Final Embers

Long after the soul is cold, stay warm by its embers. When the beat is empty, and the sky is alone. The heart remembers.

Long after machines cool, when the sun no longer shines warmly through the thick, oily clouds choking the sky, life remains in distant ruin. The only memory of this dark home of ruin are of dreams, a blurry image hung in the backs of minds belonging to savages. A warmth left in the hearts that still beat.

Where the great towers of stone cry sweet tears of early hours, their splintered glass snags on shallow beams from an old glow in the sky, pouring their falling sparkles like the dripping blood of silk into the thicket below. Deep under the choking plumes of grey freckled air rolling above its layer below the sky in breaching towers, in a bed of dying attempts of moss and weeds creeping over the dulling stone and metal halls.... The beasts play.

Residing in a bland hole under a ruined wooden box covered over with the brittle bones, is the quivering whiskers of where the food chain begins. At the crunch of shriveled foliage littering the uneven ground, the prey twitches its long ears reaching from its head and resettles its long legs and wiry arms to shrink into the safety of its home. Pressing its wide, empty eyes as open as it can.

Breaking the hollow color of dirt and stone, are tan roots dropped before it. They smell sharply of a prize… The bulbous, dirt speckled roots of the stingy plant yet to surrender to the harsh grey of the earth, invites the youngling. Far too late for predators to be out, the pink nose of the fur patched rodent brings a hesitant hand out of its hiding place to inspect it.

It takes a few curious steps... But it takes patience to draw out a wary quarry. Crouched upon the short wooden box silently amid scattered remnants that once furnished this cold room, the hungry black eyes of the creature fixes its intent upon the underling sneaking around its burrows.

The creature leaps, the fearful critter turns with feet slipping over one another to sprint, but the creature’s claws are faster. Swiped up with a pained squeak, silence falls after a cutting crunch of teeth breaking bone and flesh. This, is where our story begins.

It has been harder and harder to feed oneself in the slowly thinning populace of the concrete undergrowth. When plants no longer bear even the cruel flavored vegetation they once had, so neither will the warm blooded that feasted on them. This world is not long for the due death it was promised the day it was forgotten.

This goes unknown by even the cleverest of the twisted inheritors of this failing planet, which now picks at the angled teeth deforming its rotten snout of a jaw, prying leftover meat from its latest kill with the keen claws grown from slender, pale fingers. Licking over the blood on its hands, it preens the feathered leather hooded cape it decorates itself with, dragging wet nails and clammy palms over the stained black feathers and scratching along the bony skull it wears upon its head.

The creature, pleased by the newest notch on its belt, begins its clamber through the mismatched rubble of collapsed stone. It leaves the sunken hole it chased its prey into, and back out into the grey. Sniffing the putrid air, it recoils with a wet coughing fit and pulls the blue fabric it wears around its neck to cover the overbite of its jutting mouth, and crooked nostrils of its dentally disturbed nose, bent and protruded from the angle its teeth still yet grows.

It first looks above, peeking around the fallen towers leaning against one another in a long cascade of crumbling bridges, hoping to catch a glimpse of that favored sprinkle of silver that pierces the depressed sky, like a bramble of thorny stars scratching through the bed of industrial breath. Its dark eyes widen at the first twinkle, trying to capture as much of the fallen diamond as it can in its own glinting eye. It closes its eyes tight, unsure of why, only that it makes it remember what happiness is… or could be.

Flinching at the sudden rush of sound in the world as quiet as it is empty, the creature lowers glaring eyes at whatever stirred the water near it. Just a thin waterfall… Newly formed, pouring out of a broken hole in one of the more visible fallen towers. It must be raining… The creature meanders over to the growing pool of dirty green tainted water, observing the glassy amber film.

The creature waits for its reflection to settle… It prides itself on being the most clever of its unique kind, and assures it is not confused with anyone else. It adjusts the leather strap affixing its tattered white robe around its narrow chest, dusting off its outlandish dressings. It glances around for any spying eyes, and opens its robe covering most of itself… It smiles to itself at the silvery crafts it made and hung inside its robe… It doesn’t often have the chance to indulge its vanity.

A glimmer draws it… Not just a shine… but what it always imagined a shine would sound like… It turns around slowly and before it… Is a dream...

A lovely house… At least that’s what her mother thought. Julianna couldn’t truly agree. In the middle of their street, stifled by other buildings like a weed stuck under a shrub. Standing out on the sidewalk, she sneered at the yellow bricked building hoisting two lonely flowerbeds from two sad little windows. She refused to believe they had to move so deep into the city… Just as much as she refused to voice her complaints, instead she boiled over them quietly. “Quite unlike the street,” she thought to herself with bitter satisfaction.

Not more than an hour ago, she was told to go outside and play with chalk. “A highly overrated activity,” she had decided not long after beginning. Instead, she had only held her stuffed dog, Reginald, and pouted on the curb. When she finally heard her mother calling her inside…

“Juli! Come inside, I have something for you dear…” It could almost still hear it now… It couldn't understand what it just saw, and even began to forget what it had, leaving only the feeling of warmth as it stared at the pile of red tiled rubble. It pushed its way through a small hole in the collapsed yellow walls to follow this strange dream…

“Julianna!” Her mother called, this time with a gentle firmness. Which, Julianna obeyed, carrying a sour face. She entered her mother’s room, luggage still strewn about in a cleaner, if however still cleaning supply riddled, house. “Ju-” She started again, turning about to see her youngling standing most frustratedly in the doorway. “Oh Juli… Come here, I have something for you…” Her rotten disposition began to soften in its still baby features as Julianna looked up at her mother, arms still crossed over Reginald against her chest. “I know you miss home… And it’s strange here, and it’s hard to accept all this… change.” Her mother explained, much to the hesitant excitement of Julianna, expecting they could go home now. “Close your eyes, Juli-bean…” She did, tight-lidded like she would wake up back at home…

A gold locket… Resting in the old dust of a little flimsy box, set in a corner of the room. The creature rolls the simple shape of a heart around its bony hands, running its numb fingers over the dust coating the wrought gold. This is… familiar… A vision. An old dream… It clutches it tightly as its breath snags, and splurts black goop from its torn lips. It stains its mask before it manages to pull it down. It hacks and gags over its own gasps until it loses a lump of black flesh and manages another raspy breath. It lifts its mask over and leans against a wall to keep balance…

The creature places the necklace around its neck, proud of its new shiny prize despite its difficulty standing. It stumbles forth, glancing around the room until its hollow eye catches on the glimpse of movement. It flinches and prepares its claws, when it finds only a reflection of the same. It observes the dusty, crooked image before it.

Julianna looked at herself in the mirror, her locket strung about her neck, the small gold heart set neatly below her grin, short a few teeth. “Mommy, it's just lovely!” She cried, jumping and stamping her little feet. Her mother crouched behind her, wrapping her arms around Julianna. “Yes, yes, dear. And it’s all yours. A little piece of home you can always take with you…” Her mother’s words rest softly on her ears, the sooth to an ache somewhere between the heart and the head…

The creature can still hear them, rolling about its head as the dream begins to fade away, lost inside the locket sitting in its palm… Curious… It can hardly remember even the meaning of the words it heard, only that the locket must remain with her… “Julianna…”

Sparked somewhere deep within the creature, a deep seated ferocity snaps and takes hold with iron roots. The answer to this locket is inside this tomb of a place...

Lunging at the ashes of an old life, ripping what furniture remains intact away, clawing the tatters of fabric left still hung. It throws its claws through the mattress it can see Julianna jumping on, the dresser she hides her dolls as it rips what drawers remain out, throwing tables and chairs it could see her playing with…

Launching into another coughing fit, throwing chunks of black death out of its mask. Reaching for its mask, it grabs the locket from its neck and rips it off, throwing it to the floor… It regains its senses with realisation. “Inside… Inside… The… Heart…” The creature cannot understand what it may be, but it must know… It struggles and fights at the seam it can find, but to no avail. It growls and bites it, crushing its jaw on it until loose teeth pop free from its gums, and then bite more with the sickening resolve of its curiosity. Howling in pain and frustration, it spits the teeth and locket from its lips at the floor and arms itself with a stone. It lunges furiously at the locket, unable to hit to save its life. When raising for another strike, it pauses, its bloodshot eyes still frozen on the gold heart still glittering on the floor. It feels itself choke again on its own blood, projecting a long, wet spray of a red and black mucus painting the peeling wall, the dark chunks of its own insides hanging on the wall as it crashes down to its knees, gasping and begging for a breath, but receiving no answer as it crumples under itself… Tears running down the melted features of its face, it falls onto its back, the black blood draining over its quivering lips…

The locket rolls from its now chilling hand as it bubbles its last breath, the heart cracks open next to a softly colored box…

Julianna tucked into her bed after a long day of moving in, her mother reached under her daughter’s dresser, and took a pastel painted box out before sitting on the bed with Julianna. “What’s that?” She hummed sleepily. Her mother only smiled and opened the locket… Taking the key from it, winding the pastel box. Opening the top for the figure of a little black bird to pop out, and let the gears of a gentle tune play.

Where does the heart go when it forgets? Alone in its box, where memories never seen await you tomorrow.