Ash  by Jack Maddicks

I was in a town centre. I recognised it, but I didn’t think I had ever been there before. There was a general hustle, and every now and then I would receive a “Hello, Ben,” or “Lovely weather!” and I replied with a smile or wave. There were few clouds in the sky and a gentle breeze. I guessed we were by a beach as there was a fine powder riding the wind, occasionally blowing in my eyes. But there was something not right. I first realised when a man waved, revealing a blackened mark on his hand. It looked almost like a charred crack in a pale pink desert. But the black was spreading over his hand and I pointed.

“Oh,” was all he said as his coal black patch began to spread. And out of the crack came a sort of black Ash. It started to spread over his face, and I noticed it on other people nearby. The people ahead of me crumbled like sand in the wind. I grabbed the man, but he dissolved in my grasp.

He whispered to me, a mere breath on the wind: “You are the timer. You are the sand.”

My heart was a lion tearing at my chest, my lungs gulping air like they’d never breathed before. Darkness slithered across the room in front of me. I saw the chair on which my new uniform was neatly folded and sighed with relief. I realised I was home again. I had been dreaming. The nerves of starting high school, I thought.

As the bell went I rushed into the dining hall for morning assembly just as it was beginning. I decided that getting up at half past eight was not a good idea. I looked a total mess. Still holding a half eaten piece of toast, I sat down with a subdued “Sorry.” I was asked to stay behind by Mr Quentin, who had introduced himself as our head.

“Now, I’m sure, Benedict Robinson, that we are not going to get along if we make a habit of this, are we?”

How did he know my name? “No, sir. I’m sorr-”

Quentin cut me off and said “No need for apologies, young man. I’m sure that this won’t happen again.” A wave of is hand silenced me before I could speak. “Anyway, that is not what I kept you back for. Come with to my study.”

As he opened the door, it was as if I had entered a different world. The bright red carpets and ornate vases full of flowers made it look fit for royalty, in contrast with the musty, cracking walls of the rest of the building. Golden painted ivy looked almost fluid in the way it meandered down the walls.

He gestured to a lion footed sofa on one side of a perfectly tidy desk.

As he did so, he spoke: “Recently, I was sorting through all of my old files and drawers and I found something.” I wondered what relevance this had to me. “This thing, it was addressed to you.” He revealed from his pocket a post card. On it was a town centre under a blanket of thick mist, so you could not see the ground.

“I do not know the card.” I said. “It’s not mine.”

I was half way down the corridor when I had a thought. The town centre. My dream. It was on the card.

“Mr Quentin!” I shouted as I ran back down the corridor. “It is mine!”

He re-emerged from his study. “Is it? Oh, good! Mr Nicholas will be waiting for you in his class room.”

I went up the long stairway as directed by Mr Quentin and reached a door. This door seemed older even than the rest of the school. It was a castle-like door, thick oak with black metal studs. I knocked, and tried to heave it open.

“Yes?” Mr Nicholas spoke as he opened the door with ease. “Oh, m’boy! Ben, how are you?” I recognised him from somewhere... He closed the door on his class of children as if they weren’t there. He seemed to shut out not only his class, but his joy as well. As the door shut his face turned stone cold and the man from my dream said “Follow me.”

I wondered where we were going, but my questions were only met with a silent, dark look shot at me from Mr Nicholas.

He led me down into the school’s nature garden and past the pond, which was teeming with life. A dragon fly followed us from the pond as we continued past the nature garden, but as we got to the back gate, it froze. It was if it had just hit a wall. I watched as, starting from the very tips of its wings, it turned to dust. Mr Nicholas looked at me and said “Only you can save us. Your time starts now.”

He suddenly forced me out of the schools rear gate. He shut it and turned his back on me. I looked around me at the town centre in amazement; I had never even considered that the place was real. It looked exactly as it had in my dreams, except it was empty. It looked as if everyone had been busy doing what they normally did, but then suddenly disappeared, leaving everything as it was in my dream.

And then there was the mist. It was never there in my dreams. The mist here was unlike real mist as well – it had settled right to the floor where it lay, a blanket of opaque greyness. Fluid yet gas, if I picked up my foot, it would run off and leave little droplets, as if it were liquid, but if I ran my hand through it you would not feel a thing. Also, if I walked, it would feel like I was on a beach. I never liked walking with shoes on a beach, it never felt right, so I removed my shoes and left them by the gate. I would remember to pick them up later.

As I walked, I sighed. The sand felt heavenly, slipping in and out of between my toes as I picked up and dropped my feet. The sand was not deep, however. If I pressed hard on one leg, I could find something hard, like concrete. I dug, in an attempt to find what was under the sand, but my attempts were futile because the liquid mist only poured into the hole. As I raised my hand back up from the hole, I noticed that I still had some of the sand on me. But it wasn’t sand. As black and dangerous as a thunder cloud, I found a fine black powdery Ash on my hand. I rubbed most of it off, except for one black speck, which if I looked close enough, so close that my eyes would water with the strain, I could just make out that it was growing. Expanding slightly across my hand, I realised Mr Nicholas had  meant: time was running out. I was tired so I tried the door of a house, found it to be unlocked and walked inside. Inside, it smelled like something was burning. I opened the kitchen door to find smoke billowing out. I considered it that maybe this was the last survivor, and dying was a lot worse than my dream, but as I listened, I heard the whirr of a fan oven. I walked over and turned it off, to find a burnt chicken inside. I went up stairs, found a bed and went into a deep ad dreamless sleep, which I soon regretted.

My eyes reluctantly opened and I got up despite my muscles aching. I looked at my watch to find that the time was eight in the evening. And that my whole hand had turned black, as had both of my arms. I rushed straight to the bath room and scrubbed them with a sponge. They would not clean. All that happened was a fine black powder floated down from my skin. You are the timer. You are the sand. Mr Nicholas’s final words from my dream rung in my head. I decided to explore the town a bit and left the house. I noticed that the town centre had roads leading away in four different directions. I decided on one and followed it. I recognised the place it led me to. It was seeing that that made me click – this was not a real place, I was locked in a nightmare. The road had led me straight back to the same town centre. The school gate, I then noticed, was not there. I sat down, suddenly aware that there was no way out, and I would slowly dissolve just like the other people. But that made me realise – I am blackening much slower than the other people – they seemed to turn black and dissolve in an instant. Why was I so special?

“Because you’re Resilient.” Said a voice, a calm yet sinister woman’s voice. “He sent you, didn’t he? He told you to save them.  Well, you’re too late. It’s useless.”

I was useless. I had come too late. I realised that there was probably not any hope in trying to save them and myself now. Then I blacked out.

I woke up in Mr Quentin’s office. I was tied to the lion – footed sofa. I thought that it must all have been a bad dream. But why was I tied up? I struggled and looked down. My feet were still bare, but black. Damn. I wasn’t dreaming. Then a small person in a black, hooded cape walked into the room.

“You’re awake,” said the little person’s womanly voice. I would have clapped sarcastically if I could have moved my arms. Also, though she was tiny, she was still the one in control.

“Who are you?” I dared to move my lips, cracking and dark as they were.

“I,” said the little person “am a man, and I am holding this town hostage. I want, in return for this town,” He waddled over to me like a dwarf in a cartoon. I struggled to

hold in my laughs. “Your Ash.” He breathed it right into my face. The way the words rode his stinking breath made me realise that my Ash was very important.

“But… why?” The words could hardly be made out, through my chuckles .

“Now, I’m sure, Benedict Robinson, that we are not going to get along if we make a habit of this, are we?” He asked. My laughter was silenced. Before I could work out where I’d heard it before, he continued. “The minute you came to Town I felt your Resilience in the air. It is said that the Ash of a Resilient grants immortality.”

“Do you mean I have to be cremated? I’m 12 next month; I’m too young to be cremated.”

“I said Ash, not ash.” I suddenly noticed the difference. “And yours is running out.” He left the room and returned with a tray laden with sand (or Ash) timers. All but two had a small, dead black body in the bottom. One was blocked, so only had Ash in the top end. The other had an Ash person writhing as he was sucked through the timer. The second, I assumed, was mine. I looked down at my feet and saw two piles of Ash. My time was indeed running out.

“I am a collector of Ash. I have the Ash of many famous people and almost every animal. To complete my collection, I need the Ash of a Resilient – you. If you give me your Ash, I will smash these timers and set the town free again.”

I could not let him take me. I must escape.

“Could I please see your collection?” I asked, a plan of escape finally forming.

“Of course,” the man left the room and I set about untying my knots. As soon as I was free, I shook up the jammed timer, which I thought was his, until it started flowing. Another man appeared inside, trying to grasp the edges of the timer to stop himself from slipping down the hole. I then picked up the other timers and started smashing them, one by one. I heard a shout from outside the room and the man ran back in. The man must have heard the shattering and came in and dived at me. The knee high person was swiftly turning black as he tried snatching his timer from my grasp. I picked up the last timer from the tray and smashed it over his head. The force of his timer caused his head to crumble, leaving Ash all over the carpet. I finally smashed my own. The Ash below me built up again into my old feet and shins I got up and opened the door. I was expecting the door to lead to school, but it led me straight to the town centre. In town, bodies were forming from the Ash under the carpet of mist. I stood and watched. They remained black and inanimate.

I felt like I had failed. Then, as one, they all opened what their mouths and inhaled. The mist was sucked up from around my feet and not a single drop was left. The faces of the people slowly regained colour, and eventually they were exactly as they were in my dream. Apart from one thing; Mr Nicholas was not there. I decided that he must be still at school. I walked through the school gates to be welcomed by a dragonfly and Mr Nicholas.

“Mr Quentin, most unfortunately, is on sick leave. I don’t expect he’ll return. You’d best avoid the cleaners because they can’t quite get this black stain out of the floor in Mr Quentin’s study and are rather frustrated.” He grinned. “Oh, and this might be yours.” He retrieved from his pocket a broken timer with a black figure stood in the centre of it.

I grinned.