Tower of Ash

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. She drew her fingers over the moisture gathering on the cold glass of her suitor’s room. Shapes sprang from her fingertips as she idly drew shapes. Memories of another time, before all of this. She knew the shapes were called animals, but anything more had been lost to the passage of time.

She wiped the pane clean, erasing the animals as surely as the ash outside the window obscured the world beyond. If there were animals out there, she could not see them. Sometimes when the sun was at its highest, shapes would form in the ash laden mists before dissipating into the cold, dark murk. She liked to think the sun fought for them, although she knew the idea was as fanciful as the animals she drew on the window.

Nothing but broken dreams of what had been.

The door would creak open soon. He would be standing there in his filthy, ash-covered overalls from his foray into the outside. She would take his dirty clothes, draw a bath, put a meal on the small table…see to his needs. Whatever those might be.

Somehow, she always knew when her suitor’s arrival was imminent. His return from the wastes drew a mix of joy and apprehension. He represented the last of her contact with the outside world. The only constant human presence left in her life.

She didn’t even know his name.

If he knew hers, he never called her by it. She scarcely remembered it herself.

And he was cold. Cold like the outside of her window, and covered in the ash she watched everyday from the safety of the small apartment they shared. She yearned for the day she could leave the apartment, even if just for a moment, but she dared not bring up the idea to her suitor.

He never hurt her. That much was true. She did not find him cruel despite the coldness. She was not permitted to meet the other residents of their building, but her suitor treated her better than most.

She would hear those sounds through the walls occasionally. Sometimes it was close, as though the scream was on the other side of the wall. She would press her ear to the fading wallpaper, hoping and dreading that she would hear more. Some story from the outside world that would tell her a tale different from the drab existence she endured.

Her suitor, in one of the few moments he spoke to her, said she should consider herself lucky. There were still those on the outside, beyond the window, living in the waste and debris of the past. When she asked about them, his face darkened and he refused to speak further.

As she stared out the window into the shifting drifts of ash, the long awaited creak sounded through the small apartment. She turned away from the window to find the silhouette of her suitor standing in the doorway. The bright lights in the hallway blinded her momentarily, but she dutifully made her way towards the shadow.

Her eyes adjusted to the glare, and his features came into focus. The familiar lean face, dour in countenance with sad eyes looked at her. The stubble of two weeks on the outside clung to his face, holding the remnants of ash the scrubbers would not take off him. His wool lined jacket, the most prized possession a scavenger owned, hung loosely about his shoulders, covered in gray dust and coated in…red. Bright red.

“You’re hurt,” she said simply at the sight of what could only be blood.

“No,” he replied. “It isn’t mine.”

She reached out her hands to touch the jacket, but froze mere inches from the bloodied fabric. To touch him unbidden was to invite punishment. Not from him, but the others. The ones she couldn’t see. He saw her hesitation and slowly took her hand in his soot-covered fingers.

“I…I need to clean up,” he said. His voice quivering as he forced the words out. She nodded and led him into the apartment. She undressed him, quickly and efficiently. It was a ritual as much as anything. She wanted to feel something for the man as she unclothed him but found she could not. Nothing more than the familiarity he held as her last line to humanity.

She took the filthy clothes to the laundry chute then moved to draw a bath. Her suitor stood unclothed, motionless, in the entry to their small bathroom. His skin was caked in a layer of ash and blood; and though the room was cold, he barely seemed to notice. She reached for his hand and led him to the steaming tub. He lowered himself into the water, mechanically, as though feeling no longer affected him.

She retreated from the bathroom, leaving him to soak. He would want dinner. He always wanted dinner after one of the excursions. There wasn’t much in the kitchen, but she went about making a small meal. Eating something was better than eating nothing.

The meal prepared, she went to check on him. He sat motionless in the tub; the steam no longer rose from the waters which had chilled to a lukewarmness. At least his face was clean now. Against propriety, she rested her hand on his.

“Come,” she said gently.

Rather than protest or chastise or strike out, he nodded silently and rose dripping from the lukewarm water. She wrapped a towel around him, drying him as she walked him from the bathroom. Cold though he might be, never had he refused to speak to her.

What did you see out there?

He dressed in the casualwear supplied by their overseers, a loose fitting cotton shirt and trousers, and made his way to the kitchen. The spoon moved mechanically in his hand, ladling the tasteless food from bowl to mouth and back again. He did not speak and barely blinked. He simply stared into the gray mass of porridge filling his bowl.

When the paltry meal was done, he rose to his feet and approached her seat opposite of him. He took her arm gently.

“Come,” he said.

It was an order, not an invitation. Though she wanted to say no, she hesitantly rose to her feet and let him lead her to the small bed they shared. She thought he wanted…that thing. She thought he would ask for the service she hated most, the one where she felt least like a person and most like the garments she’d flush down the chute.

But he didn’t undress. He released her arm and sank into the bed, pulling the sheets around him. She turned to leave, there would be a corner in the apartment she could curl up in to let him rest, but he reached for her again.

“No. Stay, please,” he said, his eyes meeting hers for the first time. Something had changed there. The eyes staring into hers were familiar, but something within them broke. Against her instincts, she nodded.

“I’ll stay.”

And sank into bed. He thumbed the switch for the lights, plunging them into darkness. For a long while, his uneven breathing was the only sound she heard. Sleep would not come for either, and so they lay there in silence surrounded by darkness.

“What is your name?” he whispered after some time.

“What?” she replied.

“Your name,” he replied. “You have one, right?”

“We aren’t supposed to say,” she said sheepishly. Why would you ask this?

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he replied. “Not after tomorrow. I just want to know…before…”

“Before what?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly. “Nevermind.”

They lay there in silence, his arm wrapped around her in a semblance of affection. The cold returned in the darkness, she felt it and hated it. Desperation welled up within her, and she desired nothing more than to drive it out.

“Maria,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Maria,” she repeated, and felt heat flush into her body at the small act of rebellion. “What’s yours?”

“Adam,” he replied. “It’s nice to meet you, Maria.”

The forbidden conversation hung heavily in the air. A small affection in a world devoid of emotion, shared between two people who had long ago forgotten the love of humanity.

“Why now?” she asked.

He did not reply, and his even breathing made Maria think sleep had finally overtaken him. She shifted to ease the pain in her shoulder, and to her surprise, Adam moved with her.

“There was a battle,” Adam explained somberly.

“A battle?” she asked.

She felt him nod. “We lost.”

“But…you’re here.”

“Some of us escaped,” he continued. “They’ll…be here soon. The ones from out there.”

Panic welled inside of Maria’s chest, tightening and constricting, making it hard to breathe. They were the great enemy. The Other. The ones who were beyond the window. A ghost story and nothing more. Until now anyways.

“What will they do?” she asked.

“What they always do,” he replied without emotion. “The same thing we always do.”

They lay in their small bed, silence hanging heavy as the dull glow of the dying light fell desperately through the window. Was this the end then?

“Why did you ask my name? After all this time.”

He hesitated, as though unsure of the answer himself. Maria thought he might not answer. That the question would anger him, even with the end looming.

“There’s nothing left out there,” Adam answered. “Nothing beautiful anyways. Nothing worth living for. The only thing that’s kept me going…is knowing I would come back here…to you.” He paused, thinking about his next words. “You’re the last beautiful thing in my world. I just thought I should know your name.”

Then he was asleep. After that dark report, he simply drifted off to sleep.

Maria tried to follow him into sleep, but the darkness refused to take her. The brief respite she found in her dreams denied to her on the eve of the end. Once Adam snored softly next to her, she slipped from under his arm and returned to their small kitchen, to the small window which was her only view of the outside world.

Night hung darkly beyond the walls of their tower. Only the drifts of ash nearest the glass could be seen. The rest was nothing more than the dense fog Maria had grown accustomed to over the years of her imprisonment.

Imprisonment. Why had she used that word? She had never thought of it like that before tonight. Saying her name had awoken something within her, some faint hope.

Then from the darkness, a beacon flared. Angry and red against the gray of the world, Maria gasped and stumbled away from the window. She tripped over the small chair at the table and sprawled across the hard floor. Strong arms slid under Maria and lifted her to her feet. Adam. He was awake and alert. The cold returned to his features, but something else lay beneath. Something hard and strong. Steel.

Maria edged back towards the window which for so many years revealed nothing to her but gray shapes in the ash. Tonight though, fire rained. Not just the first red flare. Dozens arced through the ash clouds, growing brighter and angrier and…nearer.

“Come,” he ordered, pulling her away from the window.

He threw open the small footlocker at the end of their bed and dressed quickly.

“Here,” he handed her a small bundle. Clothes. “Dress quickly.”

“Where are we going?” Maria asked, fear permeating her words.

“I don’t want to die today.”

Maria dressed quickly, pulling the rough spun pants and coat over her dressing gown. Adam led the way to their door, the one Maria could not leave through. Screams echoed through the walls, not of pain but of fear. The tower groaned in terror at the coming storm. The door would be locked, it was always locked except when Adam came or went.

He took two firm steps forwards and kicked the door open.

Soft white light flooded their apartment from the outer hallway. Maria raised a hand to shield her eyes, but Adam grabbed the arm and pulled her through the doorway.

Then they ran.