Everything was gone under the beacon of the bleeding sun. Beneath its sultry shine, everything faded to a worn out grey. Everything blurred beyond recognition. Here was the City of the Unliving.
The City for those left undead, but not truly alive.
Such a City of Desolation thrived within Mai's solitary heart.
Gazing up at a muddled sky, Mai took in a breath. The air lacked texture. She tried to remember taste.
Memory failed her.
For in the City of Desolation memory fed upon itself. Each picture, word, and song melting into the other, until all was indistinguishable. What was that rich color? What was the sound of rain?
And his voice…
When he spoke to her and joked with her, when he once cried out her name to save her, where was he now? Where was his home along Desolation Road? Likewise, where was hers? Had she not earned her rest after all this walking…passing by millions and yet seeing nobody?
Not even his face. She frowned, brows furrowed, and tried to remember, but she couldn't. The picture of his face was right there, or at least it should have been. Why couldn't she recall? The sensation nagged at her and she grew angry in her despair. How could she let someone so important fade away like that? And why? Hadn't she desired happiness above everything else?
To no longer be alone.
Her knees buckled and Mai collapsed onto the washed out ground. Tears rolled down her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut—
She couldn't be alone again. Not again. Not after everything.
An everything that she couldn't even remember.
Except for the ghost of its remembrance.
It plagued her, this shadow that was left to her, as she wept silent tears under an empty sky. All she wanted was to cry out to him as he had done to her, but neither her tongue nor her mind knew his name. Every time she reached out for it, it withdrew farther into the oblivion that had swallowed her.
And so she was lost and truly alone, grasping at fragments without hope, along the trail of Desolation Road.