Fiction piece I wrote a year or so ago, before I learned so much! I may continue the story but I'm not sure where it'll go

My name is Lana. I destroyed the world.

I stand amidst the falling white grey ash falling around me. I am tempted to brush it away as it gathers on my skin, a reminder of what it was. I resist the urge, instead welcoming it, a prize for my accomplishment.

Flakes create fog around me, cascading in a blurry haze. I walk away from the still smoldering ruin that was a city, the heat of it stroking my back looking for comfort, for a reason why.

Maybe I regret it. Maybe none of it was deserved. Still I walk slowly into a cloud of soft destruction. My hands now empty, like my heart.

I was once happy. I thought I had everything I needed and that I could love the world with all my heart. I was betrayed. In return I ruined everything. What holds more power than a broken soul? All the energy of my broken self released into chaos and torment. Revenge.

I stop when I hear a voice. A figure is running toward me, from the piles of ash and stone.

“Hey!” the voice grows louder, rougher, angrier.

I turn and run. There shouldn’t be anyone left. How could there be?

“Wait, stop running!” A man.

I hear his heavy footsteps gaining on me. Fear pumps through my veins for the first time in over a year. A hand grabs my arm. I try to yank it free but it only grips harder causing me to lose balance. I tumble to the ground.

I yell as I awkwardly hit my left hip. The man falls on top of me, his elbow digging into my ribs pushing air out of my lungs and bruising my side. “Ughh,” I groan.

“Shit.” He doesn’t move so I have to shove him off. I stand quickly, blood rushes to my head but I refuse to wobble or fall again. He grabs me, pulling me down. I give up, there’s nothing to lose anyway.

“What happened?” He says.

What? He doesn’t know? He doesn’t know I did this…How could he?

To him I’m another survivor.

As the ash continues to fall, coating my throat again, making it hard to swallow, to breathe, I start to cry. I did this. I ruined it all. Selfish, greedy, hurt. I have nothing left. Nothing except this man, a man who will surely kill me once he finds out I did this.

I cry. On my hands and knees at the end of the world, with ash coating the entire inside of my being, breathing in the particles of everyone that just died, becoming one with the world. I sob for everything did and lost.

The man mistakes my pain and crying for grief, for the loss of our world. He hugs me without question and I sink into his arms, grateful. Still I am selfish.

© Ash Huntley

The Peculiar Girl and Dreams of Cranes

Origami was one of the few things Stay had that connected her to her mother. A woman she barely remembered. Her face a pale blur haloed in dark brown. Slim fingers and soft hands deftly folded colorful squares of paper into animals for Stay to play with. Stay would lay on her stomach, chin in hands, watching paper fold and fold and fold. Feet kicked in anticipation.

Purple giraffe, pink and brown paisley hippo, blue lion, polka dot fox and every color cat. Every pattern in every color imaginable took the form of cranes. Cranes adorned every crevice and nook of Stays room, slowly spilling out into the house and sometimes outside. A mobile of them circled above her as a baby, the mobile which now collected early morning dusk in her childhood room, rarely ventured into.

Cranes in corners, cranes in socks and cranes soaring down from an open refrigerator. Cranes lining a path to the frozen lake on a bright January day.

Footprints followed the cranes to the lake, Stay followed both. A child skipping, giddy for a surprise, grinning, hair flowing out behind her. Bare skin against the cold winter wind. A childhood whimsy at what she might find.

An empty frozen lake with a small jagged hole. A soft ripple spilled out, then receded.  Then again. Slower, slower. Stay never saw her mother. Stay returned home. Young, cold, old, alone, to a home filled with empty-hearted, color-filled cranes.

Stay dreamed of cranes. Cranes crying frozen tears. Cranes drowning in bright sunshine. Cranes flying with her upon the wings. Her dreams filled with cranes until she could not stand the loneliness of them. She spent years dreaming of cranes and  morning after morning folding them. She made hundreds of them, placing them together to create one larger than life.

Shades of purples, greens, and blues. Oranges and aqua, yellows and reds. And two large patches of black for beady eyes.The towering crane stood ten feet tall and fifteen feet long.

Spring time and a confused young teen, Stay lifted the large crane easily. The smooth paper warm and comforting on her skin, the smell of paper and ink hugged her as she took it to the lake.

Setting it on the edge, Stay peered out to where her mother disappeared. Face to the sun, she took a deep breath of wet greenery and new light. The wood and moss full of life and sounds of beasts roamed around her. Eyes filled with rainbows and cranes, she gently shoved the memorial into the water, a final goodbye.

© Ash Huntley