The Shrieck and the Silence

~

Her scream through the halls echoed in the building. It shook the foundation. It rattled the steel. Buried deep within the rooms were the rodents of the city, scraping filth and waste off of the dry white paint that peeled off the walls of the asylum. The torrent noised ripped through the thin plastic sheets that separated the empty beds; seeping from the outside doors, it rang -- stinging what it reached and screeching what it found. The impossible heat licked her face, soaking her clothes and itching her flesh. The sogged rags that hung from her bones were torn and stained with dirt and blood. Her pupils were buried inside her head as she cried out in shrieking terror at the nothingness which imprisoned her. The emptiness around her held down her aching limbs. She tore at her tired joints to try and tug them towards safety, but they would not heed. The fire that hid inside her for so long overcame her body, and soon the smell of burning leather slithered through the air while her rotten skin smoked and reddened like amber. The pain burned through to her soul, which flickered silently, then all at once, extinguished to nothing more than mere smoke.

The sudden silence was deafening.

Her broken body, mangled on the floor, grey like tired coals, laid in rest and dust.

She was no more.