Captcha prompt: 1,640,000,000 ashiest
The morgues were full, the hospitals were full, the streets were full. The bodies couldn't all be identified, especially if anyone who could identify them was also dead. Eventually, all they could do was place a number on the chest of each body, photograph it, and then burn the corpse. If anyone came looking, they could flip through what the workers were grimly calling 'The Family Album'. Whole families were dead, whole neighborhoods. It was impossible to say how many would die in the next few days, not found in time, or hurt too badly to survive even if they were. The numbers kept rising, along with the smoke.
It was a miserable job, but it had to be done. After the first week or so, the workers numbers dropped. Some were found at home dead by their own hands rather than face another day of throwing their neighbors into the quickly-built furnace. Some couldn't bring themselves to die, knowing that they would have to go into the fire too.
No snow this Christmas, nothing clean enough to be white. It was nothing but ashes now, drifting and swirling, black on the skin, but gray against the dark sky. It choked the living, coated them with the smell of burning hair and grease. The only thing that seemed to get it off was tears, and there wasn't of those left in the city to wash it clean again.
It even coated the windows hundreds of feet up. Not even the richest, smartest man left alive could see clearly through it anymore, even if he wanted to.