Morning
When she awoke the next morning, the ground was covered in a blanket of white. The first downy flakes of winter lay still, lay quiet, lay cold. Trees stood motionless, their limbs raised in silent, frozen salutes. Songbirds perched on the branches, poised, ready to fly. But they too were covered with a fine layer of white. Houses sat in neat rows, picture-perfect. The cobblestone roads waited, hidden, for the spring thaw.
Not a soul was out on such a cold, still morning. Not footprints indented the snow, no hoofprints kicked up clods of dirt to mar the white surface. The snow covered the warm living earth with white, hid her in paleness and death. Everything was perfect. Perfectly cold, perfectly still, perfectly quiet.
All she could see was white.
When her eyes opened, it was not morning. She was cold all over. It was a gray spring, not a white winter. The world was dark, and it would never be morning again.