Drabble Wednesday: Ashen

Today on Drabble Wednesday, come explore the world of the pale, the cold, the stark and white...

The Pale Tree

It stood apart from the rest of the grove, growing tall from a small hummock. The rough bark of the tree glinted snow white with streaks of silver, its branches bare save for one month a year when it sprouted greyish buds. The only colour it showed came from a green vine twining around its trunk, and even it bloomed flowers of white in season.

Underneath the tree, entangled in its roots rested another layer of white. Slowly seeping into soil, nurturing it, those rotted corpses and bones of the poor victims buried alive.

Sacrifices.

To the Tree of Death.

~*~

Under the Frozen Earth

The sun sets on silence, and a vast frozen wasteland. No wind blows, no birds fly, not a sound breaks the settling of dusk on the world. Only the cold, the snow, and the deep frozen expanse that ever tightens its grip exist.

The cold and frost run deep. Down, down to the Old World, the world that once existed. A place of faraway dreams and summer. A realm that died in its own hubris, swallowed by the endless winter. A domain that yet whispers, locked in its prison of ice. Where the dead stare upward, frozen in their screams.

~*~

White Petals and Lace

Remains of the past.

One white rose and a scrap of ivory-coloured lace.

Resting next to a small silver box.

The pale kitchen curtains flutter in the breeze, and the sweet smell of summer grasses wafts through the window. If you listen, you can almost hear the laughter drifting across time. When the family gathered for picnics in the yard, when the aroma of potato salad and mayonnaise filled the room.

But those days are long gone.

Only the dead are left, with the last body now crumpled on the kitchen tile.

The poison from the silver box works quickly.

© A. F. Stewart 2017 All Rights Reserved