We live in a land where the footprints of ghosts linger.

Here is where the creeping of frost's blue lace is audible, and the sighs of a lovestruck girl are not. A place that has forgotten what the sun's rays feel like, a glow upon soft skin.

It has been centuries since something last truly lived here.

When the people could still be called people, there were no vengeful spirits or haunting wraiths. Just people who were happy to be alive in a flourishing world.

Now, the sorrows of spirits from centuries past roam, searching a world that is as empty as they are. They prowl, searching for anything to consume, their numbers as countless as the stars.

They comb through barren fields, wander the rooms of homes long abandoned, linger and loiter in absent schoolyards, their icy fingers grasping for a warmth just out of reach.

This world is such that the misery and the grief of a childless mother may reach it's fingers out to find the neck of another. And squeeze.

Where every negative thought is a residue, every callous remark a stain on this already crumbling world, one that we build of our own demise. Where every thoughtless action and cruelty adds to the anguish of the poor.

How can a world who's only inhabitants are cruel, selfish monsters really be called alive? How can a world, filled with heartless people, be anything more than a desolate wasteland?

This is a place where the leaves that drop from ancient, dead trees are enough to stir a storm, but with no people left to weather it.

This place is a forgotten, rocky landscape that will remain blanketed in snow and ash, crawling with ghouls.