Ashes
1081 Words
You may have heard of me as lazy, crazy or both. But I just do not get where I and our people live. Why doesn't the sky fall on us? Where did the liquid of life come from? And what would happen if I kept digging at the edge of the world?
Something in my head, in my sleep has always told me there was more than this hole. I can not tell what that voice was, yet I know it was the truth, and so I believed it.
I started digging in those dark walls, the work was exhausting. Day after day, I have been digging. I have only seen two and a half frozen magmas while doing this. It was getting impossible and neither could I, my hand nor my heart handle this.
I started making a weapon that could help me dig. Made of the shiny rocks we find in the ground. We call them “Hadeed”. These rocks are dark black and shiny when cleaned, giving the colour of the eye’s center. What a beautiful colour that is.
I had to be careful while digging. I needed to do it in a corner where no one could see me, and when everyone goes to sleep and the silence rules the village. On many occasions, I could have gotten caught, still I know nothing would happen.
Moreover, the walls started shattering into ashes with my Hadeed stick. It had a big handle made of the food roots and had a wide end surface that I made of Hadeed so it can rip those black walls.
I kept it a secret until the incident in the village. Something happened that has never happened in the village’s life. Something that I was scared off and the villagers have neglected for years.
I woke up one day on a scream. So I got out of my bed and went outside, and so did everyone else. I saw a gathering of people from far, since my house was quite distened to the village, relative to all the others houses. I started running towards the people. I pushed the people aside,to be able to see what had happened, that caused the scream and all of this.
It was a horrifying scene, that I can not raise my eyes off and at the same time do not want to look at. One of our people had died a miserable death. A man that seemed to carry something was covered in ashes,magme and seemed to have burning flesh. No one in the village could identify him, as his face was melted.
A woman that turned out to be his wife was lying on the floor, she said “We were walking and suddenly a pile of magma dropped on him. How can this happen?” her left arm skin has turned black and red. She was burned, but her pain of losing her husband overtook the pain of her burning arm.The woman was in tears and her screams and sobbing were unstoppable.
I noticed Nar was on his knees and his eyes were soaked with tears. He stared at the dead man’s body with nothing but horror. The man was Nar’s father. I wanted to go and hug him tightly. Yet my body did not want so or was afraid to do so.
The kids were terrified by his looks, burying their heads on their mother’s bellies as if they wanted to crawl back inside of them. Some of the women were howling and the men stood still, in horror. Also, some men were sobbing and other women were standing still. This was not only terrifying because we lost a man, but also because everyone feared that this might be his or her own destiny. The worst, most terrifying deaths. But I knew of a worse death, that I dare not speak of.
In the meantime in my mind, I had a weird joyful feeling. No I did not hate the man, like the others I barely knew him. This was an opportunity for me to get us out of this hole, and to convince my people to help me get out of here. Most importantly prove that I was right, and they were all wrong.
“I informed you thusly, I am neither crazy nor lazy,” I took a deep breath to calm myself then continued by saying “our home is collapsing. I get that you don't want to abandon our home and neither do I. However, This is necessary. No one believed me.”
“But I needed no approval. I started and dug into the walls making them ashes. Because it's either we or this place would turn into ashes. I don’t know about you, but I am going to continue, so I can get out. And if luck is ain't with me, so be it. But at least I would have tried”
Everyone was silent. The only emotions were confusion and horror. But there were still faces that said denial.
The lips started to move and the silence was broken. There were those who said “Here we were born and here we shall die. We can not abandon our home.” others replied to those voices by saying “No, we must not die in this hole just because we call it home. I do not want to wake up and magma is my mattress. What you call home is what betrayed us and is killing us.”
Many others have said lines such as:
“No it has not betrayed us, we must have angered it somehow,”
“You i***t, this is a place not a person. It can never get angry,”
“You do not know the truth of home-”
“Neither do you,”
“I will not stay here,”
“This is madness, we have to consult the master, where is he?”
“Shut up,”
“You know nothing bastard,”
The voices of everyone were merging, at a point I could not hear what anyone was saying. I do not think anyone else could but they were arguing and objecting regardless.
People were arguing about what to do. It was getting violent, the village was out of control.I saw two men at each other’s breaths, nose to nose. Yelling at each other.
The village was in panic, there were random arguments now. Everyone was just in anger and wanted to say whatever he or she wants. Many have tried to break the arguments that are now escalating to physical fights.
“Enough,” I heard a voice, some did, others not.
The voice repeated with anger, echoing the sound through the village. Silencing everyone “Enough,” he said a third time. No one was talking nor arguing anymore.
- Writer
