Isabella Lopez

Ashes to Ashes 

The elderly librarian nodded off to sleep deep within the castle library, her desk  dimly lit by an oil lamp and crowded with empty ink pots and paper. Her research  would do no good if she died before she finished it. She settled into papers still  damp with ink, jostling something to the lush carpet where it landed with a  muted crash. It was probably one of those inkpots. Oh well.  

Slumber came quickly and in her oblivion, a fire grew. It crept over the  shards of glass that had contained it, tendrils of flame seeking out the reams of  parchment surrounding the desk. It took mere seconds to reach the nearest,  fueled by spilled oil and ink soaked into the carpet. The flames eagerly  consumed the dry sheets, sparks flying through the air to the bookshelves, the  fragile parchment and vellum lighting in an instant. 

 The old woman’s dreams held only faded memories of the man in her  locket, the man she’d failed to save long ago. Slowly the edges of the dream  began to crackle and burn, flaring up in a surge of heat so great it jolted her from  sleep. Her heart thudded against her ribcage, a stifling feeling settling over her  lungs as she breathed in the mixture of smoke and air around her. Fire. She shot  to her feet, hand flying to the locket around her neck, and looked in horror at the  blazing world surrounding her, its flames devouring her life’s work. As she  toppled over, overcome by the heat, she saw only smoke hanging in the rafters  above her, dense with all the words she never spoke to him.  

The impassive night was colored by flames that sought the heavens and smoke that wound through turrets, mingled with screams from below.