Work Text:
*
His world has fallen to shades of grey.
Patches of asphalt peak out from beneath the fresh snow, sparkling accumulation crunching under his feet, cluttered piles of rock salt melted and molded into lumpy husks, forgotten, abandoned, in the rush from just a few nights before.
The tracks from the engines are still carved into the frozen earth, streaks of grass and mud and a few stray pebbles left trailing in their wake, carried across the spider-webbing sidewalks, ridges and valleys slowly submerging to sludge.
It's warm today; the kids would have loved to go on a walk.
Abandoned cars litter the pavement- they serve as tombs and tributes to lives lost, stories interrupted, a testament to the fragility of every moment.
A snowman, half-melted, still stands near the gazebo; the damp scarf catches around its neck and holds fast like a noose.
The can is cool against his lips.
The aluminum sparkles in the sun, and the amber sits heavy on his tongue.
A whole city block was converted to a cemetery in a few short hours, and at its center- towering over him, its shadows stretching and curving a cruel chill across the phantasmic imprints of ambulances and broken bodies under the midwinter sky- is the monstrous husk of what was once called home, the charred steel skeleton crawling its way toward freedom, broken beams bent backwards and forwards over and over again, shattered under the pressure of the relentless heat.
The closer he creeps toward the crumbled ruins, the clearer the story here.
Ash stains the cement.
Blood has dyed patches of snow in a steadily umbering red.
Footprints branded into the slush have frozen and melted, several times over, distorted mirrors shimmering in that ever-present grey.
He wonders how many of these were left by the survivors.
He wonders how much blood is actually on his hands.
He takes another sip of stale beer, feels the foam tease and bubble on its way down, a familiar burn of impending indigestion already staging a protest.
Unimportant right now; he has some Tums back in the pickup.
The doors to the lobby- formerly twin panels of glass- hang limp from their hinges, ripped and shoved away, a broken barrier proving a bottleneck, pieces of hair and fabric and burnt flesh still clinging to the frame, shivering in the wind.
How many lives passed safely through these doors that night?
How many more cried out in fear, praying to their God or their god or their gods as the smoke curled its way into their lungs, as the flames licked away at their skin?
How many went to sleep, never to wake again?
He peers past the frame, traces his eyes over the too-familiar makings of ruin.
Now, in the light of day, with only the softest haze keeping his senses afloat, he can see the sins that lead to damnation, the warning signs which should have flared against his awareness, should have shaken him to his core, should have had him raging against circumstance.
Hindsight is 20/20, and the scattered remains of neglect are clear in the wreckage.
The flammable facades- their plastic molten and recast into piles of putrescence- cling to the few pieces of timber that remain.
Fallen light fixtures guide his focus further back, a broken, barren patch of wall giving way to the frigid noon-day sun, the rusted fire escape beyond twisted and useless, hanging like a limb. It screeches from a sudden gust, the sound echoing in the stillness of the barren landscape.
How many other clues linger inside these ruins?
How many more signs had he missed?
Yellow tape flutters softly in the breeze, the neon a sharp, biting contrast to the sticky grey soot, uselessly barring entry to anyone foolish enough to step foot on the broken foundation.
"Caution! Do Not Enter," the words flutter.
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," are the words he knows.
He bends, he lifts, he crosses over into Hell.
*