Ashes Ashes: Prolog

Prolog: Haunted1

Ring around the rosy
Pockets full of posies
Ashes Ashes
We all fall down...2

Her eyes snapped open with a gasp, a pale hand finding it's way to feel the pounding heart beneath her breast. She shook her head of tawny curls, the tinkling echo of children's play still resonating strong within the recesses of her mind. 3

How long would those voices of the past haunt her? How long would they plague her dreams, riddling her somnolent with regret? What purpose did it serve to continually reminisce on what she lost when the sickness swept her country? 4

She shuddered, pulling the goose feather quilt tighter around her shoulders as the prismatic images of fire, rotting cattle, flies, and death flashed before her minds eye. So many had perished. The disease did not discriminate friend from foe, and none were spared the poisonous licks of boils, blood and bile. 5

And yet she remained; lingered on in an age of unrest. The bitter taste of hopelessness weighed heavy on her tongue, stifling the dry sobs tearing at her throat. Her pillow absorbed the silent tears once again, for the shadows of night were her only reprieve; 6

Darkness to hide tears; cloth to suffocate cries; and stars to carry the burden of a hundred empty wishes. 7

But when the rooster crowed and the sun spilled over the horizon lightening the world anew, none would ever guess that she was haunted.