Disclaimer: Yep. It's all mine. Every bit of it.
A/N: This was inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men. You don't need to have read the poem to understand the story but I recommend it anyway because it's a fantastic poem. And my personal favorite. I wrote this fairly quickly and I didn't bother to glance over it so I apologize if you come across any glaring errors. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think!
The end is a subtle thing- a crack rather than a shatter, a rip rather than a tear. There's nothing that marks it, nothing that calls attention to it. Few know it happens, fewer are impacted, and fewer care.
This is the way the world ends.
It ends on a night in December, a night that's silent, a night that's still.
It ends when the chimes on the clock strike and footsteps scuffle quietly down the hall.
It ends with a shot in a study, with the scent of gunpowder and the flickering of a lamp, a thud on the floor, a sob.
It ends in a dorm somewhere and again in a forest, cold and desolate.
It ends with a funeral on an appropriately gloomy day, one where the sky is black and the clouds hang heavy.
It ends with a crowd huddled together beneath gnarled and barren trees, leaning together, shielding each other from the cold and the sorrow; the bite of the wind, the bite of their grief.
They're a group without a leader, a friend without a brother, a boy without a lover, a teacher without a student, a mother and a father without a son. They have nothing and everything in common, united there by one singular thread.
They used to be something once, something other than a ragged band of lost and hollow souls.
They're frail and fragile, broken like a branch or a bone, shattered like glass.
They talk without really speaking, move without really moving. Their motions are short and clipped, paralyzed and small, and their whispered words fall to the wind, meaningless and muffled, carried off on shapeless gusts. They echo distantly, faintly, solemnly, whistling through the far off trees.
There isn't much said- just a prayer recited, a few hymns sung. Flowers are tossed, smiles are forced and then the crowd disbands.
Left behind are the boys, a group of six.
They don't look at each other and they don't speak. They're just there- gathered together in a lost and broken land. A dead land.
One is angry, his fists clenched within the confines of his pockets.
One is confused, bewildered and lost, his gaze flickering uncertainly between the ground and the trees and the sky.
One is guilty, asking himself what he missed, what he could have done to prevent this.
One is just vacant, empty and alone, and he falls to his knees before a stone of polished marble. His lips, better suited for stolen kisses and soft smiles, form around unspoken words, saying everything by saying nothing, letting the silence speak for him.
It speaks of loss, of a tragedy and its aftermath, of the people left behind.
The empty men. The hollow men.
For them, this is the way the world ends- not with a bang, but a whimper.
