Ash

I woke up to a strange feeling of cold waves covering my body. I say I woke up, but when I opened my eyes, all I could see was an expansive void. It was dark and desolate, far from any atmosphere I was use to living in. As someone who has only known the blinding lights and man made noises of a densely packed city, this void was my first feeling of real peace and quiet, no background noise, no ambient neon lights shining through my window, just me alone. I could not tell if I was still or drifting somewhere until something caught my eye. I saw a faint white flame in the distance, its visual a mere speck in this cold abyss. It was moving toward me, or maybe I was moving toward it? I could not tell. As the flame got closer, everything around me began to brighten, until at last, I could finally open my eyes to the world.

As my eyelids departed and I was greeted with a deep night sky, but it was unlike any night sky I was familiar with. Its features waved and pulsed, like waters rushing across a sandy beach. I realized that it was not the sky that was black, but it was the clouds. They moved across the sky with the gentle wind, and the small cracks between each formation let just enough light through to allow the outlines of each individual cloud to be seen. The air was dry and somewhat hazy and the scent of something burning was nearby.

I watched the dark clouds run across the sky before finally flinching in pain at a burning cold that continuously flashed on my arm. I turned my head sideways to see what had been causing the strange combination of warm fluid in my hand and dancing chills across my arm. In the palm of my hand, a yellowish triangular object had been stabbed through it, blood pooling within my fingers. My arm was covered in flames, though they were unlike any flames I had ever seen. They were black with a white center, and its heat was replaced with a burning cold. The dark flames hardly emitted any light, but its glow was present as I watched faint shadows flicker around my arm. From what felt like a long slumber, I suddenly realized the pain that was coursing throughout my arm. I reached over with my other arm, realizing that it was also set ablaze by the dark, and yanked the triangular thing out of my hand. Blood dripped everywhere, turning the ground below it red, but the cut was not as deep as I thought. Now with the fire making its way up my arm, I put it out the only way I knew how. I violently twisted over, rolling back in forth as dust from the ground shot up into my nose and eyes. I held my breath and continued rolling around until the blistering cold subsided, leaving my skin exposed to the now bearable cold air.

I finally sat up, my fingers sinking into the soft ground as I pushed against it. I looked at my arms noticing that the black flames did not leave a single mark. I moved my gaze to the ground behind my arms, then looked outward, taking in the scene before me. I was in a shallow pit, just deep enough that I only had a view of the gray slopes that surrounded me. Around me were broken stone pillars with unrecognizable inscriptions carved into them. Rubble laid in piles near me and around each pillar, indicated that this structure might have once had a roof. Then I suddenly noticed something that made me jolt back. Bones were buried in the dust around me, peeking out from the piles. As I crawled toward one of the remains to examine it, I realized that the soft dust below me was not dust, but ash that has seemingly been piling up for a long time now. I held my fear in, allowing my curiosity to drive me forward, and began swiping my hand across the ash to reveal the bones buried within it. I dusted off a semi-intact rib cage and a fractured skull that were most definitely from a human.

"This couldn't be real, it must be a dream right?" I thought. I closed my eyes and began slapping my face like how I had seen in movies, all in an attempt to wake up. Finally, I had given up, the sensation of dry chilly air still kissing my warm cheeks, and the sight of ash and bones still in my view. I wanted to breakdown, but there had to be a good explanation for this. I got up from the ash, my legs wobbling and my teeth chattering. As I walked away from the center of the structure and toward the slope ahead, I instinctively began to put the triangular object that was lodged in my hand into my pocket. I looked at it before doing so, it was large and had a somewhat gritty texture. Just from a glance I could tell it was the tooth of an animal that was much larger than me. I felt that I should have thrown it away after taking it out of my hand, but a feeling stirred within me that it was something important. In the end, I slipped it into my pocket, keeping it for when the time arises that I will need it.

I made my way up the decently steep slope, the ash beneath my feet slipping downward as I crawled up. Ash covered my bloody cut, leaving a stinging sensation in my palm. The top of the slope greeted me with a chilly gust of ash covered wind and a view of the new world ahead of me. Miles and miles of ashen dunes littered the landscape, the wind blowing hazy clouds along the surface of the land. Though the sky was dark and hardly let any light through, I could make out distant silhouettes of some small structures along the horizon. Past those structures, I saw a larger shape much further out. Its structure was wide and grew taller closer to the center, its form poking out, seemingly reaching the clouds. I looked backwards, the ruined circular shrine sitting below me, and a seemingly abandoned small village by the crater's edge. I had no idea what was ahead of me, but I knew that whatever was in the distance was my only chance at getting some sort of answer as to where I am. I pushed myself out of the crater and took my first steps on the soft ash, my footsteps imprinting, then fading as they get blown over it.