In the narrow Square of Purity, set at the eastern side of Snow Nexus, where trees and unsettling maps had been traced across the stone ground, and disturbing statues had spread, a statue of a man eating his own heart, another rendering a woman devouring her own mind, a third showing an old man cutting off his own hand, and a boy weeping over his dead dog, while the terrifying trees crowded into one another around its tattered buildings. The sky was a yellowed red, surging with a tide of burning orange, while bluish violet adorned its lower and upper edges. The temperature in the square brushed zero, yet it did not rival the cold of fear and awe at the mere presence of her.
(The Little Boy) and (The Little Girl) walked until they stood at the base of a towering pillar, and they stared in quiet focus and stillness.
Behind them, the ghouls and the ghosts, the monsters and the soldiers, had gathered.
(The Little Boy) in a thunderous voice: "Split the Path of Purity. The cleansing of that vile soul has come."
The soldiers cleaved through the crowds to the right and left, opening a road between them. Along that road walked the two guards with wild rabbit helmets, and in their hands was a body with a spirit that had lost its being. They dragged (Rozen) with their solid hands, the muscles of his arms torn by the force and tightness of their grips. It was laughable, when we knew that the young man being hauled toward another ruin offered no resistance at all, and yet their strength was poured upon him without restraint.
When they dragged him to the pillar, they crucified him and bound his body with copper wires, thick in size and density. (Rozen) did not look at anyone. His eyes held no light.
He was blind despite seeing, deaf despite hearing, mute despite his health.
The ghouls and the ghosts stared at that broken gaze, the gaze born from his previous shattering. Some ghouls fainted, unable to endure the ugliness of his collapse, and a portion of the ghosts dissolved, deciding there was no good in remaining in a world that carried such a gaze.
As for (The Old Man), he was weeping at the feet of (The Little Girl) and (The Little Boy), weeping with a burning grief that stunned the crowd.
(The Lady) was stunned. The monsters and the ghouls were without mind, and the ghosts and the soldiers were without soul, and yet fear rose upon every face, every face except the two children and the two rabbits.
(The Lady) sounding across the horizon: "Do not fear, in swift goodness. This crucified body is steeped in harm and toxicity. The darkness within it has reached what cannot be saved except by purification. Therefore… let it be burned."
(The Little Boy) opening his eye in sudden shock: "…"
He turned, calm in his face, toward (The Little Girl), and she stood struck.
(The Old Man) stopping his weeping in horror: "…"
Silence fell, especially upon the face of (Rozen), his mouth open, his eyes numb, his nose streaming.
The two rabbits delayed for three seconds… then lit the fire at the base of the wooden pillar.
(The Old Man) gripping the edges of the little boy's and the little girl's shirts, his voice stunned: "I thought it was only the binding crucifixion. Why will he be burned?"
Both children looked at him with mouths open.
(The Lady): "Rozen's matter is special. He is my dear one. He is my beloved. He is mine."
Flames began to devour his feet, and (Rozen) opened eyes that had already been open when he sensed the heat of the fire.
He looked around and was struck by the enormity of the sight, by the crowd and its height above him. Before he could grasp anything, the fire climbed rapidly from behind his back and from before his chest, passing over his belly. He screamed with terror and pain and twisted left and right, wanting to tear the pillar away, but the only thing that tore away was his pelvis, eaten through.
He released a cry that shook the hearts of the monsters and the ghouls and destroyed the cold harshness of the ghosts. (The Little Girl) trembled, while (The Little Boy) could not remain standing, for they were close, and he saw the slow, precise details of Rozen's continuing burn.
(The Old Man) fainted from the sight, while the two guards with wild rabbit helmets stood without a tremor, and they were the closest to him.
(Rozen) screaming as the fire wrapped his ears and hair without touching his face: "…"
He lifted his head high and cried out until he choked on the blood of his throat, which evaporated at once from the heat of the flames, and he spoke in a voice of severe strain and fracture:
(Rozen): "Is this what I was born for?"
The flames ate what remained of him. Smoke rose and spread through the square.
The pillar smoked with the body upon it for several days, until the snow returned again.