The Fourth Annual Writer Games: Canon

The Enemy | Males

District Two – Maur Verrill

There's a simplicity to death and a beauty to that, but despite all the simple things the world holds, it has a complexity to it.

This Maur knows from the Peacekeeper's helmet--the cracks of the shattered glass were numerous and random, arranged in a complex, almost beautiful way. He knows it from Moire, from the way the shades of brown layered themselves so fearfully in his eyes before Maur's blade dragged across his ash-laden neck. He knows it from the sky, where the embers crackle and pop, red and orange creating a mess of oddly-shaped puzzle pieces that never seem to fit.

Maur knows it from the red that paints his wrist, his chest, his face--a thousand shades of pain is not a simple, beautiful thing.

The ash is soft on Maur's fingers, and it's warm when he smears it across his face. The color is a black, deep and dark in a empty sort of way. Dirt stirs beneath him in a thin cloud of brown and black as he shifts his leg, bits of ash catching in the soles of his shoes. The jagged bark of the skeleton trees lay in a pile of pieces beneath them, and the brittle wood creaks under his weight as it cracks and crumbles. It gives way to the dust and ash that shiver in the air, floating and dancing before coming to a silent rest on the deadened leaves that line the earth. The wind doesn't blow today.

Maur lifts his head, but the air is heavy on him. It's thick with smoke on his shoulders, weighing them down until they droop and his spine tingles, pain shooting up and down his back. It's a mess of ribbons on his chin, dancing and tickling the skin until red and black line the pale, faltering white. It's stinging on his face--the putrid smell is sharp on his nose, and it leaves a bitter, acidic taste spreading across his tongue. The sulfur is strong, and its poison continue to rain from the ember sky as Maur inhales its toxicities.

He breathes out heavily, wincing as his skin creases painfully in his abdomen. He looks up. The sky--red and orange and fiercely beautiful--is his only friend now as the pain contorts in his chest, the blood boiling beneath sunburnt skin. Bones crack as his hand falls to the dirt, and another wince follows. Maur's vision dances with spots as the tones of red and orange darken.

Is this the end?

The sky is bright--so bright--and Maur wonders for a moment if the dark outline he sees in the mess of color is the hovercraft. Has it come knowing that the cold metal of its claw will wrap around his frail, sickened corpse soon enough? Has it come knowing that the next cannon to boom will be his?

Reds and oranges merge, and then there's a bit of yellow too. The colors grow brighter and brighter, and then Maur doesn't see color at all. He sees white--no, it's silver. There's a gleam to it, bright and almost powerful. He blinks, and the black dots are dancing across his vision as the red of the sky dances across the silver fabric. It's red that he sees again and again--dark red and light red and bright red and dull red.

This is the first time that Maur sees hope in red.

The red--no, silver, not red--floats straight downwards, the parachute catching little air since the wind doesn't curl beneath it. Maur reaches out to catch it, a smile caught in the gaps between his teeth, and though the fabric slips between his fingertips, it's smooth and silky and tells Maur everything that it needs to: it's going to be okay.

Though the tremble in Maur's fingers remains, there's a newfound will inside them. The bones don't rattle, and the skin doesn't shiver beneath the hair. He claws at the fabric with overgrown fingernails, the dirt caught beneath them staining the silver. It tears violently, and then the tiny silver box clicks open to reveal a palm-sized tin of salve.