And so Tenebris sat, locked away from the world. Glittering like a jewel, the huge dome protected all within, but also kept them trapped. Many tried to break the barrier to see what lay within, but their efforts were in vain. Shadow glass only recedes for certain reasons, and vandals and busybodies had no business inside.

Years, decades, millennia passed. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, nothing changed. Tenebris Paradiso became a fairytale, something the residents of the Isles of the Blessed dreamed of, something the victims of the Furies told themselves to make their existence less horrible.

Until one day, a young man appeared right outside the gate of the garden. Looking up, amazement was evident on his face. He reached to touch the glass, but was stopped by a voice.

“It won’t open.”

The man whirled, turning to see a fair nymph standing beside a laurel tree, smiling innocently at him.

“It hasn’t melted for any reason…it won’t for you.” She pushed off against the tree, gracefully making her way over to put a hand on him.

“But I need to get in there,” the man said earnestly.

“There’s no use,” the nymph twined herself around the man, “You’re better off staying here…with me.” She smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes at him.

The man removed himself from her, reaching again for the glass, “No…I need to be in there.”

The nymph humphed, then strode off, miffed at being dismissed so thoroughly for a black wall.

The man came close to the glass. Nothing was visible, and so he put his nose to it to try and see better. Upon doing so, it melted away from his touch, letting him fall to the ground inside. Then it sealed around him, locking him inside the glass prison. He stood, brushing himself off. The inside was eerie, so quiet, so still. The outside light made it visible, just full of shadows. But the strangest thing was the roses, roses everywhere.

These roses seemed so strange to him; they were like none that he'd ever seen before. As he walked through, they curled towards him, unfurling their leaves and vines to grab at him gently. The pale-swirled, mahogany-petaled, buds almost seemed to preen under his gaze. They grew from everywhere, coming straight up from the ink glass. 

The man continued through this strange world of glass and roses, amazed. Everything was frozen in a sheen of black, the details etched into in. The leaves of the trees and plants seemed to sway in some invisible breeze. The animals that the man could see were stopped in their very movements, stopped in time. One could even imagine that the brook was burbling, so perfectly preserved it was. 

Then he came to a wide clearing, where a curious scene was laid before him. Amid the stilled whispergrass were predatorial wraith animals, all locked in a stiff vigil. In the trees the man could see birds of prey, eyes glazed over by the blackness. On the ground, he walked past wolves, and foxes. Getting closer to the center, he brushed his fingers over the heads of big cats; tigers, lions, panthers. 

When the man saw what the horses, Chaos and Destruction, were guarding, he gasped.

"No...," he sank to his knees in front of the serene statue of the woman, who still had frozen tears sliding down her cheeks. 

"No...no, no, no...," he murmured, letting tears of his own slip from his eyes. 

He reached out a hand to trace her hair, her cheek. They felt smooth to the touch, cold as ice. He moved to sit beside her, putting his arms around her, as if his warmth could thaw her. He laid his head in the crook of her neck, pressing his face to her sculpted shoulder. There he stayed for awhile, letting his sorrow match hers.

Standing up, he moved to pick a few roses, laying them in her lap, a gift for her. He turned, intending to go and try a last effort to speak with the gods on what might possibly reverse the effects of the ink glass.

As a last minute thought, he pivoted to press a gentle kiss to her brow, leaving her with a token. The he started off, walking slowly. He didn't want to leave her, but he had to try and save her. 

All of a sudden, he heard vicious cracking. Whipping around, his heart stopped beating upon his seeing the cracks running all down her body and through the ground. He rushed to her side, falling beside her, his hands coming to rest on her face.

Slowly, the ink came to life, rippling. It dripped off her, running down her body into the ground. All around, the same thing was occurring to everything around them. Tenebris was waking up. The plants and animals stretched, brushing off the ink. The special roses shrunk away too, disappearing into the ground like the remains of the glass.

The man kept her face cupped in his palms. She blinked, life returning to her limbs. The man smiled.

"Hi. I'm Antony."