Why do the leaves change colour every so often? Why do only certain colours make Fall? Who made this decision? Would she ever figure out the answer?
Her life was a mystery; she had been held captive for a while, unsure of why she was chosen to live this life. She vaguely remembers how she got to this place—the new world she was introduced to—and she does remember the man with the mask, shielding his identity from her.
He never spoke or took off his mask, but he would knock before opening the door just enough to slide a tray of food through before closing the door and locking her back in the room to be left alone with her thoughts. At least she was being fed. But she couldn’t understand why she had been taken captive. Was she truly special in some way?
The only optimism she found during this time, even though she was being kept in a dark, underground room, was that one of the grey walls had a square window. There were bars on it, but even with the limited light, she was amazed at what she could see. The sun shone through the window during the day, allowing her to feel as if she hadn’t been trapped against her will. What she loved, though, was that the sun highlighted the huge tree that stood in the distance, right in her line of sight. She watched over the months as the tree stood still with its green leaves before slowly turning yellow, sometimes brown or orange, with red as its final colour. The change made her wonder what was so significant that the leaves needed to change colour. She vaguely remembered hearing about the changing of the leaves, but she couldn’t be sure what it meant. Maybe they were outgrowing their colours and needed a change?
She could relate to needing a change. She had tried to escape before, unsuccessfully; she had left the dark room, trading it for a thin hallway where her captor was waiting to drag her back into the room. The tree and its colours gave her hope that one day, something might change for her. Maybe someday she could leave this pit of darkness and see the light or figure out why the tree changed its colours.
