Laying flat on a cold piece of wood, a young man, who for all intensive purpose was objectively handsome, sporting a head of pure white hair, and eyes of a dull gray shade stared at the weathered roof above.
The old grainy wooden roof was riddled with cracks and holes from which a multitude of the suns rays poured through illuminating his face and the rubble filled room he was currently occupying. As much as he was handsome, his expression was just as cold and listless.
The young man drew in a deep breath, then sat up, the makeshift bed beneath him creaking as shifted.
As he was pushing himself off its rough surface, with a groan, it snapped in two and collapsed beneath him. staring at what was now a pile of splintered and broken wood with an unbothered expression, he lethargically turned to his right, making his way towards a wall only a few meters away.
The wall in question was riddled with cracks and holes so numerous that it seemed with the slightest gust of wind could cause it to collapse at any moment. Moving along its surface carefully, he came up on a rather large hole.
The opening had remnants of what looked to be steel with a few pieces of glass still embedded in the grooves lining its rusted surface.
'A window?'
Through the window, or what was left of it, he stared listlessly at the vista of a sprawling city. A dead sprawling city that covered the horizon. The myriad of buildings in front of him were nothing but abandoned husks of what were, some being districts containing residential areas, others holding shops and offices.
But with those homes now laying broken, the towering structures which were once shopping complexes and offices collapsed, even a few areas that looked to have once been parks. But now had become overgrown forests that invaded the city in patches. The sight almost looked like a pristine wall marred by growing moss or algae.
'The view though, as unpleasant as it is, is still quite grand.'
Imagining this dead city being filed with life, a wistful expression made its way onto his face. And his voice grew somber as he said
'A shame its full grandeur has been lost to those... things.'
Interrupting his melancholic thoughts, a fly buzzed past him.
With his focus broken, he sighed, turned away and left the room, carrying with him a short wood plank that rested against the entrance wall. Following the path ahead he reached an old door. Grabbing the handle, he tried pulling the door open, but as for no reason but age and neglect, it snapped.
Bringing the broken door handle closer, he looked between it and the door.
'Goddamn it.' He thought scowling as he tossed the scrap of metal aside.
Taking a couple of steps back, he drew his foot back, and with a simple kick, his foot struck the plane of the door, shattering it and sending splinters flying out like rain. The moment the door came down, a number of flies flew by.
"Damned pests!"
Ignoring them, he headed through the empty doorway, stepping over the pile of splintered wood and descending a flight of stairs.
As he did, the smell of metal assaulted his nose.
However as he did so, a sharp, unmistakable scent pierced his nose. One that had lingered in the air all through the night, but only now got stronger. It was the biting smell of metal. And with every step he took down the stairs, the stronger it got. Eventually the smell became so pungent he had to cover his nose with the palm of his hand.
A deep scowl now painted his face.
'It doesn't make much of a difference though.'
Groaning, he took his hand away as he reached the ground floor. Taking a quick glance around, he stepped into a large hall. In it, were what looked to once have ben dozens of wooden benches, or what was left of them scattered about.
Walking past a particularly tall pile of broken benches, his nose was assaulted with an even stronger stench. This one similar, but, slightly different somehow. The stench was more, pungent? Was that the right word?
'No, while it is more pungent, the right word to describe this is a wet, almost sugary putrid sour stench.'
The closer he got to it, the more that scent morphed becoming a coppery tang that lingered and stung like the smell of food left out too long. Finally making his way round, the sight before him almost made his skin crawl.
Laying there with pieces of jagged wood piercing its body, a corpse of a man stared into the distance with empty black expanses of nothin where its eyes once were. Around it, flies droned in a restless swarm, their incessant buzzing filling the air as they crawled over the torn flesh, slipping in and out of the hollow sockets and gathering thickly along the wounds.
Barely grimacing at the sight, he turned towards the direction the lifeless husk was facing, and was instantly lost for words. The sight was... unnerving. Littering the entirety of the hall were pieces of mangled flesh, severed limbs and even the skulls, or what was left of them of the victims. Blotches of crimson blood marred nearly every inch of the massive hall. Decorating it along with the innards and bodies of the unknown men like some sort of sick, twisted work of art.
This sight would have mad any normal person reel back with disgust, barely able to hold back the food the had not digested. But the young mad stood there in the halls, was as indifferent to the remnants of what was clearly a slaughter. So much so that his lifeless expression at the sight was eerily disturbing for someone of his age.
"Hopeless wretches!" he mumbled as he walked by the carnage with naught but a care.
Reaching the other end of the hall where a large door stood, he pushed the door open with relative ease. Which on all honesty was just as disturbing, if not more so than his attitude. Still, none of that mattered as he walked past the choking stench and gruesome scene.
His expression, though lacking menace, or even any basic semblance of danger would have made even a grown man shiver.
Casting that cold indifferent gaze over the grass covered yard, he quickly approached its center. All around him, signs of age marred every surface. The tall walls were covered in cracks. The paved path, or whatever was still visible through the overgrown garden it was laid in that had weathered, and crumbled.
Then there were the statues. In every corner of the garden, a figure carved from what looked to be some sort of white stone stood. Each one seemingly made in the visage of a single individual. Though, that visage had long since been damaged by time.
Those weren't what caught the young man's attention though.
His gaze quickly settled at the feet of one of the statues in a corner of the field. As it did, a faint hint of emotion crept onto his face.
He couldn't help but clutch at his chest as a dull ache festered in his heart. Calmly approaching it, his previously calm and nonchalant expression quickly grew forced.
Mustering up the courage, he stepped forward and placed the wooden plank in his hands at the head of an unnatural, freshly dug up mound. Looking up at the plank, his already forced expression quickly became even to hard to maintain. And kneeling there, the young mans mask of indifference cracked.
Gritting his teeth and furrowing his brow, the veins on his forehead bulged, ready to burst. But still, somehow forced himself to read what was engraved on the piece of wood.
On that old, broken plank, in what was barely legible sting of words carved into the flat of its surface. The writing itself was rough and barely coherent, looking like something carved by a jagged rock, but it was still readable.
Scanning the words they read.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
And below that were two more strings, the first being a single word, a name, and the last, a date.
They read.
"Maria! 2215-2245."
Whoever this 'Maria' was, her life, compared to most people currently still alive in this world, was quite short. Just thirty years, and if one factors the years she had spent as naught but a child finding her way in the world, at best she had ten, maybe fifteen good years to enjoy everything said life had to offer.
But even that was a doubt considering this was where her final resting place was to be. Bending over to sit in front of the grave, the young man stared at those strings for a while, seemingly lost in thought.
'Maria... what am i supposed to do? For most of my life you have been my everything, so with you just leaving me like this in this forsaken land... I'm just... lost.'
The young man averted his gaze and sighed. Looking into the distance, a strange phenomenon painted the distant skyline. Along the wide blue canvas, a black line streaked along its center, cutting through it. The young man stared for another while, then suddenly, his expression soured.
Getting up from the ground with a frustrated grunt he continued to stare at the black streak.
Briskly walking away and stepping out through a pair of old, rusted, and unhinged gates that clung desperately to their hinges just meters away from Maria's grave. He was only moments away from turning out of the sightline of the ruined building he had called home for a day when he stopped and turned back.
His expression grew blank, all embers of emotion fading away, being replaced by a cold calculating thought.
'I have to get there!'