Cloak of Ashes

Ashes

"I was left to my own devices,

Many days fell away with nothing to show.

And the walls kept tumbling down,

In the city that we love.

Gray clouds roll over the hills,

Bringing darkness from above."

~ Pompeii by Bastille

A soot covered face peered out from behind the crumbling redbrick corner of a torn down foundation. The foundation rested- no, balanced precariously on two pillars, sagging under the accusing weight of the squat building itself, leaning to the side much like a teenage boy would walk with a hand in his pocket and a hip cocked out, a sort of swagger. Although the tilt of the pillars was not meant to attract any girls, nor be attractive at all, for that matter, the tilt and hunched over position of the remaining bricks scattered around the base were indicative of something else.

Depression, maybe, or disaster and immense sadness.

It certainly looked the part, once gleaming white marble columns now chipped and worn; the facade of the rough red brick looking like it had be battered repeatedly in an attempt to knock in down. Bricks, like knocked-out teeth, were scattered around the radius of the fire, large gap-toothed yawning in the places where they should've been.

The small, dark haired figure held himself in a similar manner as the ruined base. His skin had a greyish pallor to it, matching the looming, dark grey storm clouds in the ceiling called a sky hanging broodingly above. His hair was greasy and unkempt, hanging into his deep brown eyes which stared at his surroundings with a sort of hunger and longing for something which had long passed by, the thing of desire having passed with the moving feet and shoving people that had passed by him earlier that day, screaming and shouting in fear and desperation as the bright, merry fire flickered and cackled as it raised itself higher towards the oppressive gray ceiling. His eyes had dark bags under them, making the skinny boy seem paler and more gaunt.

Haunted.

He was alone in this place, he knew. All sign of the stomping feet and the life of the shoving elbows that had once been here were gone, not even a ghost imprint of what had transpired. All that was left was the tangible evil; the ancient experiment base on which the remains of he now sat.

His wayward, wandering foot kicked a cloud of ashes, scattering them into a frenzied swirl of black against grey.

He watched as the ashes spiraled upward, carried by a sudden gust of wind.

Dark, flitting shadows of ashes, wings spread wide and thinner than paper, spiraled up to disappear among the mute blanket of grey above called the sky.