I woke in the earth, covered in dirt that would have stopped my breath if I had had lungs anymore, in dirt that would have blocked my sight if I had had eyes anymore.

But I breathed, I took in unnatural breath after unnatural breath, and it wasn’t air that filled me, but something more. And I saw each particle of dirt in my eye sockets.

With my new unnatural strength, I burst through the ground, skull first, shot into the sky briefly, then landed on the ground, shaking it so that dirt flew up all around me.

I hastily brushed the dirt off of my bones. I didn’t have much time. “Only one full day,” I recited softly, wondering where the sound of my voice came from, flowing through my skeletal body like a wisp of wind, “To find true love’s kiss or fade away.”

I felt sure that my true love, “Porter,” I whispered his name and called tears to my eye sockets, had been buried as far away from me as the villagers of Hidton were willing to go. “How will I find you like this? When we are both merely bones?”