shouted in their own language. One of them began chasing her. Without realizing it, she stumbled into the forest. The Gods stopped outside. She could hear them panting hard.

    “Did gods pant?” She questioned and trudged on into the forest. There was no one insight. She felt fear, she imagined herself rotting, but she could not go back. “Will I fall off? Will I fall off the edge of the world?” She was utterly alone in this huge forest, accompanied only by the distant howling of the demons. What was supporting her? She doesn’t even know it herself back then.