All Was Ashes

by GirlFromGlen

They are still there, the ashes of the past. Though they are hidden, they billow and coat us, never letting us forget how they got there. A series of short drabbles set after and around the epilogue.

Look down and see the ashes, watch the grey dust from all those years ago billow around the little girl with the blue eyes. Look down and see the blackened bodies among the dances, brushing the blonde boy as he toddles down the road. Look down and hear their laughter turn to screams. Look down and feel the shake in the grip. The memories. The pain. All that is hidden under the roads of District Twelve.

It seems to hold few secrets, my home. But you can see it in their eyes, the hollowness behind them, the images forever burned into their brains because they were there. And even after the scaffolding is built and the bricks of rebuilding are laid, there will still be the ashes underneath, the pain in their eyes, the last remains of the chain-link fence.

And when my stomach twists into a knot passing by what was once the Mayor's house, I can only look down upon the ashes of what was, once. But my children do not know that time, that time of coal and fear and the stirrings of rebellion. And so they run ahead and laugh, shrieking and giggling, and I must follow, must look up and see their eyes and the future.