Colors of Despair

Note: This story talks of death

Ashes. Ashes. Ashes. 

Skin turned gray, sky turned gray.

Ashes. Ashes. Ashes. 

There was no light. There was only light.

Ashes. Ashes. Ashes. 

The fog was ever-present. But it wasn’t foggy at all. It poured from the sky in the ever-present rainbow of grays. Here and there were bones scattered across the city’s center. Though my skin was covered in gray, my eyes saw the red that dripped from my hands.

It was the only red to be seen for miles, and it was all on me. It was on my hands, then my arms, it trickled through my sodden dress and down my breasts. A picture painted red.

You will live with it. Words echoed in me. A warning. What color came before gray? I couldn’t remember. It was all gray, white, black. And I was red. So the ashes continued to fall from the sky.

I stepped afoot into what was once a street of many colors. One step. Two steps. Look to the right. It was still there, a man of many years, smiling with his only one front tooth, selling his catch for the day. Scales glistening green and blue in the sunlight. With a snap of his fingers, one fish became two, two became three, and even with rivers barren, he never ran out of fish to sell.

Ashes. Ashes. Ashes. 

A few more steps forward. A bone crunched beneath my foot. The air was thick with the acrid smell of burnt wood and flesh, the smell of destruction and loss. The ashes carried a hint of charred wood and roasted meat, but the overwhelming scent was that of death and despair. Each step stirred up more ashes, creating a cloud of gray dust that coated everything in its path.

It was dry. The essence of what fell from the sky was dry. But as I looked to the left I saw children, just outside the orphanage, and I saw orange and pink. The oranges I never bothered to buy. The cut-up watermelon I hated so much because I read about them in one too many stories. The children, who had no true home, would sell the fruit of their labor.

Ashes. Ashes. Ashes. 

A haze of gray particles filled the air, carried by the slightest movement and threatening to smother any sign of life. With each step, the ashes crunched and shifted, revealing the remnants of what once existed. They clung to clothing and skin, leaving a lingering texture of grit and grittiness. The ashes were like a shroud, an all-encompassing blanket of destruction and devastation.

I yearned to see more colors, more of what once was. I pushed onward. Letting the colors escape my mind. I looked forward, I walked forward, dry air falling down around me, but I was not covered in the gray filling the air. I was dressed in a red only I could see.

Ashes. Ashes. Ashes. 

Suddenly I was enveloped in black. The red-stained dress a glimmer on my ashen body. The temple is closer and closer with every step. Untouched, but the ash still lingered in the air as I lifted the burned flared bottom with my hands and took each step up the stairs with precision.

You are living in it. The voice echoed in my head more clearly now. Upon reaching the top of the stone staircase, a crown floated before the entrance. Forged from dragon’s breath and pure gold. Emptiness remained within the crown.

Ashes. Ashes. Ashes. 

A brush of wind came from behind, waves of golden blonde hair pulling in front of my dirt-stricken face. Purple eyes never budged from the crown. Dry air pours from the sky and encompasses everything that is.

The red only I could see lifted from the stains and traced its way through ash into the empty spaces that remained. The red stretched thin, entangling like vines in a forest that once existed. It poured and stiffened as if rubies were now encrusted in the crown.

My dress still tattered and ripped at the seams, remained white, stainless, not an ember of grayness to it. Yet, disaster surrounded me. I stepped towards the crown, and as I did flocks of white entangled me.

I focused on the crown. Only the crown. It was always the crown. White swirls mended the tears in my dress, but they did not wipe the tears in my eyes. Stained white became pure white, and the dress now passing my bare feet remained stainless.

A gown of glimmering pure white gossamer. The gown shimmered with the brilliance of moonlit mist, a delicate web woven from strands of pure white light. It was as if the very essence of purity and grace had been captured and spun into a garment fit for the one true sovereign.

It was bathed in golden light, I had no fear for what would happen next. As I neared shimmering colors of gold and blood red, I kneeled before it, and allowed the dragon-forged crown to float onto the top of my golden blonde hair, the tones of gold matching perfectly between the crown and my hair.

It was done. A golden crown began to melt into my skin with its blood-red rubies, leaving behind its intricate pattern and colors visible on my forehead, and the rest of the crown hidden by hair that withstood the burning of gold. I cried out in pain. A pain so deep it cut through every bone. I could feel every burn. Every burn of every person.

Death lingered in my skin as the crown finished molding itself into me. A crown I would wear forever. I turned to face the ashen city, ashes still pouring from above. I quickly made my way back down the stairs, ashes repelling away from me, keeping my appearance clean.

I bent down into the pile of ash beneath my bare feet and scooped up a handful. I closed my eyes, kissing my knuckles that clenched tightly around the fallen ash. I waited, suddenly not sure if I made the right decision, or if the decision was truly mine.

It is time. The voice inside my head echoed. I obeyed it. Purple eyes shot open as my knuckles unfurled and my breath took the ash to the sky. It was all happening so fast, there would be no time for contemplation.

I commanded the ash to rise, and as the ash rose, blood poured down. Gray rises while red falls. Out of the ashes, of death, despair, of dragon forged gold, the blood poured and poured and poured and I purred.

I purred as blood- the lifeline of every being- poured from the sky into the place where ash had been. A queendom of the dead unfurled. From the ashes, you will rise. That voice again. Each revived person carried dragon-forged gold in a ringlet around their biceps.

I stared ahead at the army I had forged. I had forged from every decision, every turn, that led up to this very moment. It was time to rebuild my city, a city reborn from ashes, a people alive and well in my name, an army that only listens to my every command.

I stepped forth, and my army parted, rigid, uniformed. I made my way back to my throne. It was time to begin negotiations with the other kingdoms.

Blood. Blood. Blood. 

From ashes to blood.

Red dawns the day.

Blood secures the throne.