A Golden Warning

"stare deeply"

The acrid stench of rotting teeth and stale alcohol made my eyes water as the old woman's husky voice breathed over me. A single candle flame flickered on the table between us, the light catching the glint of gold before me as the pendulum swung back and forth. I kept my eyes fixated, flicking them from from left to right, following the hypnotizing swing and let my mind wander until thoughts evaded me and the room around me slipped away and new images flooded my conscious.

Around me the world looked different, the world felt different. The dark room full of cluttered trinkets and bones was gone, and before me lay a barren concrete wasteland. I stood alone in the silence, not even a breeze to disturb the air around me. Buildings, once full of activity and purpose stood in half wreckage, abandoned and unused save the flickering fire lights in the windows of squatters taking refuge from the outside. I could no longer see the old crone, but her distinct smell still lingered in my nose, I could still feel her black eyes staring at me, making my skin crawl. Even in the daylight the world surrounding me seemed darker now, an unnatural grey that brought with it a chill that was more than just weather. Long shadows stretched out along every surface, surreal shadows that didn't seem to cast from anywhere and felt a part of everything. I could feel the despair in the world, a heavy blanketed feeling that crept into my bones and settled there, setting my nerves on edge. Half torn posters littered the pavement and hung affixed to light posts that no longer illuminated with any light. The posters scrawled messages that read 'Save our Planet' with dulling darkened colors that once would have depicted bright blues and bold greens now just faded ink on scraps of paper. I recognized the signs, these signs litter the route I take to the factory everyday, and as I look around realization comes to me. I recognize this street although as a graying ghost town it had become almost completely unfamiliar to me now, just around the next corner was the carnival, the travelling show with the creepy fortune teller. I only stopped in for fun, just to waste some time. I walked to the empty parking lot where the carnival was set up, but there was nothing to see but discarded trash and oil stains where rides lit up only minutes ago. In that instant I knew... I knew where this was, what this was. I could see the imprint of pollution left behind.

The world had been on the precipice of change, the earth had been mined and industry poisoned the air. We needed to step back, look at the destruction at our feet and make a change for the future. Change our ways to protect the planet, to save what we had. Change had been championed for and failed as government and technology progressed the world ever further away from nature. Our factories spewing fumes into the sky like toxic clouds of death. Building cities of Concrete and steel with populations ever expanding as consumption and decadence reigned supreme, corrupting clean earth and rewarding it with landfill in return. We mined deeper into the earth, taking and taking until there was nothing left to take, leaving destruction in our wake. As I look around me, at the dwindling population of Humankind dying out, lost in an unfamiliar world without power, without warmth and comfort, I can see it. The suffering wrought upon the earth and how a perfect ecosystem was destroyed by a horde of humanity always wanting, always striving. And now what was left was just the darkness, a deathly plague on humanity, unseen and unknown. A silence from the depth of the earth and we brought it upon ourselves.

It began with the miners, digging deeper, driving down into the earth exhausting the last of the resources. The world was too far gone. We needed more... more oil, more coal and in a story old as time, we dug too deep, we took took too much. The earth was living, she had a heart, she had a soul and she had a rage. A rage at those who always wanted more, or maybe it was a pity, but unleashed it was all the same. It struck down the miners first, a shadow illness stealing their breath, robbing them of oxygen and turning their skin ashen. One by one the darkness swept through them, bringing with it the coldness and death. Miners fled in fear, returning home for refuge but found none. At night fall, away from the reach of the suns warming rays, the darkness spread from one person to the next, infecting families, communities, death was indiscriminate... The Ashen plague took it's victims in the night, nowhere was safe and the world was under siege by a vengeful mother nature, claiming back what was hers. Children separated from parents, lovers divided and families torn apart. The Ashen spread like invisible smoke, moving from one person to the next, leaving a trail of grieve in it's wake. Those fighting to survive, waiting out the inevitable, lived in isolation, in the low burning light of fires fueled from the remnants of materialization and greed... but there was no escape. Food was scarce, the world was cold, and without a way to stop the plague, there was no future for mankind.

Minutes and hours bled together, days could have passed but the scene remained the same. Cars abandoned across roads, trains frozen in place along the tracks, devoid of people. And no life anywhere, where I should have seen jostling city workers, pushing past in a daily commute, kids riding bikes or playing on street corners, vendors pushing their wares on the side walk as music drifted from shop fronts and cafes while people idly chatted and dined, I saw nothing. I saw only the emptiness and loneliness that existed in the silence, the ominous shadows growing and creeping closer to me with every step further. Here I was alone, burdened by solitary confinement, chased by a threat I couldn't observe, couldn't escape. I walked to the cities edge, where broken concrete paths should have met with nature, becoming rolling hills of green and bush. There was no vegetation, no green or life. Nothing but dirt and gravel and the rubbish that littered the ground underfoot. The ground was dry and unwelcoming, with a haze spread across the horizon before me. Shadow waiting at my back, waiting to swallow me whole. It would take a miracle to repair, if repair was even possible. What would it take to save the world at the end of days? As i stood, surveying the world before me I inhaled deeply, there was a smell in the air, a displacing smell that I couldn't put my finger on, but was familiar all the same. Without warning I could feel my insides being squeezed, gasping for air I couldn't breathe in. It hurt, the crippling knowledge that there was no future before me. No future for anyone. Pain spread through my veins as I stood, rooted to where I stood, staring at the devastation before me. No life, no hope. The apocalypse had arrived. And suddenly I recognized that smell. It was the wreak of death. The smell, the Shadow, flooded my being and into nothingness I screamed.

I blinked back tears, the echo of my scream still stinging my ears. My mind refocused as I felt the pain still lingering within my veins. The dark cramped room full of trinkets and bones surrounded me again. The pendulum hung still now, and I could see it for what it was. A tiny golden heart shaped locket, glinting in the fire light. The crone lent across the table now, her chin only just above the flickering flame, her dry cracked lips splitting into a grotesque grin that revealed her broken rotting teeth, and the stench of her breath overwhelming. I knew she saw what I saw. A vision of my future, of the future for all of us. A path already set in motion, one that would need a miracle to change course. She began to laugh, and with it I felt the darkness of the world fill the room. The curse was already here, and we were just waiting for it. The earth would outlast us all. The Ashen wasn't the plague. Mankind was. The Ashen will wipe humanity from existence, the earth will heal itself as it always has, balance restored once humanity became a faded footprint on the earth. I scrambled backwards, the chair crashing to the ground under me. My heart was pounding in my chest, I gasped to find air choking without breath as her rasping laugh echoing in my ears. I stumbled out of the dark tent, carnival lights flashing around me, a buzz in the air as families drifted between fast food stands and whizzing rides. I could see the rush of activity around me, joy and excitement but felt nothing save the hollowness of the fortune tellers laugh. As I stood, unable to move, the cold night air soaked through my clothes, sending goosebumps across my body. I lifted my hands to tighten my scarf and felt it there. Hot against my frozen skin, the fortune tellers tiny golden heart shaped locket holding the fate of all mankind. With the delicate locket clasped between my finger tips I could see that haze of the gray future around me, I was like a ghost trapped between two worlds. Now alone in a busy world, I was stalked by an otherworldly threat, on a mission to avert the impending apocalypse. And as I held that golden locket, it scalded my skin. The future burning into me like a dark foreboding.