Grey Light

10. Hallucinations of an apocalypse

10. Hallucinations of an apocalypse

        She had been a star before she was human and that was why, after all this time, she still sat under that big oak tree every night, waiting for dawn's rose-tipped fingers to stroke a golden sun to life across the perpetual sky. Around her there was never anything but wild wild sea – churning and churning, its grey surf relentlessly breaking against her.

        The blanket around her shoulders was grey, too – a pale grey after hundreds of thousands of years of protecting her from the elements – but it had once been vibrantly blue. She could barely remember what color was, though; and it was even harder to recall that soft color of his eyes, and his soft hands, and his soft voice, murmuring something sweetly into her ear as he wrapped the blanket around her shoulders one night – that night, when all the world was screaming and screaming and the winds were but another gleeful participant.

        All that screaming around them, and it had all been for naught. The silver city – with its mirror-walled buildings and glassy towers that strove, year after year, to be closer to the sky – had fallen and its walls had been mercilessly torn down by wave after wave of unceasing fire. He had fallen, too; just mere feet away from where she still sat, now, sucked away into that whirl of angst and agony by the unavoidable demons in his head. She’d watched silently, having long ago given up on convincing him that there was something better waiting just beyond these mountains. And he’d only stared back, the soft color of his eyes fading to black-and-white as the full force of realization finally hit him, and he had only a millisecond to say good-bye with those fading eyes before the jagged storm took him.

        She was the only one left, now; and that was because she had always been a star before she was human. A star, a dreamer. And now there was nothing left for her except this big oak tree, its genetically-modified roots still living off whatever life-giving essence the scientists of yore had connected it to in the same big white rock she was sitting on. And all around her there was never – and there would never be – anything but wild wild sea – churning and churning, its grey surf relentlessly breaking against her.