Mankind: our own worst enemy and our own worst sickness. Perhaps someday we will be able to discover a cure from our own sickening disease-ridden souls. What happened here is a tragedy. Will we ever be able to keep ourselves away from each other and our own worst fears? When we find out, it may be too late.                          

            The sun spread its morning rays across the dead black barren land. Black spike-looking objects pronounced themselves at unnatural angles from the decaying maggot infested dirt. The ground was a mixture of cement, concrete, metal, and chunks of flesh.  It appeared to creep, but it was only the maggots and the larvae that were in their constant state of gorging. The ground was quite perilous to walk on, since there was a large army of metal that perhaps had once belonged to a car or the side of a building, whose only contentment was to trip the occasional unwary person; if there had been any.

            As the sun began to proceed with the morning ritual, turning violet to blood red, the catastrophe became more visible. Stray arms and legs seemed to be weeping for their lost homes. A torn pant-leg with the bloodstains of the missing foot hung on a jutting blue and white stripped piece of metal, maybe a swing set. 

            Skeletons of once proud and prominent buildings stared out from the abyss, their black eyes empty and lifeless. The black spires may have been buildings, but there was no one to identify them.  There were too many unidentifiable mounds that needed to be wept over, or maybe they were just piles of dirt. The history of the scattered skeletons was one of shock; it was plain on their drawn faces and disbelieving eyes. Their own kind had betrayed them. They were destroyed because of their selfish fighting. Their disagreements had ruined everyone's world. The destruction made the remnants of buildings twist, almost as if they were sneering with their last breath, saying with their bony carcasses that they were still there, even if no one else was.

            Faces were half-buried in the worm infested ground, or maybe they were from the clothing store's supply of dummies. Glassy eyes were half-open and caked with dirt and dust that still managed to hold the sheen of half cried tears. Bruised and lonely hands were scattered, as if death had held the cards of their fates, and had tossed them aimlessly to fly in the wind. Fingers lay sprinkled about, prominently showing the prominent shade of blue in them. Pieces of burnt flesh were stuck onto every conceivable surface, the stench overpowering all else, but it could have been from a pizza in the oven too long. Bits of clothing wished vehemently for their previous owners. Multitudes of fallen electric and telephone wires were everywhere, along with fires. Everything was burnt; very few things survived the fires that radiated itself in every direction. Electrical equipment of every sort sat helplessly half melted, half burned, in the dead ashen dirt.

            There may have been other things in the sea of ash, and someone might have cared to find them, if there had been someone. But there was not a soul to be found, except for one boy, who stood motionless, a statue in the rubble.

            “I know,” the young boy uttered, his voice cracking with disuse, “I saw.” His frail and thin frame shook when he inhaled and exhaled, like an old paper doll. His head was tilted faintly to the side, the muscles of his face hanging limply. A tuft of his hair when he spoke drifted from above his ear, dropping onto the ground in a puff. 

            The sun revealed its face, the full circle hanging perilously above the skyline in the morning air. The now golden sunlight caressed the ashen taut cheek of the boy, as well as the bones of the once magnificent buildings. His colorless hair seemed to absorb the golden rays of the sun, as if hungry for signs of life. Glazed brown eyes would have cried if they could, but the mind was vacant. An angry wind swirled through the newly made plains, stirring up dirt and dist.

            “Yes,” his voice shook uncertainly, “I saw everything.” He seemed to struggle with the forming of familiar words, now strangely foreign. “I am the only one left.” His blank stare fell to the black ground. “All alone.” His arms hung limply at his sides, hands coated with ash and blood, some probably his own. The once proud white tee shirt was now a combination of melancholy gray and ruby red. The pant-leg he wore was torn at the knee, revealing multiple gashes down his leg. Black blood was caked in the gash from neglect, the yellow flesh beginning to flower from infection. Small shiny black bugs crawled over the wound as if it was their new home, and they were bringing in their baggage. He seemed to be unaware of most things around him, his mind numbing his senses from the terrible monstrosities that surrounded him.

            “It came so suddenly… so suddenly…” He coughed, his body doubling over with the effort. “I didn't know what it was… so suddenly. The ground shook… I heard screams… I was screaming. I was running! The ground would not stop trembling! I was screaming. Everything… Everything…” He took a breath, winded from the effort of talking, even though there was no one to listen. “Everything is gone,” he said, his words dissipating in the wind.

            Suddenly, but very slowly, he fell to his knees, a cloud of dust rising from the newly made cemetery of rotting corpses. He hunched forward, his head leaning forward and down, gradually hitting the ground with the crown of his head. His breathing was uneven, and the lips he breathed through trembled as he coughed, just once.

            Each labored breath became weaker and softer, the colorless void taking away his life. With his few remaining breaths, he murmured the words “Save us from...” It seemed that at that moment, he forgave whoever did this to his beloved city, and released his last breath into the dead world.

            His body toppled over, the skeletons of buildings looking on, heartless, soulless, and feeling no remorse. It was not their fault, after all. His own kind destroyed them, and that poor boy. They destroyed everything. They remained motionless, statues in the rubble, like silent observers to what happened.

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