Cloud of Ash

This is the first time in months the man has felt focused. The ash makes it hard to concentrate. It blocks light, air, and thought. Wrapping everything in its droll decay. Focus now, no mistakes this time.

The knot is strong. The chair is sturdy.

The man looks out of a window one last time, a strange human instinct from the world that died. He knew what he was going to see; remnants of another life now drowned in ash, buildings like tombstones set against the backdrop of a crimson cloud that swallows the sky. But still, he looks.

He kicks the chair away. He was right, the knot is strong. As the oxygen vacated his body, thoughts of his wife raced through his mind. He could barely remember her voice. Tears rolled freely, carving lines through the thick layer of dirt on the man's face. He wasn't religious, but at this moment he hoped he would see her again.

As the world around him darkened, something flickered in the corner of the room. He used his last breath to focus. Squinting through the dust and lack of oxygen, he makes out a necklace. He slides his fingers between the rope and his neck. He knows it can’t be her necklace because he buried her with it. But still, he begins to swing. The wooden beam above him snaps and the man crashes downward. He scrambles towards the necklace in the corner, it’s not hers. He puts it on anyway and thinks about how she would always start laughing before she finished a joke. She wouldn’t want him to do this.

He steps outside once more into the waste, looking back at the house he was willing to call a grave. He sees huge fires in the towns he’d passed through a few days prior. The Cinder Cults on their deranged crusade. Psychopaths that have found god in the ash and burn everything in their path; wood, cloth, flesh. He leans into the road and re-embarks on his pilgrimage to nowhere. The sensation of the heart-shaped locket he’d pilfered around his neck put a spring in his step, and he spends hours thinking about if he’s finally gone insane.

He estimates about 80 days since he last saw another human. It’s impossible to know exactly because it never goes dark, the sky stays in a permanent hue of swirling mercury and greys. He thinks back to watching the news and hearing scientists saying they had it under control. He laughs for the first time in a while whilst scraping the last few beans out of a tin and hopes for another 80 days with no contact. He clutches the locket in his hand and lays down in an empty bed, in an empty house, in an empty town, and drifts into sleep under the starless expanse.

He slept like a baby. He learned long ago that sleeping like that was a big mistake. The smell of smoke invades the room as he grabs his bag and hammer and heads for the front door. He can hear them chanting. How long was he asleep for? Was this the same cult that was burning the towns back west? It doesn’t matter now. A glance out the window reveals the man is out of luck. He counts at least 20, all draped in crude chainmail whilst wielding wooden torches singing together in their profane choir, how do so many people become this insane? Acting fast, he sneaks out of the back door away from the gathering in the town square, he needs to create some distance between him and the clergy unless he wants to burn on their ritual fires. A sharp turn down an alley, a climb over a tall fence, he’s done this before. The voices fade away as his breath begins to steady. He hears chainmail. A cultist stands staring at him, she’s young, younger than any he’s seen before. Why is she so far out here? She looks as confused as he is but she turns and runs, screaming for backup. He can’t let her get back or he will be hunted down like a dog. The chainmail is heavy, she’s slow and cumbersome, he sees her fall heavily into the husk of a burnt-out car. When he catches up she’s removed her chain hood and frantically pleads,

“Please, I’m only with them to survive. They burned my family alive, what else could I do?”

For a second he thinks that this is someone's daughter, sister, or lover. He notices her hand slide towards a concealed blade and he brings down the hammer. Twice was enough. The street is silent again. He takes the chainmail coif just in case he crosses another cultist and creeps away using the shadows of the looming buildings as cover.

A small cluster of houses litters the hill in front of him. This will do for tonight. Sometimes it bothers him that he’s in someone's home uninvited, scavenging through their belongings and sleeping under their roofs. He often thinks about how that train of thought is his subconscious trying to retain his humanity, grasping at something that was and will never be again. He puts these thoughts aside and kicks a locked door open with all the might he can muster after a full day's hike through the tundra. The hinge breaks and the door swings open and a man lunges forward driving a rusted kitchen knife deep into the man's chest. The man's world turns dark in a matter of seconds, he sees her face, he lets himself go.

The man behind the door scans the body of the person he’s just killed and begins to sob uncontrollably. He heard chainmail and could smell the burning but this man is no cultist. This is the first time he’s taken a life, and it was of another lost soul trying to navigate this barren hellscape. Guilt pangs through his entire being. He hears chanting in the distance and knows that sound all too well. A mixture of horror at what he’s just done and the impending fate of burning alive make him grab the pills he’s kept for a painless exit when the ash becomes too much. He manically unscrews the lid and throws a handful into the back of his mouth. He made peace with this long ago, he reaches for the last of his dirty water to wash down the tablets and notices the heart-shaped locket hanging around the neck of the man he’s just murdered. It reminds him of her. The way she would play with her necklace when she was thinking. He spits the pills back into the bottle and takes the necklace from the man's body. She wouldn’t want him to do this. He closes the man's eyelids, takes his hammer, and leaves the house heading away from the maddening chants and flames so high they are burning the clouds.

He's not a man of faith, but still, he holds the locket so tight it hurts and hopes to see her face again.