Once upon a time,

A young girl found herself enclosed,

Pinned between the interlaced, decaying branches,

And stumps of dark, derelict trees with thorns,

Her ebony waves hung flat against her back,

Her face was pristine like the glacial surface of Mount Fuji's summit,

Her dark, almond eyes shimmered like mozambique garnet,

Her lips were the crimson of blood,

When she spoke the words drifted languidly and smelled fresh like a salty, sea breeze,

Her cheeks were razed with a faint, pink tint,

But she grew pale and quiet as she stumbled through the spirit-ridden forest,

For the Aokigahara forest was stiff and oligotrophic,

There were no birds to sing to,

No overflow of fauna to lead the way,

Instead the low, cryptic hum of wanderlust spirits reverberated,

She could hear their dying wishes ever so slightly pitter-patter in her ears,

Their soft voices made her skin boil into goosebumps,

Her eyes dilated into gargantuan orbs,

Yet she could see from peripheral vision star dust-like shapes following just behind,

These gentle wisps of glinting forms lead her into the heart of the forest,

And she shuddered in the dark depths of tree cover,

Vacant of the sun's revitalizing rays just above,

The temperature was plummeting near the center,

At the heart of Aokigahara seven ghastly figures appeared before her,

She was emaciated,

She was desperate,

Her stepmother had been engorged with envy at her new stepdaughter’s beauty,

So during hardships, or supposed hardships,

The girl found herself banished from their home and cast into the desolate forest,

A despondent wasteland of abandoned bones,

Bones of since-forgotten family burdens,

Left at the brutal hands of Entropy,

These seven spirits before her saw a worthwhile being,

A pure heart that gleamed like the brightest jewel,

Like many before her they could have left her in the labyrinth of a forest,

To hopelessly wonder only to find her gruesome, starvation-fueled demise,

Instead they formed a path of twinkling spirits,

She followed them out into the sun-bathed threshold,

Free from the insidious Aokigahara, there was light,

She found a vast, natural bounty of asian pears, tangerines, and plums,

A bubbling spring flowed down to greet her from Mount Fuji,

She formed a cup with her hands and drank the sweet water,

She didn't look back to the forest,

Instead she bowed her head in respect for the fallen,

She decided she'd rest beneath the pear tree before she went further on,

In tranquil slumber she saw a striking prince,

With strands of onyx that the sunlight formed a glowing halo around,

He closed his gentle, amethyst eyes,

Then kissed her lips, disbanding the poison,

On the verge of dream or reality, with a sense of Deja vu,

She awoke within a palace room on satin sheets,

Feeling her fairy tale fantasies had at last come true.