Nobody to Remember [Doomsday Diary]

There was not much in this world that was beautiful anymore- unless you can find a beauty in mortality, a beauty in the fleeting and unforgiving.

Walking through a city, abandoned by time and panic, revealed nothing but the harsh reality of being alone once more. It was not always like this. There was once forests alight with life, deep green and rolling mists through their vast masses. The sun had shone through their leaves and canopy, moderate on most days and rarely the harsh heat it was now. It would've been nice to sit beneath them, with a book and enjoy the simple noise of people living and animals scampering about and plants rustling with the gentle winds.

But the past did not matter in a timeless void such as this.

They looked on in silence, as quiet as the world around them, at the world they had held hope for. They had tried, playing the role given to them by believers once upon a time, but that faith was lost and now all that remained was a lonely false deity watching over a people long gone. They had no power if there was nobody to remember them. Despite their creation and despite their power, the world had made their choice. Their power only reached so far. Nothing was permanent and ruins were all that remained. It pained them that there was nothing more they could offer their people.

It was all too easy to imagine the world as it once was, bustling and busy and alive. If they tried to remember, the world would be filled with the sounds of their lives once more.

They were children who played a game called Ambush, a game of nobles and robbers, chasing each other down and "stealing their valuables." It had really just meant the winners got ice cream or some other sweet of their choosing. It was a game the adults and parents indulged, and the memory brought a smile to their face.

The market was colorful, import and trade very important to the near-coastal city. They were people from countries far off, brought in by the promise of artisan crafts and foreign culture. Bars and taverns were welcome spots for boastful sailors and travelers, bards and minstrels playing their tunes of tall tales and epic heroes. Patrons listened carefully and carelessly, entranced by the stories and ignorant of the end.

They wonder if their people had found the Other Side alright, if they'd passed peacefully after all. They wondered how many had suffered instead. This was not the ending written for them and yet it was the ending they got.

They moved their head and a glint of metal caught their eye. They moved towards it, curious. They bent down, kneeling beside the rubble and reached to pluck it from the ground. It was a necklace with a broken chain, rusted over and no longer the shining gold it once would have been. The pendant was a locket, engraved with flowers and a word long since rubbed over. Decrepit, old, and sitting in an empty city. If they had not been there, it would remain as a relic to time past. If they had not been there, nobody would remember the city as it once was.

They ran their fingers over the engraving and tried to open it. They could not. The hinges were too rusted, the metal a little too melted in the oppressive heat. Nobody would ever see what was inside, nobody would remember who it belonged to. They clutched it to their chest, heart aching.

It had been a long time since they felt human enough to cry and they mourned for the people they could not protect.