Ash in the Breeze, Death in the Trees
The wind was whispering. Their voices were haunting us and as if singing us into a gentle sleep. Mom covered my eyes with a shaky hand and I felt indignant. I wasn't her baby anymore. The light between the cracks of her fingers was fading into night. Mom whispered softly to me as if she could save us. They were hunting us, killing us. She shook harder as night fell on the first day of the end of the world. This was the first day of the beginning of the end.
We all knew it was coming. It started with the whispering. The wind came from the North and the ash was carried across the world. Nobody knew where the ash came from or why the wind was murmuring in what something that had been theorized as Latin. The ash had a death toll all its own and talk that it carried a chemical that caused illusions and intense hunger, eventually the ash killed people. That was a month ago. The wind hasn't stopped yet and the ash has only became stronger
We all slept with a sleep mask to protect from ash and tried to not listen to the wind, but when we awoke this morning a different voice was approaching. The recently cemeteries had awoken. When I opened my eyes and removed my ash covered mask and saw my father at the window. He had a rot overtaking his body but his eyes shined like the day the ash killed him.
Mom had grabbed me and led me towards the storm cellar. It's not him. It's not him. She seemed to be convincing herself rather than me. 8 hours later and we sat in the cold basement as the things shifted the boards above our heads. The one widow just level with the ground showed that it was night and the movement upstairs had stopped. I looked over at my mom and closed my eyes. As I took a deep breath I saw her clearly for the last time. We fell into an uneasy sleep.
When day came my mother screamed at me in a fear I had never witnessed in a mother towards her child. Suddenly though, I understood the wind's gently lullaby.
"you are the work of the 1st horseman. welcome home"