Prologue to Smoke and Dust

I wrote this when I was about 15. It has undergone many an edit, and I fear will undergo many still before I am completely satisfied with it. It's the start to one of the few stories I have finished. I haven't really paid attention to this story for a few years.

At first I didn’t know whether it was smoke or dust. A thick haze of vapor hung over the city, masking the setting sun.

It was something I had seen many times. Something I had looked at for hours on end. And every time I looked at it, I felt the compulsion – the forbidden longing.

I stepped forward. My mind was too busy admiring the scene to notice where my feet were taking me.

The blazing buildings rose like giants. In the grips of sunset they looked like they were burning. Orange-red flames licked at their feet, turning smoothly into silver as the buildings climbed the sky. Their heads disappeared into a thick cloudbank, windows masked by gray clouds.

My feet led me to a broad road that seemed to stretch the length of the deserted city.

In the hollow silence I could hear nothing but my own breathing, my own insignificant footsteps on the gravel – and the faint strains of a whisper. It was soft enough to be imagined, like a song I couldn’t get out of my head.

But as my feet continued to move, the strains grew louder. It buzzed blearily in my ears and turned my attention to the only break in the sheets of glass: an old, rusted gate.

It stood out blandly against the new buildings beside it, gray tendrils of steel twisted in an intricate design. A chill touched my spine.

I peered through the thick tendrils. A broken swing set, the remains of a slide and a gravelly sandpit were all that remained of a playground. The park shared the same lack of color as the rest of the city. Everything was a mottled, windswept gray, only occasionally flecked with the brilliance of the sunset.

The buzz had turned into notes. A jumble of half mumbled, half hummed words made me stand on tiptoe and clutch the gate in an attempt to see where it was coming from.

But as my small fingers curled round the cold iron, I felt it move forward. I let go and stood back hastily.

It swung open, creaking ominously.

A little girl sat cross-legged in the sandpit. She rocked back and forth, long black hair swishing with the motion. I took a tentative step forward. She didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps she was too busy scooping up sand and letting it siphon through outstretched fingers.

I stepped closer still. A threadbare peach dress hung limply on her body, which was bony and almost under-developed. The dress was frilly and childish, and I could imagine being forced to wear it to a party.

I took another step.

Then another. 

The girl’s fingers raked through the sand in an unending cycle. They were small, frail like the rest of her.

With another step I noticed her hair was completely masking her face. The long black curtain swung in front of her nose, never showing any skin.

The little girl hypnotized me. Maybe it was the swaying motion or the fact that the song she was humming sounded slightly familiar, or perhaps her strange appearance.

Even her skin seemed weird, as though she had bad sunburn. But that couldn’t be it – her skin looked as lifeless as everything around it.

I swallowed and stepped ever closer.

A piercing crack tore me from my trance. Something stabbed into the sole of my foot and I cried out in pain. Through the tears in my eyes, I slowly looked down at my foot.

A jagged piece of porcelain stuck out of the soft flesh. The half-smashed head of a porcelain doll lay inches from my foot, covered in blood. Its nose, right eye and cheek were smashed beside the otherwise perfect face. The remaining eye gleamed. I began shaking.

I looked at the girl.

She had stopped humming. In one swift movement, her head snapped up, sending hair flying in all directions.

I screamed. Pale red skin stretched taught over a small skull. Her eyes, pouchy and swollen, seemed to burst out of their sockets, not white but blood red with ice blue irises.

Blackened, cracked lips peeled back in a mad yell that came out as a strangled gurgle. Blood dribbled out of her mouth, leaking over and between sharp black teeth. It trickled down her chin, seeping into the collar of her party dress.

I moved before she had the chance to twitch. I turned on my heel and ran. Gurgling screams followed me. Pain thudded in my foot as I ran, but I couldn’t stop. Bloody footprints mapped my path.

I bounded up the hill. The cries receded until I couldn’t hear them anymore. At the top of the hill I stopped. My legs were shaking. I could hardly breathe. I turned slowly around to look back at the city.

Where the street started and the grass began, stood a little girl in a peach party dress. Hair flew around her head, seeming to crackle with static. In the distance thunder rumbled.

Our eyes connected. For a second I was bound again by the strange girl. The breath was knocked out of my body.

For that second that we looked at each other – I felt my heart stop.

And then I was running down the hill. Sprinting. Somewhere on the downward slope I tripped. I lost all footing and flew through the air. Pain shuddered through my body once again as my head connected with a boulder, and the last thing I saw was a blur of green, slowly fading to black.