The Dead City

Imagine black. Never ending black. Eternal as the night, like Death, wrenched from the Underworld and trapped into a canvas. Stretching on and on into the distance. Eternity. Now, imagine flickers of light. Not true light, but a weak reflection, a pale imitation of sunlight, dead and grey, that swirls around the blackness in soft, gentle whorls. Whorls that twist and turn, edges tinted crimson. Crimson, like droplets of blood. Edges that spider off into the distance. A red mist that seeps into the darkness. 1

From the blackness, emerges a grey mountain. A mountain made from smoky ash, thick choking smog which from its peak, rises a city. Stark white walls, perfect in every way but at the same time chilling. Magnificent walkways, sculpted pillars, shining rooftops. Spires rising from the base, surrounding the city like emormous clawed talons. Everything is shaped from the purest marble. Exquisite windows, glass colored blacks and greys, decorate the smooth walls. Arches span across different levels of the towering city. 2

But, something is amiss. Among the pointed towers and small windows, not a sound emerges. Silence. Dead silence. No clatter of wooden wagons, or bustle of market stalls. No clank of metal on metal or whir of cloth on a loom. No buzzing flies and insects, or neighing of horses and mares. No cries... or laughter. It is a glorious city, perfect in every way, but it is a dead one. 3

No life resides in its barren rooms, no movements stir on its sweeping streets. Just shadows, formed from the ever shifting light. Shadows that stretch and shorten with no regard to time. Time, a force that seems absent, with nothing to hint at it's passing but the slow swirling of the half-light.4

Slowly the city fades into the darkness, engulfed once again by endless shadows.5