One Word Prompts

Ash - Stone, Ash, and Snow

Dawn broke over the broken city, casting a crimson glow over the soot-stained snow and ash-covered stone. The natural red sky drowned out the glow of the last embers, embers stubbornly clinging to what little was left to burn.

The city was ruins in every direction, as far as the eye could see. Not another living soul, no matter how long she looked.

She couldn't believe the stillness that had fallen over the city. Not a single heartbeat here where once a thousand heartbeats had been drowned out by the clamor of the lives they lived.

Was this Swift Street? Had that been where the blacksmith had hammered out new horseshoes? There where the fishmonger shouted for the attention of passersby. There where the priest proselytized?

Now it was a row of broken stone, covered in ash and snow. Not even bone remained of the residents.

Was that the guild hall? Where were the masters shouting their apprentices into order? The apprentices bickering amongst themselves? Where were the clerks with papers stacked miles high, clients grumbling over the paperwork required? Where was the rustle of movement, of people to-and-fro, of goods here and there?

Silence reigned, unchallenged by man or nature. Not even the wind stirred, unwilling to blow away the ash of the great fire just yet.

In the light of dawn, it was almost peaceful, the way a morgue was peaceful.

It was that unsettling kind of peace. The knowledge one was surrounded by the dead at the forefront but with the certainty that no stray sound would disturb the grave quiet.

Such a stark contrast to the raging chaos of the night before.

She stood in the remains of the cathedral. Above her had once been a roof of stone and tile. It lay around her feet now. She couldn't remember it, though. All she could see, standing there in the rubble, was the rising inferno that had sprung up here, that had burned so hot that the stone itself had cracked, which had eaten everything less permanent than the immortal stone.

Music had rung forth from here once, yet she could only hear the screams of the priests as the dancing flames devoured them.

Had it started here, that fire which had consumed the city itself? She didn't know. Maybe. It didn't matter in the end. The result was the same.

A snowflake fell, catching in her eyelashes — a straggler from the night before.

While the fire ravaged the world below, throwing smoke and soot into the night sky, a blizzard had raged above tossing ice and snow in sheets where it willed, unconcerned with the heat rising. But even that blizzard could do nothing to temper the unstopping flames.

Between fire and frost, not a soul had survived. She, alone, was left to wander the ruined city, looking in vain for survivors.