The Smell of Ashes
The elders never talk about it.
Like veterans back from war, their days and nights are filled with visions they cannot forget. No one dares speak of the days before the Great Darkness.
As our Father told us one night, when it was quiet and there was just the family gathered around the firelight, people are too busy bowing to the new monsters to worry about the old ones.
Back in the days of the War, before the world went dark, they believed we were the only creatures that existed on Earth. Other than the animals, man was alone on this Earth.
Where do the Others come from?
We started calling them that. It was the best way to describe them. Their faces aren’t… right. Their limbs are overly long, and they walk in a sort of slumping motion. Their eyes are huge, with teeth that look like they belong in the mouth of a shark.
You can smell them coming.
When they walk through the factory where I work, all the people grow silent, knowing what will soon happen. The smell of ashes cloys to them, as if their skin is made of it. Their speech is a language that does not use tongues, but is a scraping, clicking noise emanating from their throats and the grinding of their teeth.
One only prays that they do not speak to you.
There is usually a human that they keep with them, a female, who can translate their orders. None of us are sure how it is that she can understand them.
They walk around in black uniforms, caps pressed against their heads, grasping whips in their hands. Just in case someone gets out of line.
It is rare that anyone does.
We are taught from childhood that humans are not to make eye contact. They often wear dark glasses. Once, by accident, I saw one of the Others take his sunglasses off and polish them. His eyes were almost like a human’s. But there was a red cast to them. And a stillness, an emptiness that was not normal. It reminded me of the cold, steady eyes of a snake.
The Others walk through our cities, with guns and knives to keep us quiet and compliant. Making and enforcing the law is their realm alone.
Those that do not obey are never seen again.
