Crown of Ash

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He looks out from the void.

He is nothing. A ghost presence. A phantom.

Trapped in a land of whispering voices.

He ha s been t here for so very long.

The world is saturated in darkness. It slither s down the trees like rain.

Years have passed since he first arrived in that dismal place. His face is leathery and r ough, and he wears a thick beard. His hair is long and unkempt. His skin has gone dark, saturated by the soot atmosphere. His lips are dry and his eyes sting from the dark grit that constantly lashes the landscape.

Everything is black and cold. The land, the trees, even the other inhabitants of that cloying realm are suffused with shadow. It drips from every pore.

The sky is a frozen sl ate of perpetual dusk. L ight shines from just over the horizon and drenches everything in an eye-numbing glaze. The freezing wind smells of rot.

He ’ s come to know this land of torn red mud and black ooze. There are few cities, all of them in ruin s. He travels past briny pools of black water and dark trees with branches weighed down by deathly pale fruit. He avoids reptiles that breath e caustic slime and carnivorous plants that fan and pulsate like living organs. H e circumvents blood swamps and fields of mo ldered bones.

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