I stand in the wasteland

  of a once-mighty city,

  burned to cinders

  by the memory

  of a devil's birth.

  I stand beneath a scorched sky

  hearing the whispers

  of the lost,

  those who died in pain

  calling to me

  to remember them.

  But they don't remember me.

  I was here with them,

  all those years ago,

  at the heart of the blaze.

  Shadows stand in

  silent ceremony

  around a memory

  bent by perception

  and perspective.

  A child, wreathed in shadows,

  smoke and flame,

  eyes ablaze as it screams

  so loud it shatters the city

  and burns the sky,

  A child, devil-crowned

  chosen by fate

  to end our world.

  With that scream,

  its flesh blackens and burns

  and cracks,

  spewing lava and smoke,

  scarring its newborn body,

  even as it bloats into immensity.

  Its eyes are fire now

  as it towers above us

  beneath an amber sky.

  Its screams become the inferno

  that sets

  the world ablaze.

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  A halo of jagged obsidian

  spins around its head as

  it looms over us all,

  arms spread wide

  as the flames leap ever higher,

  consuming everything.

  First came the light.

  Then, the shadow.

  I am not what I was before.

  I am a pillar of ash,

  a memory of a man

  lost in fire and time,

  like all these other ghosts.

  Footsteps echo around me,

  But when I look back,

  I see nothing

  but another echo of myself,

  smiling, laughing,

  trapped in that moment

  when the agony burned

  so intense it became euphoric,

  when the heat drove us mad

  before it killed us.

  Behind him is a woman,

  who drapes her arms about his shoulders.

  They stare at me

  with black pits

  where the eyes should be,

  weeping ashes

  as they remember what I remember,

  grief cutting through the madness

  I stare up at the sky,

  at the distant pale light

  of dreams blazing

  in the endless darkness.

  Ashes on my chest

  are remnants of where

  my heart once burned

  with hope

  Only silence remains,

  regret and grief,

  gathering,

  then moldering

  into quiet apathy.

  But in the emptiness,

  before I crumble away,

  I dreamed of a time

  when we were at peace

  beneath the silent regard

  of distant stars.

  One day,

  they will find us:

  another people

  in another time.

  They will sift their fingers

  through us

  and wonder what became of us,

  the people

  of the city of ash.