iii. restless

30 days of writing. drabbles for the untitled novel thing.

vesuvius, are you ghost? or the symbols of light? or of fantasy host? in your breast i carry the form the heart of the earth and the weapons of warmth. vesuvius, the tragic oath, for you have destroyed the elegant smoke

The decayed hand reached outwards, beckoning shadows forward in complete silence. 

Flame drank in what they could, engulfing everything int their way. Fire kissed wood and danced above the stone and lay gracefully across the grass. Decayed hands were adamant about their unheard demands, about their muted commands. They grasped at empty space, at air, at everything. The fingers entwined with the fires, caressing the heat with unflinching flesh. The heat should have caused the hand to draw back towards the body it belonged to, but there was no resistance, only acceptance.

The fire stepped closer and closer to the stone walls, eating away at everything it crawled over. People were scattering now. Screams and sobs filled the air. Blood soaked the dirt, the walls, the fabrics they wore. Bodies crumbled to the floor, falling asleep on hard dirt and stone and ash. Water came pouring from buckets. Water flowed in streams from cups and bowls and everything that could have been filled. 

But, instead of dying, they only burned bigger, brighter, hotter, more hateful and vengeful and horrifying.

“Run.” The words came from burned lips, burnt to complete blackness, with ashes falling like rain as the lips formed the single word. And, as the mouth curled into a smile, the flesh cracked and crumbled, but not completely. No, somehow, it managed to stay together.

A woman clutched her child to her chest, failing to soothe the wailing creature. The horses in the stable could not sleep. They made more noise than they ever had. They shrieked liked dying animals, begging for the pain to end, to be saved, to escape from their confines. There were others who reacted similarly - people this time. Men shouting for their wives, their children, their lives. Women screaming for their loved ones, for their friends, for their lives, for everything. 

Flame danced on the ground, graceful and hateful all at once. In the sky, smoke wrapped tendrils around necks, elegant fingers stealing breathing, seeping into lungs and killing, killing, killing. Fire and smoke and flesh and blood. The air was filled with wretched odours. It could have been another world. It could have been the end of their world. It could have been the sun, swallowing up the world, mercilessly flaying those who were unable to escape. The pious clutched their hands, closed their eyes. They prayed and prayed and prayed, solemn words leaving cracked lips. They prayed to their gods, to their saviours, to their hopes and dreams and lives.

The horses in their stalls were corpses. The women cradling their children were corpses. The men that tried to defend their loved ones were corpses. Those who tried to escape were corpses. Corpses, corpses, corpses. Ashes and smoke and flame. It was an unmistakable inferno, a fiery hell. 

Behind stone walls, the remaining living creatures screamed.

That was when the others finally descended, bringing along their decayed bodies and their insatiable hunger and their rage.