Ederic and Wren

“Hey, you think maybe it’s possible… that heroes never die?”
“Everyone dies. But their legends live on forever in the hearts of those that loved them.”

Serrating the dirt, the planet became rifted by its own calamity. Severing the bonds that tie the earth, it was ripped open by the malice of those who inhabit it, and began to cave in.

“Do you think… maybe the planet, this place, our home… do you think it loves us?”
“No.”

They sat there, two and alone as the sky continued to darken and took alight.

They were atop what remained of the world, burning quickly to char and ash. There was little doubt they should see better days, or days at all, beyond this one that scorched existence.

Their breaths were few, and would soon be fewer, but fear had long since forgotten them, and the impending inevitably of oblivion swiftly took hold.

“My friend and brother, what do you make of this?” Wren ever inquisitive.
“The end.” Ederic always soft on the few words that possessed him.
“And still, we are not yet dead. There’s little left. What should we do?”
“What can we do, but that which we already are?”
“I think we should flee…”
“To where? Hell rages all around us. We are only very lucky this negligible spot has yet to aflame.”

Quietly they were in the inferno of destruction around them. The tree no longer had leaves; just flaming debris that swirled around them as violently blazing tornados.

“My life shall be over soon.”
“As mine.”
“I feel a little regret.”
“As do I.”
“And yet… I wish not for a chance to do it all over again, not for the best moments to reoccur in succession… I just want one more day.”
“As do most, and so do I.”

Despite the intense heat of the flames, harsh cold wind blew carelessly surrounding them. It chapped their lips and bit at their skin, covered by burnt clothes that offered little protection from it or the things around them.

“Even if I were to survive… how could I get along? Everything I love is lost. The world I knew is gone...”
“Perhaps it is better this way.”
“Better? … I can’t help but having a longing of the simple days that came before. Ever more glamorous in my memory than in my skin, but still… I am compelled by the echoes of that past that return to me just once more.”
“In dying this world may yet live again.”
“Live covered in corpses.”
“Time heals all wounds.”
“But leaves nasty scars.”

Their breaths now more rapidly stolen from them, their perch upon the only remaining hilltop had not escaped notice. But they could not be afraid.

“If by some chance we survive this… could we ever go back?”
“No. But would you want to?”
“My body yearns for it. Although… I feel that potential is too far gone.”
“Our home has been crisped. We are what is left. Our memories cannot sustain us.”
“You’d have us so readily abandon everything we loved.”
“Those things and places are already gone, regardless of our beliefs and affections otherwise.”
“You’d have us move on to something new?”
“Have we a choice? Can you fathom a better plan? Is this misery what you’d prefer to save?”

Wren covered himself with what little scraps of cloth were left. The bitter chill was freezing him as the howling heat burnt his back. Though this was torture, his mind had abandoned his flesh not long ago. He could no longer feel the stings the killed him.

“Brother, once more I ask… what shall we do?”
“What we can.”

The winds began to pick up and the trees were rifted from the ground. Their massive trunks smashed into the weakening foundations that once stood near them, decimating buildings into small piles of rubble that came crashing to the ground. The red sky grew brighter and shifted its hue to a pale orange.

This was a place that would never know of heaven.

The men watched on, no power to affect anything. They smelt the Rapture.

“Ederic, I do not wish to see this world rend! It is my heart and my love!”
“It is not love, but passion that binds and moves you so. Your love is for life. Know the difference. Relinquish your claim to this place and you may yet live to see a new one. Cling desperately to it as you do, and you will surely share its fate.”
“Those cannot be my only options!”
“Then find the others. I have found mine. I shall not watch this world die.”

Ederic laid back and closed his eyes, nothing left to keep him.

Wren could not bear witness to his home being torn apart, but he no longer believed in dreams.

Explosions began to fire off. The clouds were set on fire, torching the sky. The earth fissured and ruptured as the few buildings that still stood were torn asunder and swallowed back into the ground that birthed them with no discrimination.

Against his face he was pelted with small drops of coolish water - rain fell from the bleeding sky. The agitated fire raged on. It became insatiable as it ripped its way through creation, with no goal but utterly seeking to extinguish all life.

It fed on the decay and spread to share its ecstasy, living only through death.

Tears shed from Wren’s eyes, freezing where they sat before melting and burning away. They formed permanent scars as they left small bleeding holes in his face.

The heat became too much and there was little more he could take.

Smoke, never ending dust plumes rose up all around. He could be he no longer. His lungs collapsed.

He forsake this world, forgiving the claim he ever held to it as he prepared to pass on. His life started drifting from him, and he could not maintain his grasp.

Silent whispers he could hear no longer, as he drew his last breath.

Still, with no one left to hear its song, the fire raged on.

The ever quenching snow caught a gentle breeze and drifted in, accepting responsibility for the vulgar zeitgeist surrounding it.

The flame sought to shred itself no longer, its expounding chaos calmed, and faded away from view.

The cooly crisp white flakes, the warm, the deliciously warm snow, came from nowhere yet all around, seeking the righteous for its redemption.

It fell upon their fresh corpses, not nearly dead but certainly not alive, and coated them with a sheen not yet familiar to this new agaping world of forgotten but never known beauty.

It soothed away the ash of the old and left an aura of catharsis upon the new things that would one day arise.

Perhaps their sins had been forgiven, or perhaps sin itself forgotten. There was no arbiter for such matters, and the stench of man was gone.

Though there was no air, no light, no life left… one of them took a deep breath, and began to open his eyes.

(End: Ederic and Wren)