As soon as she had solved the "riddle", the atmosphere had immediately changed.

  The world was no longer a mix of colors, forms and symbolic figures, it was now a... snowy landscape.

  She went to wipe away at her tears, but the cold frost had, quite literally, frozen them, as she stuttered and trembled out of the sheer cold.

  She hugged herself in a vain attempt of comfort from the merciless winds, but she fell on her knees, shivering uncontrollably. This place... this temperature was anything but normal.

  In fact, if the very notion of "absolute zero", was possible, this place might as well be it. The snow wasn't even natural, it felt more the complete, utter death of the movement of particles - the atoms and molecules in the whole, seemingly boundless area. The snow was hard, a lifeless pale hue that signified an eternal permafrost of... death.

  If was she stumbled in before was the abstract, this was the very symbolism of concrete, of the physical - of negative entropy. Everything was far too ordered, the whole realm felt like a stiff block of immortal ice, that froze one's soul to its essence - down to its very meaning of being. The very winds themselves were a tangible, slicing flurry of razor sharp blades that ripped away at her skin--

  But...

  "T-T-This is... j-just a-another o-one...", she stuttered out, speaking to herself like a lunatic, and maybe she was. She slowly, painfully, stood up, her wobbling legs trying to find balance. With fatigue, she started to walk..

  And walk...

  And walk...

  ...

  Hours. Days. Months. Years. Decades. Centuries, millennias... she didn't know.

  At one point she stopped feeling the cold. At one point she stopped feeling her legs. At one point her whole skin was marked by scars, and her eyes were a dull purple, her breathing now barely there... she was a walking zombie, in a landscape abandoned by any sort of "life", she had been trying to find a meaning, a reason, a key..

  ...

  "...coffee...", she mumbled. The only word she had been mumbling in this infinitely spanning oblivion of death, as her walking, crawling, dragging corpse didn't give in...

  Her mind couldn't break. Because... because...

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  ...

  "You know... the world might seem cruel, at times", the old man sat next to her on a chair, as she laid in bed, sick, her eyes puffy and red, her skin of a deathly pale color, "...but what really matters, %@#%&, is how we are affected by it. You don't live based on how the world around you goes, but based on how you react to it."

  He poured some warm chamomile tea into a cup with frilly, tender decorations - roses. Roses... they're red, like her... blood..

  "...I know it's tough. She... she left me to you, as a last effort to shield you from the... this... forsaken, unforgiving thing we call 'life', and I know you don't even know me, and right now you might not even want to keep on breathing for a moment longer, as you feel there's no point, no purpose... but here's the catch", he went to hand her the cup, she starednat it... she hesitantly took it in her cold, gelid hands...

  "...there is always a purpose, my girl. The secret lays in finding it. When you feel like your very existence isn't worth it, as if some divinity has cursed you, like the world itself is falling apart in front of your eyes...", the old man showed her a picture... of a young boy, together with the man, who looked... happier, as he tenderly hugged him to his chest - the son he'd lost.

  "...remember it. They'd want you to keep going. They wouldn't want to see you so down, so miserable, so...", he sighed, trying to not shed tears again, for he was tired of crying...

  "...so unlike the person they've left behind, with the future they entrusted to them. The life they lost... it's entrusted to us. In our hearts, our souls, for it will grow, it will flourish again, like..."

  ...

  "...a majestic, beautiful tree...", she had stopped moving, her hair shadowed her eyes... but they had once again regained a spark. In the brief time she had been lost in this cataclysmic dimension of "death", of cold melancholy, she was caught off guard by the compromised perception of time, that made her believe there was no chance, no hope of escape...

  ..in truth, time depended on her. It all did. How she reacted to it, how she fought it, was the key. And that old man, she helped her remember the meaning of this journey, the true significance of all her efforts until now...

  She sighed, smiling lightly and removing her glasses... crushing them in the palm of her hand, and fixing her hair, flicking them behind her shoulder, as she stretched her sore, aching and tired arms and legs...

  "It all depends on me... so I suppose what I am, is dependent on "me", as well..", her purple eyes were now more serious, calculating, as the slight glow coming from them demonstrated the new grit and determination that fueled her very spirit..

  "So...", she took more steps forward, but this time she didn't stumble, as she scowled, walking decisively towards the incoming storm of absolute zero cold - but death, wasn't in her mind today, literally.

  "...playing with my perception, is not something I will allow so easily!", she fearlessly walked through the storm, as her figure vanished into it...

  ...and reappeared unharmed, past the colossal tornado of "cold", that had now vanished - alongside the landscape, into a torrent of pure, luscious waters flowing down an imposing, tall mountain in the distance, beyond the endless rows of tree and floras--

  ...with past it all, the most beautiful tree, waiting for her, and her close to condemned to oblivion soul...

  "..so, come, 'voice'. Let's see who will win this game, me or you... or this falling apart mind of ours."

  ...

  For her true name, awaited past the Tree of Knowledge.