She opened her eyes and stared at the wasteland that surrounded her. A stench entered her nose and she shuddered at the shocking aroma of death that surrounded her. She wiped her long auburn hair from her eyes and stood shakily, the only moving being in this grey wilderness, a place without meaning or hope.

She shuffled, confused and alone through the piles of bodies and clouds of grey ash and dust surrounded her. The air was thick with this dust that she could not even see the sun, it was cold…colder than she'd ever felt before though she didn't shiver. It wasn't the cold that froze you but an emptiness that chilled the very marrow within your bones.

A breeze came and she turned to stop the ashes of people entering her mouth, her eyes. She was in shock; this could not be happening.

Then she heard it…a whimpering, like an animal in pain. Her heart leapt into her mouth and stared around but the noise was gone, the place that was once her home now as silent as a graveyard. Then she heard the whimper again and a moan of pain and she stumbled over to the cloaked man who lay on the ground.

He was ragged and she did not recognise him. This had been such a small town and she was surprised that this man lay among the dead from the attack. The winter was setting in as she helped the man to his feet and they stumbled among the blackened bricks and broken plaster, skeletons of trees and withered bodies that littered the ground neither of them looking at each other. They walked together…survivors of this terrible act of brutality, the last act of evil that would grace this world, as no one remained to cause such acts.

The enemies to the east had set off the A-bomb just as they had men flying to set one off in the east. Both the worlds of the west and east were shattered and all that remained in this once thriving French village was an old scarred man and a young girl…once a beauty.

What was she to do? Thought Christine as she helped the man hobble along the blackened cracked tar roads. My family, my friend's all dead…and she wiped away a tear from her sooty face, once clear and beautiful with sparkling eyes.

The man didn't have a family nor friends…he had been alone from the beginning and would continue to be alone til the end. They may have survived the blast but there was no way they would survive the disease that would follow.

They sat finally by the river…once blue and beautiful but now was spilt with blood and death, thousands of fish floating on the surface and carcasses of the cattle from the nearby farm.

The man was holding something that he had pulled from the inside of his cloak and Christine leaned forward to see a perfectly knotted rope…a hangman's noose.

"What are you going to do with that?" she spoke finally, fear in her voice as it trembled over the words and he looked at her finally and she screamed with fright.

He had no nose, a black hole serving instead. His flesh was pockmarked and reddened on his right side and slowly got paler and greyer until the left side was as white as death itself. His ragged skin was pulled tight over his face, as if he were a skeleton already, only just alive. He had only one ear the other a lump of the right side of his head. His hair was thin and grey and sparse, as if it had been dragged and placed over his marred flesh and he hardly had any lips to speak of, his teeth like dogs, sharp and canine looking. The area around his eyes was blackened…the skin as black as midnight. She stared at this monster, knowing somehow that this wasn't caused from the blast.

"Don't fear Christine…I'm not going to use this for anything" he said softly holding up the noose and her fearful look did not leave her face "Christine don't fear me…please it's only…it's nothing" he said softly.

"How do you know my name?" she breathed, staring at his monstrous face and he merely smiled warmly, leaving her question unanswered.

Her body loosened and she sighed as he put away the rope. She leant forward and gazed at his monstrous face and he let her. She reached out and touched his scarred rough cheek and it felt cold, colder than ice itself. She brushed his few wisps of hair out of his face and behind his ear.

She didn't know why but she trusted him.

"Is there any food left?" she asked softly and his eyes cast downward and she noticed something pleasing in them. They were a bright green in a grey world, flecks of gold in them. They lit up his face and she smiled at them, they were full of soul and beauty and sadness.

"…No" he said finally "the radiation would've ruined it all-if we had warning we could've saved some of it but we didn't…we're going to die Christine" he said softly and tears spilled from her eyes and she wished she had died in the blast…not this slow painful disease ridden death filled with starvation and surely madness.

"Who are you?" she asked and he looked away.

"I've lived in your town your entire life angel, I'm just not the social type" he said and she tilted her head.

"Angel?" but he stood and began to walk away, singing softly.

'There's a lady who's sure

All that glitters is gold

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

When she get's there she knows

If the stores are all closed

With a word she can get what she came for…'

His voice was heaven, intricately perfect in every way; everything that his face was not. She stared at him, entranced by his song, no longer fearful of his face, recognising the song.

"I know that song…my dad has a record of it" she said then running after him "…had…" she corrected herself softly and he stopped and looked at her.

"Why are you following me?" he asked, frustrated.

"Why not…there's no one else for miles that we know of, I'm not leaving myself out here alone" she said and he sighed.

"What about this, doesn't it scare you?" he asked, pointing to the mess that was his face.

"No…how could anything scare anyone after this tragedy" she said, pointing to the wasteland that surrounded them and he nodded.

"Very well then, angel"

"Why do you call me angel?" she asked, tired and hungry and frustrated by this strange man.

"No reason…how old are you? Sixteen?" he guessed and she stopped, wondering what all the questions were for.

"Yes, what about you?" she asked and he turned and looked at her.

"Thirty two" he said and she looked confused at him and he sighed "I know I don't look it; I've looked like this since birth, my hair had thinned and greyed by the time I was your age, my skin pulled tight around my face by the time I was twenty, my looks have gotten more monstrous, believe me if I was the age I looked I wouldn't have survived the blast angel" he said and she was happy with this answer.

"Where are you from? You have an accent," she said, having tried to place the accent.

"I grew up in places such as Persia and then lived in France for most of my life" he answered and she placed the strange accent.

"Do you have a family?" she asked and he shook his head "You're all alone?"

"Yes"

And she took his hand and smiled at him as they walked off together through the unsettling fog full of the ash and dust that was once people's bodies.

And when she died he was all that was left of a crumbling race.

Alone in the darkness.