Gods and Monsters

Micro short.

1612
    Empty were the windows as they strolled through the desolate streets on the outskirts of Estonne, smiling in satisfaction. A warm wind blew from behind them, creeping around the corner in soft waves of dust and autumn. The scent of burnt flesh was carried almost imperceptibly over the breeze, teasing the taste buds with an greasy, charred flavor. Ashes landed like snowflakes on their lashes. The small Midwestern town was dark, every door was shut and every window shuttered.
    “Well done, no?,” said the dark one to the light.
    “Yes,” sighed Light. “Good move.”
    Dark chuckled quietly to himself and walked towards the center of the town. A fat black rat scurried across the road in front of them, disappearing into a hole in the wall of a near-by building.
    As they neared Stonegate, in the middle of town, the air became thick with ash, swirling around the smoldering pyre in a maelstrom wind. They passed through the thick gales, unaffected. Dark bent down and examined the blackened bones, rubbing his fingers in the grease and bits of charcoaled meat that still clung to them. The remnant spirit of the burned girl swayed softly in the wind, her form a ghostly wisp of mist, only barely recognizable as having once being alive, a child of less than eleven. She wailed softly, as if afraid.
    “A remarkable loss, for the both of us,” said Dark quietly, and wiped his fingers off on his suit. “She could have gone either way.”
    “No direct influence on the seers lives,” Light spoke, a hint of sarcasm coloring his voice. He smiled at Dark, a knowing smile.
    “Peace, be at rest,” he intoned, and the spirit simply ceased to exist. The maelstrom died down around them, and the wooden shutters on the windows of the stone buildings around the Circle slowly stopped rattling.  As the last of the remains of the girl and the pyre burned out, Light walked down the main road heading west.
    Dark had taken almost the whole town that night with the witch burning. Light had much work ahead of him to reclaim as many as possible. The girl had been a necessary piece of his pattern, if she had been allowed to come of age.
    Ah, well. They had time enough. They had all the time in the world.

Reviews

[Jūdan FyreHeart]

It was a well done short with a tidy ending to it. The atmosphere was well done although you seemed to focus on the ash quite a bit. It would have been nice to have perhaps just one more sentence on the spirit of the girl to flesh that out a smigeon.