Greyscale

The first thing I saw as my eyelids fluttered open was blue. I'd never seen the sky so blue, I had gotten used to it's rolling grey clouds, it's bright flashes of lightning and roar of thunder. But the sky was quiet, and so perfectly blue it was surreal. I tried to recall the last time I'd seen the colour above. It was years ago, I was at home, surrounded by my loved ones. Then the clear skies turned to ash and the world turned upside down. There was no sunlight, no trees or flowers. I think the thing I missed the most wasn't my loved ones, but the trees. The beautiful deep greens of summer, slowly turning from orange to brown when the year grew colder. You were lucky to see a living tree these days, all that was left of the breathtaking forests and woodland was a sea of ash, pieces of grey matter floating in the non-existent breeze. If you squinted you could pretend they were leaves...

It started off as a war between countries. Flashes of white and blue flags buried underneath the blood of their fallen soldiers. Soldiers perished and soon everyone forgot how it even started. All there was was blood and tragedy and destruction, even the red poppies on the mourning's lapel couldn't brighten the day. The ash began travelling from the ground to the air, filling it with thick clouds of death, that spilled into even the smallest of places. 

The years rolled on, as did the war, sucking the colour from the once beautiful world, people started calling it Armageddon. I didn't call it that. For it wasn't an apocalypse; it didn't involve aliens or zombies taking over the world, it was our own fault, our own doing. 

My family and friends had all died off, leaving me alone in this crumbling world. I tried to travel, to go to an island that wasn't affected by the destruction, but after a year I gave up, for everyone was affected by it. I met people along the way, some still filled with hope and light in their eyes, others were empty shells, like the world had sucked the colour out of them. Their once pink skin had turned grey and the colour of their eyes matched it. They had given up on life, praying for disease or bombshells to take them to a better life. Some even still believed in God, but how could they trust in him when he did this to us. Or us to him. The ones that still believed said that the free will he had given us we grossly mistreated, and for once I agreed with them. I wasn't religious, I didn't believe that there was a higher power that could save me. I had to save myself. And I did.

After a while, the authorities didn't care what gender their soldiers were, just that they were healthy enough to hold a gun. I joined them. The pitiful men and women who thought there was still a world worth fighting for. I guess I still did too.

But now, as I lay here, the screams of my fallen allies faded to a low hum, and the world seemed to stop for a moment. Just one moment, to show me the colour I had been dreaming about, just for a second, so that I may finally die in peace.



Author's note: I published this on my secondary blog but I am moving all of the posts to this blog. ^^