Our story begins long ago, when the Devil was still young and spent his time creating evil things for fun. One day, he crafted an odd mirror. It looked rather ordinary but in fact it hid much evil in it. Anyone who looked into it saw only the darkest sides of the world. What’s worse, it turned people heartless and made the world a doomed place.
The cunning Devil loved his new creation and wanted to make as many people as possible look into it. He pictured wars and hatred in his head. Fixed on the idea, he flew the mirror high up into the sky. His plan, of course, was that anyone who looked up into the sky would see it, but the higher he flew, the heavier the mirror became. Soon he couldn’t hold it anymore and it slipped from his grasp. It fell to the ground and smashed into a million tiny shards.
Part of the mirror fell on a small town that was home to two very good friends – a boy named Kai and a girl called Gerda. They had lived next to each other their whole lives and were simply inseparable. They would play together all day long, share secrets and, best of all, care for their little garden.
The cold winter morning after the mirror broke, Kai and Gerda were playing with snowballs. Despite it being freezing cold, they laughed and played and the merriness of a good snowball fight kept them warm. After a while, Gerda ran to another part of the garden to get some fresh snow, and she packed a snowball and threw it at Kai. Little did she know that there were pieces of the Devil’s mirror in it, and as soon as the ball hit him,…