Emptiness stretched out ahead of the girl as far as she can see, in every direction. Everything had vanished. The cold, the people, the cage... all around her was just a vast whiteness, a blanket of nothing.

The girl did not know that she had done this. Nor did she know that far away, people were frantically trying to figure out what had just occurred, or that soon she would be labeled as a monster.

The girl did not know that as her shock subsided, the blankness was retreating, inch by inch, like melted frost, leaving behind wisps of white smoke and a light, ashy sand. All she knew was that the world consisted of nothing, and she was neither cold nor hot.

When the girl stood up an emptiness nagged at her, and she realized that the familiar swirl which stemmed from her chest and hovered always protectively about her had gone. She might have felt sad, or worried, or dismayed upon this realization, but there was nothing to feel with, so she didn't.

The girl began to walk because she didn't like being in such a blank world. She thought if she walked far enough perhaps colors would return to the world and she could find her soul again. In the back of her head, she also thought that she ought probably to eat. She didn't feel hungry, but she knew it was bad not to eat, so she continued to walk at random, for there was no way to tell the direction in a world of nothing.

The girl did not know how long she walked. There was no sense of night and day, only white. At some point the blankness had retreated almost completely, but stopped as it reached within 10 feet of her, as though it had hit a brick wall. With all that around her being white sand, the girl hardly noticed.

The girl walked, and walked, and walked. Eventually she walked out of the unending blanket of sand, but the white blankness persisted around her and her soul did not return.

The girl walked through cobblestone streets which shifted and transformed into an empty nothingness as she approached.

The girl walked through war torn battlefields, but as the explosives hurled through the air, they dissolved as though hitting an invisible barrier, and never reached her.

The girl walked past paupers bleeding on the streets, but their cries could not reach her through the vacuum that surrounded her.

The girl rarely looked at that which was around her. It was too difficult to see past the blank veil that engulfed her within. Outside, men and women fought to get to her, heroes tried to capture her and villains tried to use her, but all who approached her disseminated like sand through a sieve. She became feared, and her name spread.

All this the girl did not know. She was able to focus on the outside only when her body called to her, and even then she only dimly knew that she ought to eat and she ought to drink because it was bad not to do so. In an odd way, when she focused just like so, food and water would not disintegrate when she approached, and instead rolled to her feet in a cloud of white sand. She was able to pick it up and consume it, chewing mechanically and swallowing. In this way the girl subsisted, oblivious to the world around her, until one day she stopped short.

There was someone inside her veil.