Cold Ashes

Chapter 3 - Warmth

For a while, he didn't see what Leah saw. He was blinded by the very idea and existence of others that he barely cared about what was before his eyes. Around him, there were other living human beings with heartbeats and souls and values. But not the ones he was used to. Not the ones that his father had told him about.

She could see this as plainly as the skin on his bones, and didn't want to blame him for it, or want to corrupt him otherwise. That would come later. But even she couldn't deny that this was a dark time. The true cruelty of the world which had spawned from corpses of the long lost was now much more severe and insane than anyone could possibly imagine.

She had seen this. She had felt it. And she was thankful he didn't for that for his sake.

Ryan followed her through the remainder of the city, but then it all began to degenerate into darker, shadowy parts. The market plaza where he was standing a distant memory considering what was all around him.

This place was the lowest of the low and was home to the remaining slimy cowards of the human race. Rats who hid when the end had struck rather than fighting so others' survival. Buildings seemed to reach higher to the heavens, the people within staying further and further away from their stained windows. 

There seemed to be louder shouts and cries from other women and men alike in their rooms upon each other. Domestic abuse or simple starvation Leah didn't know - but Ryan was just glad there was something other than the maddening silence.

In the moonlight the homes were even uglier because of the mismatched with rubble as well as the wood. But what really made Ryan nervous was how few children he heard.

Alan was one of the few children he knew in his life. They were family and more - they were lucky enough to be friends as well. But he... He knew that his brother was now gone. In the back of his mind he hid that horrid truth, but here he had a hope. One that was impossible enough for him to believe that humanity wasn't completely gone - so he couldn't help but feel worried. 

He couldn't think of moving Alan here, and the inhospitable, hunched rats around him only proved him further.

Far off he could hear the gunshots of the guards situated far above them on the walls. The gunfire wasn't that loud but did cause a piercing cry of terror; one of the dead had gotten too close and took a chunk out of a poor guy cursing so loud that they could all hear it.

The poor bastard had been caught barely a foot from the gates, screaming for sanctuary. Whoever it was had Ryan's sympathy, but wasn't given the pleasure of anything else in his quick life. The screaming ceased.

His bitten wrist itched.

For this moment in his daydream, Ryan was already lost in the maze of alleyways. Above him grime and dust covered walls and windows towered above him, blocking nearly all the remaining sun from above. She bent down through a few archways made up of debris and fallen beams from degraded buildings. He followed, finding her thin frame and letting her lead him into a strange burned clearing.

He pretended not to look at her slender frame. But he did.

There was a house that seemed to be their clear destination in sight. It was a small place, like the others around it, maybe even more so run down. Nothing particularly special - boarded up windows that had fallen with time and rot, a door that seemed to be an original that clung desperately onto its rusted hinges.

In moments the in-between of light and dark was gone; night, his mortal enemy, had appeared as it always did. A large hole in the roof welcomed in the beams of moonlight.

He could also see the dim lights of unfamiliar candles, shadows moving in front of them, but little else. There were no people here. There was only the muffled noise of the city behind them. Darkness had encased them both as well as everything in it's reach in it's usual uneasy iron grip. He never could like it. It was his enemy.