The girl in the glass.

>A Gilnean short story (inspired by the silhouettes in the windows found in the ruins of Gilneas)<

Once upon a time, there was Merchant in Gilneas. He was not rich, he was not poor, but he lived a good life with his little daughter. The Merchant was a happy man, he had many friends and rivals as well, but never did he notice much too his daughter.  In the morning she woke, and cleaned her room, she then made breakfast for her father, and continued to go out and play in the small garden they had. Truly, she never left the grounds of their house, and though to others she never appeared lonely, none knew how longing she was for a living friend, instead of the dolls she was playing with every evening. One day the father had gotten a great sell, and it had to be celebrated, he was sure his luck had turned for the better, and he went out to drink with his fellow merchants.

The Girl stayed home as usual and through the evening, she played with her dolls, and waited for her father. The hours became late, and the girl had stopped playing, she was sitting in the small hallway, in her hand a glass of water. She was sure that her father would be thirsty when he got home. Quick steps was heard coming towards the door. The door handle was pushed down, and the door opened. It was the father, his was soaked and reeked with the stench of alcohol, his expression was furious, and his eyes were hazy. The girl held out the glass of water. The father grabbed the glass and drank its content. Spitting out the water, realizing it was not alcohol, he shouted and cursed, he tossed the glass at the girl, as it shattered against her forehead. She screamed and started to cry, the drunken father only got more furious.

He grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her inside to the living room, he shouted that it was her fault that the mother was gone, that it was her fault that he lost that gamble in the pub, he blamed her for every hardship, fueling his own anger, before he tossed her at the wall. The girls back crashed against the wall, the window above her shattered and the shards rained down over her body, she screamed and cried as she shuffled around the ground. The lights in the windows to their neighbors lit up, the father finally came to his senses as rushed to his bellowed daughter, she was bleeding, and her eyes were in fear. The father panicked, he would end in jail, he would lose his job and everything else, he grabbed one of the shards as it cut into his hand, and slowly he would draw it over the girl’s throat, shortly after his own.

In that moment, the bell tolled three times, the moon stood high, and a cold wind blew in through the shattered window. The next morning the guards had arrived, they found only the corpse of the father, laying in his own blood, by the shattered window. It was by this time the myth began.

Weeks went by, after the accident, the girl was nowhere to be found. Some of the kids  within Gilneas had started to make up rimes about the girl dancing in the Windows glass. It was a rumor, a myth the kids started. They all knew of the weird girl that was lost and with a dead father. Suddenly another kid went missing, his family had only to tell that he talked of a small girl, lonely in the window, and how he had gone to play with her one day. Soon more kids told the same story, and more kids went missing. The only difference was that, they saw more than one kid, calling for them, one more than the last missing kid, playing joyfully in the window glass, never aging, always playing, with no care in the world, or worry of tomorrow.

“She finds the lonely girl or boy

And tell them to come and play.

She shows them all of worldly joy

And beckons them to stay.

So when the hour strikes three bells

And time has come to pass.

She takes them on a moonlight night

To play within the glass

On full moon nights, hide your child.

And hide the toys away

For she’ll take them all to her world of glass

Where forever they will stay.”