At Their Own Hand

Breathe in the dust of the dead,

blowing endlessly through the empty streets.

Long rows of useless cars rusted to heaps barely recognizable to those

who once knew their use.

The once tall buildings fallen to rubble, with twisted steel and decayed concrete.

Even the rats have abandoned this dead city, for that is what it was called.

A city of a previous civilization.

Long gone.

Long ago their hedonistic gluttony becoming their epitaph.

Helping to cause their fall. Their End.

Feeding on themselves they died, slowly at first, their society fracturing over years and decades.

And still they fed on themselves, ignoring the obvious.

Then when the fractures became too great it was too late.

And then death ruled. Large. Ugly. Unstoppable.

The strong followed the weak, death cut a swathe, none were spared.

All succumbed.

Now their dust blows through the streets, this dead city, one of hundreds that held the same fate.

To die by their own hand.