Cain stood on his brother's grave and looked down at the worn stone impassively. A lily wilted and died in his fingers. As he let the stem slip from his grasp, the wind blew, scattering the petals. Cain watched them turn to dust in the balmy air.
A bird sung. Cain looked up. The gravestones had closed in upon him surrounding him like stone monsters with wide-open mouths of spindly gently curving teeth. He took a step back, then another. The lamb on his brother's tombstone opened its sleeping eyes and stood, shaking the moss from its solid fleece.
Cain turned and fled, stumbling over gravestones that jumped to put themselves between him and his destination. When his hands touched the dirt, chains sprung forth from the earth to capture him. Fine filaments wove around his head like spider webs and attached to his fingers.
The bird continued to sing a melody that made Cain's head hum with the echoes of the notes as they faded in the stale, dead air. He searched desperately for the source of the beautiful music, breaking free of his bonds, even as they tugged on his limbs, urging him to stay still.
A tree as fine and as glorious as the one from which grew the downfall of Ada, shuddered to the surface from some deep unknown beneath the ground, turning over the glistening dirt and tearing out clods of grass and flowers with its massive trunk as it rose.
Cain stopped running and stared in awe as the branches raised up to praise the Heavens and the roots dug deep into the bowels of Hell itself. The birdsong came from the leaves; the wonderful hues of green that sunned themselves in the misty light. Apple buds blossomed and grew into fruit as big as Cain's head, their shiny crimson exteriors bleeding colour into the lifeless world.
The branches swayed, giving rise to another song, this, a somber dirge, and upon the needle-thin branches sat three birds: a small sparrow with black wings that seemed to glimmer with some celestial incandescence; a dove with pink-rimmed eyes of blood red; and a mangy crow, his once sleek feathers disarrayed and his chest concave with malnutrition.
"Pick," said the Rook above the growing din of the birdsong. The Seraph turned an inquisitive green eye upon Cain as the Crescent ruffled her downy feathers indignantly. "Pick," the Rook demanded, shuffling along his branch.
At the base of the tree appeared a box. The front was all glass and the interior was blindingly white. A girl was inside, huddled in a corner with her legs drawn up to her chest. She raied her head and stared at Cain with sad, pale eyes. Her mouth moved, but he couldn't hear her over the birdsong, which had reached a screeching pitch like the metal gears of some vast machinery grinding together.
Cain fell to his knees and crawled to the box, pressing his face against the glass as she did the same on the opposite side. Her lips formed one word over and over again. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped, the birds sung. Cain put his hand to the glass. She offered him a thin smile and raised her hand to mirror his.
Suddenly knowing exactly what needed to be done, Cain stood. With his hands, he grasped one of the tree's thick lower branches and pulled. The tree shrieked with pain as the branch cracked and the ground split open and fell away, leaving Cain, the box, and the tree on an island with roots that stretched into endless black space.
Cain gripped the branch in both hands like a baseball bat and swung towards the box. The glass cracked, relfecting her face like a kaleidoscope as she wrung her hands, impatient to be free of her prison.
With a grunt of effor, Cain struck the window again, this time shattering the glass into a million pieces that flew through the air, nicking him with tiny, sharp edges. From the hole poured forth a multitude of butterflies, mingling with the glass shards that dusted his skin. Cain cast aside the branch and threw his hands up to protect his face and fell to the ground.
The Rook laughed. Cain looked up into the withering branches of the tree. Dead leaves rained down on his body. "Wrong choice," the Rook said. The Crescent shook her head slowly as the Seraph turned away, unable to face him any longer.
Cain looked back toward the box, hoping she'd be there, ready to embrace him. But the box was empty save for a satin pillow in which the impression of her head still remained.
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