She originated from the schoolbooks cluttered 

across the blue rug in preschool.

From the pages that swept her into parallel universes 

this world might never witness in a millennium.                     

Out of the ashes from memories burned,

their carcasses still strung through gapes in her imagination. 

Each which she contemplates whether to discard or keep; 

usually the former. 

Without her mind she is fractured; 

with it, she is remedied. 

Her weaponry is filed away in a drawer, 

secluded for when inspiration strikes,

she is transfixed by the ink that flows from a ballpoint pen 

to a thin sheet of tree bark.

From these scriptures came a twist in the plot; 

a corridor revealing the fiends who 

sink their metallic teeth into a young girl’s flesh. 

They recite vernacular across fissures in her broken thoughts

until she doubled, tripled back,

seized the passcode inscribed with quill and parchment

And busted open the mahogany coffin.