Lily was sure she was in heaven. Where else could she be? She had fallen 100 feet down a crevasse in a glacier.
There was no way she could have cheated death. Yet, she didn't feel as though she were dead.
She slowly opened her eyes to find that she was surrounded by... white. Nothing but white. She cautiously sat up, using her arms as support.
Where was she? Standing up, she inspected her body, surprised to find that she was not tattered and bruised.
In fact, she felt quite fine. She walked around for a bit, trying to find a clue about where she was. With no luck, she sat back down and sighed.
"Lily Winter."
Lily shot up and felt a sudden spell of dizziness. Next time, I'll stand up slower, she thought.
Who had said that? Was she going crazy? Yes, she thought, I must be going crazy.
"Do not be frightened, Lily Winter," the voice said again.
"Umm, hello? Who are you?" Lily asked to nothing in particular. She wasn't really expecting an answer.
"I am Man in Moon," said the voice. "I have made you a guardian."
Lily was shocked. She was overwhelmed with all kinds of emotions now. What the heck was that supposed to mean?
What was a guardian? Who was Man in Moon? Yes, she was going crazy all right.
What a strange dream, she thought. Wait, how can I dream if I'm DEAD?! She nervously scanned the white landscape.
There was no one there. In fact, there was nothing there! So she asked, "Umm, where are you?"
"I do not speak in person, Lily Winter. I speak through your mind." Man in Moon replied.
"Okay. That's a little weird, but okay," Lily said. "Anyway, where am I?"
"You are in the transformation stage now. This is where you transformation from human to guardian begins."
"So... I'm not dead?" Lily asked.
"No." came the response.
"Oh." She said as she thought, This is a little awkward.
"What is a transformation?" she asked, trying to keep the silence from getting even more awkward.
She didn't get a reply. She asked a few more times and gave up when she got the same results.
I guess he doesn't want to talk anymore, she thought to herself. She sat back down onto the surprisingly soft, white floor.
She noticed for the first time that she wasn't wearing her old tattered jeans and stained t-shirt. No. She was wearing a dress!
A beautiful white dress with silver swirling patterns neatly embroidered into it. She began inspecting herself more closely now.
Her skin color was a little paler but it wasn't a sickly color. And she was cold. Her skin felt cold yet she wasn't uncomfortable with it.
When she looked up, a mirror had appeared. She was stunned when she saw her reflection because the girl in the mirror looked nothing like the Lily she once was.
The girl in the mirror was... beautiful. Her hair was white! A beautiful silvery white that glowed faintly and swirled around her shoulders.
It went down to her mid-back and ended in waves and swirls. A breeze brushed her back and she caught a lock of her new hair.
It was silky and smooth. It was as if it had been dyed in moonlight and snow. The next thing she noticed was her eye color.
Though Eve had blue eyes (a trait she'd often been jealous of), Lily always had brown. Now, they were a crystal blue color.
A beautiful blue that was like nothing she had ever seen. They were as clear as the winter sky on a blue bird day.
Reaching from her pupil were delicate streaks of white as thin as the frost that was covering the mirror.
Frost! Lily thought. Where did it come from? Where she had placed her hand on the mirror, frost had swirled around it.
She lifted her hand off the mirror and stared at the swirling lines in awe. I did that. She thought. I made frost!
She brushed her fingers around the rim of the full length mirror and in their path, a new pattern of the delicate frozen magic appeared.
It finally dawned on her that this was the transformation. She was able to control winter!
Of course, she didn't know exactly what she could do so she didn't try to do anything new.
Suddenly the mirror vanished and the white faded to the most beautiful landscape she had ever seen.
Evergreens stood tall, coated in blankets of sparkling, freshly-fallen snow. The ground was untouched and as white as the clouds in the sky.
She wasn't on the ground, though. It only made sense that she would be floating on a cloud just above the ground.
After all, a man that lived in the moon had talked to her. She jumped off the cloud and landed lightly on her toes. The snow was soft and cold.
If she were still human, the snow would have been unbearable to walk in barefoot.
But now, being a "guardian" (she still did not know what that was) and after the transformation she was not cold at all.
If one were to touch her hand or her face, she would be as frigid as the beautiful icicles draped from the limbs of the evergreens.
She was well aware that she was still alive. But it still felt like heaven couldn't be far off from this.