How it Happened

Prologue

All around me is destruction. Surrounding me.

Despite all the rubble; ash and debris strewn on the surface of the town there is in some ways, a beautiful landscape hidden in this destruction. Why? You may ask. How? The sky. The sky is a sheet of paper unstained by ink that is the carnage below. 

Walking to what was once a safe place, my safe place where I spent all of my time with Jett, is now like wading through what was, and now what is, no more. I feel isolated in this vast room now. The smoke being emitted from the ice-like fire in the middle of the room chokes me. It fills my senses with the smell of musk, fumes and death. I run my fingers along the brick walls. They are the lives lost. Their surface is like a stroke of paint from a brush. I'm stuck in a landscape painting, I think. A never ending devestation, frozen in time.

Going outside again, I realise that the buildings are the love and loss of the people who once called this town home. The love that once thrived and blossomed like the purest white spring flower and the loss that has now replaced this with the rubble's evil. But not even the darkest evil can destroy love from flourishing from the most unlikely of places. And then there's hope that the frosted sky gives us. Hope is always there. It fuels the best of us. The world wouldn't exist without it. The sky is giving me the hope to survive and to find Jett.

Now I am wishing for water, to rinse out the rancid taste of ash and dirt from my mouth. I just stand now, unable to move. Every now and again I sweep my eyes over the ruins and instantly regret it because I always find a part of a body; a leg, an arm or maybe a face, deformed to the extent that I can no longer tell if they were a friend or an enemy. Everytime I just hope it's not Jett or his family. The only thing I can be certain of is that it is a poor soul that could not escape the savage invaders.

Now the only sounds that reside in this town are the scuffling of my feet and the rising smoke. The otherwise eerie silence is like walking blind. The ragged cloths hanging from what must have once been a balcony are now the flags of surrender from the weak and injured. I trip on a body part as I try to stumble forward and fall straight into the gritty dust. It mixes with the crimson blood pouring down from cuts on my arms and plasters itself to my body. I cannot bear the cold heat anymore; it pinches me, makes me confused, I feel hopeless to the neglect that I have been exposed to once again. I am alone in a world of chaos, shocked that I cannot, could not do anything to help. But that's the thing, no one knew this was coming.

I'm scared now, my fear is rising and I can no longer swallow it. The despair of no help coming, no help ever coming, has just hit me. I'm drowning in a whirlpool of emotions, it's like I have just opened up to what has happened - to the reality of it all. Sadness, abandonment and something new, anger. Yes. Anger to the people who could have possibly done this, destroy a whole settlement. I clench my hands into fists, filling them with the same ash and dirt that still lingers in my mouth, turning it to sandpaper. Tears erupt from eyes as I bang my fists hard on the ground, letting out all or my stress and hatred. I let out a small cry but no more. I know no one will answer. All that is here is the full sound of nothing; it rings in my ears. I hear the blood pumping and feel the warmth of the liquid crimson, and my tears which stream down my body, and I hunch up, burying my face in the ground. The town is as empty as my broken heart. I have lost Jett, I have lost my home and my safety. But the worst thing is, I know how this happened... And it's all my fault.