If Only It Weren't Over

Just a little thing that I wrote after hearing a sone about war and destruction. Just something that shoved its way into my mind and wouldn't go away until I wrote it. I hate those.

 

The black earth was churned and smoke curled from the remnants of houses where families had lived only hours ago. Great trees that had stood for ages had been torn down by the insatiable wind. The gardens were burnt, and all that remained was charred ash, not even a flower petal left. Bodies lie untended and untouched on the ground, and she knew that they would remain that way, for there were few left to bury them.

She heard children crying and mothers screaming for babies that they would probably never find. Was their any safety left? Any life? Any hope? The sky, it seemed was red with blood, but she carried on in her search, and eventually she found what she was looking for. Those that she had loved so fiercely, and tried in vain to protect, lay scattered on the ground, forgotten like dry leaves in fall.

His face had ash smeared on it, and his profound auburn eyes stared up at nothing, glazed over. For a long time she sat on her knees and watched his face, searched it. Praying that perhaps if the Gods still existed at all they would send him back to her. They did not. Silently, with deepening sorrow, she closed his eyes with shaking hands. How she had loved him.

The girl had a look of terror on her face, and for what was left of the world she would never want to know what it was she last saw. The spoiled earth was grunged on her clothes, and the woman had an urge to sob. But the tears, she knew, would not come. She would have no reason to scream in search for my own baby ever again. Mutely she turned away, not able to bear the sight of her.

In heartbreaking sorrow and misunderstood silence, slowly she walked through a destroyed world. All that was left was misery and the remains of a cruel, horrible war that had brought mankind to its knees. She thought, If only it weren’t over.