Scathe of Branches

I once took long walks with my wife in the park. Surrounded by lush greenery we strode, our path lined with mighty evergreen trees and blossoming picturesque plant-life of vibrant color. Each day we would drive our impressively enormous Sport Utility Vehicle to the edge of our trail and venture into the sea of viridescence. After a pleasant yet draining walk, we would remove our portable barbecue from its leather carrying case and proceed to char an array of delicious meats. Shanks of lamb, cuts of beef, patties of various fowl all lightly blackened to a delectable crisp. The aromas that filled my nostrils on those days, the sweet fragrance of rich vegetation, the smoky musk of searing animal flesh, even the flowery perfume on my wife’s skin, I could no longer recall.

The animals were the first to be extinguished. Cattle, wildlife, even household pets became increasingly rare, until all had been devoured by the vast growing number of starving humans. Almost concurrently was the plant-life; woods, forests, crops. As if overnight fields of lush green turned a deathly grey. As one hell befell the planet, another followed it, as each of the critical and dreadful proverbial dominoes began to fall. As the eustasy of the oceans swallowed countries whole and all life as we knew it burned, death became the only certainty, our only escape. My beautiful wife, was one such to be taken by the fires of a world torn asunder. Gone were those olivaceous forest views and radiant vernal flowers I once gazed upon with her. In their place now was dust and fading memories of a scorched Earth. There was only grey. There was only ash.

I stood in what had once been that park, yet now was a crudely built edifice of stone and metal in the middle of a barren wasteland of ash and ocher colored sand. What very few aphyllous trees remained were blackened and near decomposed. The building, now the only place wherein any life was found, had come to be known as the Ashen Temple, and it was something of a headquarters as well as refuge for those who were not taken by the catastrophe events. The Ashen Temple was no place of worship, no holy ground. The decision to call it a temple at all seemed almost cruelly ironic as we were certainly a race abandoned and forsaken.

The Ashen Temple spans nearly 250 yards of rusted metals and partially broken stone cobbled together with primitive architecture to house those of us left in the wake of the cataclysm. The world was burned, and in its ashes we were attempting to search for answers. Who or what devastated our civilization as well as nearly all of Earth’s resources was a point of contention. There had been long standing beliefs that the eco-terrorist group known as the Dherringer, with their history of recruitment of violent and unhinged criminals as well as increasingly unpredictable attack methods had lead to this unforeseeable decimation. Of course there were also a myriad of individuals, babbling and raving usually incoherently about demonic beings or demiurgic forces as the cause of the world’s demise, and while many had initially seemed incredibly implausible if not outright evidence of lunacy, the insidiousness of superstition, especially in the wake of tragedy, is not something to underestimate. As time went on, superstition became widespread theory and theory became irrefragable belief. The most common lore amongst the people of the Temple however that there was an entity who was the one and only harbinger of our terrestrial corrosion. Whilst there still remain some who question the involvement of the aforementioned organized militias and terror groups, each and everyone of us in the Temple knows the name World Burner. Who, or what the Word Burner even is, is not quite agreed upon, but the name alone has become synonymous with the hellscape we now find ourselves living in. What we have become certain of, moreover, was the notion that no matter if it were fire-giants, masked anarchists or this fabled nefarious World Burner, someone must be to blame for the unnatural suddenness of the global disintegration. It was our belief that if we could find the parties responsible perhaps we could better understand how to rebuild our destroyed world.

Any and all accusations, leads and stories regarding the cause of the modern apocalypse no matter how ludicrous or inconceivable they seem, is pursued and investigated to the best of our abilities, at least to some degree. I myself, am one such investigator. My background in military as well as police had made me somewhat equipped for one on one interviews, as well as search parties of any other survivors that had somehow been able to sustain themselves outside of our decrepit Temple. A small group of us took it upon ourselves early in the creation of our meager community to be something of an overseeing council. This makeshift council was comprised of myself, a few former businessmen, a former judge, and a man who had at one time been a congressman. A young woman who had at one time been a student in medical school was consulted on health and safety as well periodically. All of us had experience both leading and being in positions of authority. We thought it best to seize what modicum of power remained in the aftermath of the havoc, for the good of the community, and lest someone else usurp it from under our noses. It was our group who decides what is best for each of the 1332 individuals in the Ashen Temple. It was me, however who discovered the Stranger, and the last one to see him alive.

It occurred at what would previously have been known as dusk, although with a steady dreary cloud of dust and ash in the air, it is difficult to confirm exact daybreaks and nightfalls. I had been walking through corridor toward the entrance of the Temple when I heard shouting. A small group of people were eagerly peering out of a hole in the metal wall. I heard their excitement rise as one of them shouted the word “coneja!” I pushed past the onlookers and gazed out into the desert of decay and immediately recognized the Spanish word I had heard. Not fifty yards from our walls, was a rabbit, scurrying across the withered ground. No animal had been sited in over thirteen months, and while what canned food we had been able to salvage and locate over time had begun to grow scare, my first thought upon viewing the tiny lagomorph was not to eat it, but how it was possible for it to have survived. I looked away for a brief moment, certain that my increasingly malnourished mind was causing me to hallucinate. I rubbed my eyes yet immediately opened them again when I heard more shouting from the fellow window-lookers. As I returned my attention back toward the window the rabbit had vanished, yet in his place was what appeared to be a man. Tall and very thin, his tenebrous image was barely visible to me. What struck me most at this moment was the manner in which he approaches the Temple. I had watched several haggard travelers find their way to our home and all of them bore similar mannerisms; slow labored walk against the wind, shielding their eyes ad face from plastic debris in the air. Conversely, this figure walked completely upright, at a steady pace, his arms dangling at his sides as if it were an ordinary afternoon stroll.

I paused briefly when I heard a steady knock on the metal gate of the Temple. When I broke from my momentary reverie I approached the door and gazed upon the Stranger before me; his black coat hung on his boney frame, a hood obscured his face. I invited him inside as I had all those who sought shelter.

I lead him to a room with a cot on the ground. As I turned to retrieve water for him, he grabbed me by the forearm with a black gloved hand. He spoke softly, yet I was able to discern his words, there were only two; “World. Burner.” Without warning he fell, collapsing onto the cot behind him, straining to breathe and convulsing. I left the room quickly to find at least one of my fellow councilmen as well as our de facto doctor. I found both and hurriedly as I could, lead them back to the room of the Stranger. For a moment, I feared that he had died, as his convulsions and loud, painful gasping had ceased. It was only when I saw his chest rising and falling I knew he had not yet expired. It was at this same moment that I viewed what dangled from his neck. Hanging from a series of inosculated strings was what appeared to be an animal heart of some-kind, no larger than a strawberry. However it had no pinkish hue of flesh, but a translucent grey color through which hundreds of branches of purple and blue veins and minuscule arteries were visible. The doctor and myself hurried to the Stranger’s side. She pressed her hands to his throat and wrists and her face bore a look of puzzlement.

“Tell me, please, what do you need?” she asked in a panic.

“No…no time…” the Stranger replied, still struggling to breathe.

Behind me I heard the doctor explain she would retrieve whatever medicine she had and she exited. I took the Stranger’s black gloved hand in mine and held it. Even through the cloth I could feel a cadaverous cold skin. I moved my hand to remove his hood yet to my surprise, he stopped me immediately with his other hand. Uncertain of how much time this Stranger had left, I was aware our words would be few.

“The World Burner…you know him?” I asked, with a foolish hopefulness in my voice.

I could barely make out his response, yet with a final breath he uttered what i believed to be the words “lock it.”

In doing so, he fell limp and his breathing halted. I released his hand and looked up at the returning doctor, defeated. I instructed her I would help her remove the body, and sighed in despair. I surveyed the poor emaciated corpse before me and looked again at his grim necklace. Suddenly, a realization. I carefully removed the heart from around his neck and held it up to the light, it was moist and gelatinous. I carefully inspected it and viewed a very small incision running from the top to the bottom of the heart. I realized that in his final breath he had actually spoken the word “locket.” No sooner had I realized this, that my own heart began to race. What secrets could be revealed in this locket? What mysteries would finally, at long last be understood upon opening this? Was this the identity of the enemy to our world?Meticulously, I opened the locket and spread apart the silvery flesh. A revolting miasma filled the room as I at last opened it completely.

Unfortunately, the story ends here. There was no answer that day, or any day since. The sands of time continue to fall and those of us in the Ashen Temple do all that is possible to maintain our lives. I am still in the possession of the locket. I open it and inspect it periodically from time to time, hoping, praying that it will reveal more answers I have not had the ability to perceive just yet. All of my fellow councilmen, as well as the doctor who attempted to help the Stranger that night have had their opportunity to examine and study the locket, as I have. Sadly, all that we have been able to see when we open it, is our own reflections.