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“Hey.”
Avery’s voice was quiet, like a deer in a forest, hesitant to step on the crackled leaves and disturb the solemn silence of the afternoon. It was soft as water down a stream, a whisper of droplets trickling slowly southward, not yet with the strength to become a river.
He sat next to his friend, settling into place with a small huff of breath that puffed out visibly in the chilling air, his legs dangling down the edge of the cliff, the great precipice falling far and deep beneath them.
“What are you doing all the way up here?” His quiet concern did not go unnoticed by his companion.
Simon inhaled in a deep breath through his nose. The autumn wind carried the aging scent of decay up from the earth below. All these long months later and the scent still overwhelmed, infesting itself in every nook and cranny, burying itself in cloaks and grasping tightly to cloth and skin alike.
Simon sighed the fresh air in his lungs. He took in another breath. Exhale. Breathe in death. Exhale life. One breath after another. The taste of ash danced on his tongue, warm and bitter with every breath.
“I needed space,” he finally replied, voice nearly silent in the winds swept up from the cliff’s edge. He spoke like the whisper of a secret too painful to bear, his words carefully picked like berries of the last bush still left undisturbed before the edge of winter.
His words would not have carried far if not for the lifeless silence surrounding them. Birdsong had long left the woods, and not even the trampling of hooves or paws through the undergrowth could be heard at the edge or deep in the misted forest. No creature played here anymore. Only the gentle mourning song of the trees as they swayed in the wind still rang true, soft voices telling tales of the changing seasons and stories of a world that once was.
All sense of green was gone from the wood. The trees were no more than greyed sticks, still clinging to the blackened earth. The fires had consumed the rest, ash and smoke ever hungering for new growth, neither flora nor fauna safe from its ravenous appetite.
Avery puffed another breath of warmed air into the cooling world. “Yea.” His fingers tapped themselves on the dirt, leaving furrowed indents where they dug up pieces bit by tiny bit. A worm crawled deeper into the ground, disturbed by the tremors above, the only other sign of movement.
“It can be a lot down there.”
Simon bit his lip. “The silence… it’s suffocating. Like I’m laying down in a summer’s field, but someone’s placed a woolen blanket on top of me. The stickiness of my skin is starting to itch, and the ants are starting to bite, but no matter how I try, the only thing I can move is my eyes, darting wildly yet all they see is the sun shining through a thick grey cloth.” He reached up with his hand to tug on his hair. Strands began to come out one by one, falling into the dirt around them, golden against black and char.
“Hey now.” Avery reached up, grasping the hand into his own and leading it to rest gently in his lap. “Remember what we talked about?”
“Sorry.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
Simon turned his head away, his hand still resting in Avery’s lap firmly but gently held, a soft touch and a grounding reminder of his presence.
Silence fell again. Their voices had been quiet, too scared to break a cautious silence and not enough to make up for a world’s worth of noise now gone. Somewhere in the distance, a fire crackled.
The wind shifted and raced across the river somewhere below and in front of them. It carried with it a warmth that grew from a ravenous hunger.
“Does the fire still burn?” Simon’s voice held a tremor. His hand shook in their conjoined grip.
“The whole world looks like it’s on fire now.” His voice was thick with tears, hands shaking harder than Simon’s. His shoulders shook with the effort to bite back tears. The wind carried the ash to them, as stinging as the sight of the burning city.
“I suppose I should be grateful, then.” Simon’s voice was laden with emotion, trembling as it was, like a newborn calf struggling to find its feet in a cold new world, just born from its mother who had already stood and disappeared off into the woods. He reached with his free hand, bandaged fingers rubbing gently against the bandages wrapped across his face. He twinged as the two touch, pain struck like lightning across deep black scars in the cavities left behind. He moved his hands away and the pain returned to a dull throb, the severed nerves that once provided sight still seeking the stimulation of input and crying out in agony when none came.
“A blessing and a curse,” Avery muttered, his voice an echo of the same words spoken long ago by a different figure.
He squeezed Simon’s hand. Simon squeezed back. The movement was familiar, perhaps the only familiar thing left in this world. As the fire had devoured all in its path, it hadn’t yet consumed them, though it had left them burned and blackened, hardened and fearful, it had yet to eat away at their hearts, beating still firmly in their chests.