Garden of the Black Roses

She doesn't know how she got there, or why she's there, but she knows she's been there a very long time. She remembers, dimly, being picked, out of a group of many people, but she can't remember if she was happy or sad about it. She remembers that she is very important, but for what purpose? She remembers the jagged mark being burnt into her skin, but not why. Someone must have liked her a lot, she thinks, or hated her very much. She's not sure. She knows she isn't pretty, but the things around her, now, they are pretty. She dimly remembers that not so long ago, (or was it a million years?) she would never have sat here with no clothes on. It just wasn't done. She is vaguely aware of the cold, in the same way that she feels the pain; it's been there so long she barely things of it anymore, just remembers that it was and probably still is. She can't feel much anymore. Not hunger, not thirst, she is past that, not the freezing bite of the wind in the Garden of the Black Roses, nore the gentle caress of the needle-like thorns piercing her skin and dripping her lifeblood on their blackened roots...

I... have no excuses. Yes, she's ugly, I couldn't be bothered to draw fingers, but I like the blood dribbles...