[Tattles]

It had happened before the Book.

One would have to flip back a few pages to find it,

That ever fateful day.

--

Among the rolling hills and sprawling valleys of that Great Menagerie, that Eden,

There had always existed an end.

The girl had found it once before, long ago in her early youth.

On that day she and the beast had walked the paths,

They had awoken at the first sign of dawn,

And intended to share another picnic,

One that the girl had invited all of the other creatures,

Those that feared both she and the beast.

She always hoped they would come,

But it was rare that they ever did.

It didn’t matter on this day,

For she and the beast wouldn’t reach their destination.

It happened when she saw the fork in the road,

One path going east, the other west, despite being covered in leaves and debris.

Curious as ever, the girl ventured down it.

“I would not go that way.” the beast warned.

“Why not?” the girl asked, one foot after the other taking her further and further into the unknown.

“This is not a place we are meant to be. It is not a place I thought you’d find.” he said.

Before the girl could reply, she had already found something;

Glass and steel that wove together in some sort of structure.

Panes and barring formed what could only be called a wall, one that spread all the way to the right, and all the way to the left,

And rose up as high as the girl could see.

“It is the Divider.” the beast said. “The barrier between here and there.”

“What is on the other side?” the girl asked.

The beast did not answer right away,

Causing the girl to look back to him.

“Come away from here.” he said. “And forget what we saw.”

The girl didn’t want to listen,

But when it came to the beast, she almost always obeyed.

And so they left that place,

But she refused the picnic,

And they returned home.

--

Years had passed since then.

The Book was opened.

The girl changed.

The beast feared her.

And he could not stop her from shattering

That Great Divider.

The glass came down like rain,

The steel bent and creaked aside at her whim.

And when it was finished, the Menagerie was breached.

Howls of wolves echoed forth from the other side.

Hisses from larger serpents whispered on the wind.

The spiders crawled forth and the monsters arrived,

Night settled upon the place the girl had called her home,

For now it was filled with them,

Those beasts.