Author's Note: This is just a short idea that occurred to me earlier while writing the new chapter for another story. It wouldn't leave me alone, so here it is. I'm not too great at things like this, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.
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Paradise
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He can no longer identify the smell of death.
The rank, cloying odor has no effect on his senses. Witnessing the cause of the scent, the grisly ends of those children, had somehow made it cling to his clothes, to his hair, to his skin.
Yet, none in this pot of swirling flames take note of it. They too carry the odor. They have lived it, breathed it, become it. It is as familiar to them as a sweet perfume is to a lover.
How did it come to this?
Here, on the smooth floor in this pool of caked crimson.
Here, with his limb of porcelain, a mockery of nature. This bone-shaped appendage, crafted from the forsaken.
How had he been so blind? The man who called himself "father" was a monster. Worse still was the man who had crafted his limb, which he longed to tear away from his body, to throw away the remnant of what had been given by the deaths of others.
He cannot do so.
His one remaining arm has been severed as well, and if he was not so sure of the fact that this was his end, he would laugh at the irony, of the fact that if he were to survive, he would need another false limb.
But he will not live. Already he feels the hands of death trailing down his spine.
He cannot recall the taste of water or the feel of a cool breeze.
He hasn't the strength to move. He is going to die here, he knows, a dessicated corpse dried by the unrelenting heat. The wind will pick up once more after he is gone, sand will scour the flesh from his form and bleach his bones as the sun and the flames sear him to ash.
He is alone, from what he can see.
He is certain others still struggle, somewhere out in that vast expanse of white and heat, and far away from his limp form. But he is alone now, lying motionless on the floor that he once considered a home. He can see their faces, his brothers and sisters, can hear the voice of the black-haired girl, who had begged him and cried for him just days before.
He has no time.
His sense of smell, rendered useless in the haze of smoke and ash, has left his nose dried and worthless. His ears, too, have deafened to the roar of the licking flames. One by one, his useless senses have eliminated themselves. He cannot even think of longing to taste food, as he could not enjoy its flavor. Sensation left mere moments ago, the first sign of what was to come.
He can feel no pain, but must watch himself decay.
He can tell his vision is failing now too.
It will be the last sense to leave him before he perishes. They are finished. They can only hope that the ones still breathing will leave some sign of their memory.
He lowers his face, towards his forsaken hand. A smooth hand upon his shoulder, the voice of silk in his ears as violet fire tears through the room around him.
"What do you see?" asks the girl who isn't there.
This place..
This place used to be paradise.
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End
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