A/N: Hi :) Heres another vaguely depressing oneshot :) please read and review :) concrit appreciated :)
The city stands, alone, empty, cold. It knows that few have returned, that we are broken, depleted. Every breath I take is another knife digging into my side, another arrow biting, a reminder of what we have left behind. We are all living, surviving. We hover on the edge of existence, drifting, eating, sleeping, talking. But we do not live.
We drink to celebrate our victory and honour the dead. We drink to mourn, to forget and drown ourselves in a world of bright flashes of colour and sound so we do not feel the pain as our souls wither and shrivel and cry out for the lost. We pretend to live but our hearts flutter and shred themselves on tiny blades when we turn and speak to a friend who is not there. Who will never be there. Who we will never see laugh or cry or fight. So we drink and try to be thankful that it is not our last remains spiralling into the sky in a twist of smoke, not us littered on the floor, the cold frost of Death gloating over our life blood. We are selfish, so we hide behind claims of honouring the dead. But the dead do not care. The dead are gone, passed into the black void. What do they know of the pain they have left behind. They know nothing and never will for they can not return to see the desolate wasteland they have left behind.
We wander their streets and houses, vainly, desperately hoping to find them again. The stones and wood and wild gardens mourn silently for the life that will never return. The ghosts, wisps of life, that open their doors and windows and run down the streets are memories that swirl around us. But they are not real. They are nothing, just the remnants of those who's life was so easily quenched. The sunlight glances off abandoned belongings. Dust motes of desolation float in the air and the shadows pile up in the corners. Forgotten gems and treasures are slowly swallowed up by Death's unseen silver cobwebs. The world slowly goes on, suspended as we drift from place to place. Children without fathers wander alone, ethereal as a desiccated fairy. Death follows us all, never letting us forget, never letting go.
Death was there on the battlefield. He was everywhere all at once. In one moment his dark shroud was seen, his quiet whisper heard. Some inhaled his decaying breath, others tasted his bitter smoke. And I felt his cold touch, like shards of ice slicing through my body. As the screams of the wounded, the wails of the living and the hushed echoes of the dead began to fade, I felt the veil between life and death, that exquisite silver cobweb. It yearned to encase me in its icy strands, to trap me in a cool, smooth cocoon until I dissolved into nothingness. But a feather light touch of warmth and sweet smelling herbs dragged me back. A world of heat and fire and pain. The pain which was numbed by Death's icy touch returned to fill my every cell, to burn through my body like a hot coal, to race through my veins, obliterating all it came across.
The living wish for the dead to return . They wish for their brothers and their husbands and their sons and their friends. Yet I wish sometimes, that I too was dead. Because to be dead is not such a bad thing when it is time to be dead, to be relieved of pain and suffering.