A/N – As a daily prompt from a Harry Potter forum, I got Ashes. I have recently finished reading Fahrenheit 451 and I couldn't help but use this wonderful masterpiece, and this is my first time trying this and venturing into another fandom. I hope you enjoy it! :D

Ashes of Oblivion

***

Ashes. Such a small word, such a small substance, so thin and fragile. Yet, it means so much.

It's the meaning of the end: The end of the burning, the end of a Phoenix's life, the end of the flames, the end of problems. It all comes down to ashes in the end.

It's all he sees, it glides above, like white noise in the air, like a darkness. Surrounding, sinking down, swallowing fear all around him, dirtying his mind and gripping his heart with its achingly beautiful and mesmerizing flame. A dark cloud hovering over his head, like the moment of truth and the last of all hope.

Ashes, much like life and chances, they slip away. He catches them at some point, but they always run through his fingers, just slipping away, slipping away… and there's nothing he can do about it. He's tried everything, he tried to catch it back, pull it all together, close his grip as tight and hard as he ever could and tried, trying to never let it fall, never lose it, keep it in.

But this time… he was far too late.

And he can't get it back on his hands, because he now knows how it really works.

And the flame is gone. And the ashes don't matter anymore.

These ashes were what he had, it's not the small, blackened sand that matters, it's what it was that he really wanted back on his hands. And he had it before, so many times, but it felt as though he never really had them…

He's had it all; he had her arms, he had her hair, her lips, her face, he had her legs, he had it all on his hands. Oh, Mildred, how he missed her already, he was wrong, he knew he'd never not be sad over her. The flame might be gone, but the ashes linger on his soul, and he knows they'll always remain, a reminder of what he had.

It was only a fraction of a second as it happened. Yet, he never fully appreciated the feeling of having her like he now would, he never realized what he lost until he did.

A falling bomb, it was all it took, appearing so fast it seemed almost unreal

And then it fell, and the angels flew.

Their early memories, the happy ones, even Chicago went to his mind as the last of oblivion went to pieces by his eyes, the city, soaring in the air, like the feather of an Eagle, glorious and tall, so high up it seemed to lead to Heaven in an explosion of a thousand rainbows. Like a colony of Angels creating a passage between the living and the dead.

Slow and painfully, the memories still rushing back, the weight of what just happened falling on him, falling in front of him, falling over him, falling up, falling down, falling everywhere, and he didn't know where right or left were anymore with the shake of the land as the bomb hit the ground and the city flew up and fell down again in a definite end and a resounding silence screaming in the air of the early morning or late night.

Dust and debris, they were all that was left in the wake of a fascinating firework show. The ashes, the pieces of end, scattered around the living like an array of leaves on an autumn afternoon, so innocent, so elegant, seemingly harmless and playful in the ground.

And glorious Heaven turned to burning Hell.

The book of Ecclesiastes, it was now at the surface, he could remember it now, clearly and accurately, willing himself to fix it in his memory, each word, each sentence, each and every chapter, he couldn't let it slip away this time.

But still he couldn't remember their whole past.

After all he did to save them, him and Mildred, all he did to slip from oblivion as easily as a handful of ashes by drinking in the intellect the forbidden books had to give, he failed, and he now understood why they burned those damned books.

They did bring unhappiness. And pain, too.

The grief came with the dark cloud, a mushroom of the living dead seen from afar. Where it ended, where she was.

Where she was… she isn't anymore. Now she's gone. Like the flame of their passion, of their love, so many years ago, never set alight with a brand new flame. And he picked on the ashes, thinking it was what those books he read so long ago meant, trying to find an answer. So accurate, so true, so wrong…

But there was no way he could phantom why, why it felt so right!

It shouldn't feel like that, he knew it, his mind screamed it, and his hands clenched it, but yet, his heart couldn't beat it. His heart achingly hummed the beats of right and wrong at the same time. A grey shadow on the world of black and white, where oblivion remains and misery prevails, yet, intellect fades in the midst of the darkness of the ashes.

And it never fails.

It hurts, it really does. The loss of her, the books' loss, he burned them, he was a murderer of intellect, of hope, shredding them to tiny, dark ash with the firethrower.

And the smile. The smile of the fireman, always plastered on his face whenever a flicker of flame comes alive, an almost pyromaniac look on his eyes, the reflect of the small, innocent flame doubling the burning one already in his heart. But it always went dim. Dimmer and dimmer until all that lasted were ashes. Ashes and ashes and ashes and ashes and more ashes!

And now? The world was ash! Burned by the sins of the man that did not know that, so long ago, these things he was destroying with so much glee were the life of many, the love of the misunderstood, the freedom to the dark reality in which they lived. A refuge to the world. People spent their lives creating those things, and he destroyed them so easily, so painfully easily it was unbelievable a small flame could create such a spectacle of light at 451 degrees Fahrenheit.

And the ashes, carried by the wind of the city that doesn't change, flew up into the skies, rubbing themselves on the Devil's face, luring him to touch them with his aching hands and long fingers, so slender, knowing they were irresistible, beautiful, gracious, and impossible. Yes, impossible, because, most of all the ashes were untouchable, and they laughed on his face, like he was a fool trying to talk to his reflection, thinking it was a real person and not a mirror of himself. But, just like Faber said, he needed to stop running around his cage, denying he was a squirrel.

And so he did, with a whole different meaning to the quote. And in the breaking dawn of that new day, Guy Montag rose, his head held high, and lead the book people to the unknown, knowing that, united, the city of oblivion would rise from its ashes.

Starting slow and terribly until it was a tall and proud figure of admiration, the City rose. So much like a Phoenix, burning as it dies so it can rise again, stronger and better than the last time, a whole new world for today for a world of tomorrow.

An awesome cycle of beauty and grace, even as it collides with the bottom of the abyss, the darkness the only companion of the present, but a glimmer of hope for the future lay on the tunnel of light underneath the hearth.

Below the ashes of the City of Oblivion.