Worlds Beyond: Short Stories

Dying Embers

Quickly now. Fight it. Breathe. Smoke filling your lungs. Now again. Faster.

He opened his eyes, rattling coughs shaking his body. Covered in a sheen of sweat, he groaned as he rubbed his eyes. Everything was foggy. He called out. Momma? Papa? No answer. He shouted again, trying not to retch. Everything was a smudge. He couldn't make out any person, dead or otherwise. 

A sharp sting sliced up his forearm as he sat up in the glass, leaving a track the same rosy haze as the mist surrounding him. He winced, wiping it off with the pad of his thumb. There were no sirens. There was no help. Gradually, he could make out a figure in the distance. Wait. Three. He sprang up from the ground, trying not to inhale the sickly dust that clouded his vision. It was so hot. He smacked his lips as he ran, searching for some kind of moisture. Any saliva to wet his cracking tongue. But there was nothing. 

He slowed his pace, dragging his feet to a stop to examine the three personages before him. His eyes pricked, smelling a pungent emanation that threatened to singe his nostrils. It wasn't sickly sweet like he read in the books. It was as if someone had forgotten to take the meat off the stove. Rotten. Smoking. Diseased.

Finally, he focused on the mangled mess before him. He couldn't identify the strangers. Black, shadowed bodies of torn flesh and crumbling bone stuck through the torso on ten foot stakes. He doubled over and retched bile onto his blackened, sooty shoes. He collapsed onto the ground in front of him, raising up a cloud of grey flecks. He retched again, as if it would relieve some sort demon. 

There was nothing. Acres of age-old buildings. Clusters of happy homes with people of all ages. Animals. Schools. Streets. Tourists. Buyers. Sellers. Monuments. Churches. Workers. Travelers. 

They were nothing. Nothing but him. 

He saw his reflection in a single shard of glass staring back at him. Why was he the only one left? Out of every deserving person, why was he the only one spared? He couldn't place it. He stared at himself in the broken glass, clean streaks cutting through the grime on his cheeks. 

He mourned in the dying embers. And his reflection grinned.