Hell's Silencing: Forsaken Innocence

The inside of the restaurant was dusty and unkempt for what must have been years. It was dark and silent, the only light coming from the entrance leading to the foggy world outside. Blood littered the walls in mere droplets while the counter where people got their food was nothing but a wreck of pebbles, ruined chairs lay scattered about. Beyond this pile of debris and chairs was the cooking room, rusted with blood stains and streaks of blood before it, leading from the pebble pile as though some forgotten corpse was dragged into said cooking room long ago. Cooking utensils and stoves, microwaves, and the like looked as though they were pounded by Hercules. There was even a dead corpse of some thing laying to the side tables, sitting in a booth and looking like it was in some sort of deep, drunken slumber as evidenced by a whiskey bottle in its supposed hand.

Flora sat at an empty booth, the seat opposite of her shredded straight to Hell and back. She had removed her luggage and held something in her right hoof--a key in the shape of a cross, forged from solid gold. It was in the clawed hand of that freak of nature she finished off after she pulled it out of the dumpster. This key intrigued her in a very creepy way, but why?

On the table sat her lantern and sword, her book-bag next to the mare in the seat. The electric flicker illuminated the room surprisingly well, well enough that it might as well have been a replacement light-bulb. It was quiet as Flora glanced at the door that had a crude indent scratched in its rust. The things were put into the book-bag and hoisted onto the mare's body as with shocking ease she managed to slide the lantern onto her neck without the need for anything else. The key was also placed in the book-bag, seeing as it had no use at this time.

Something told her a useful thing was in the rubble, so the mare groggily got up from the booth she sat at and slowly walked to the ruins of the counter before her. She heard a faint melody, it sounded like a harp and violin in unison displaying some invisible sorrow.

Some deep, untold sorrow waiting to be discovered.

The clip-clop of her hooves was the only sound made in this strangely serene place of utter eeriness. Only she could hear that melody.

Untold sorrow.

Those two words rang in her mind.

A breeze flew past the open entrance, gently brushing the mare's body as her mane and tail began flying just a hare, as though the individual strands wanted to catch the faint wind.

She pushed her hooves as though she were kicking the ground, starting to search for this something.

Untold sorrow.

Her mind was numb as she kept digging. At last, her hoof felt something that wasn't metal or rock. Her left hoof picked it up, and the bright glow of her lantern confirmed her suspicions. The object was a small, toy horse that belonged on a merry-go-round, complete with the trademark pole on which the horse was seemingly impaled with. It made her smile a bit just looking at it--something that was the way it should've been in this strange place of apparent contortion.

She looked at the door once more. The indent sat there mocking her.

I'll have to come back later, I guess. Flora thought as she attached the toy to the string of her sword, being very careful not to ruin either of those or her hooves. It made her feel just a litter safer once her work was done, the hilt of her sword still in her maw should she need it.

She turned around to the entrance right as the breeze wavered. She then turned her lantern off and walked out into the foggy world beyond.

Small grey specks started falling down onto the earth.

Ash? Why? Flora thought as she remembered a childhood memory.

A little girl was drawing in class. She'd completed her work only five minutes ago and still got a perfect score on her spelling test. The kids kept mocking her, saying she was ugly, stupid, and all the other insults they had to offer.

She was drawing stick-figures with wings. She'd always wanted to have wings of her own--wings that didn't come from an airplane. She was also richer than most of the kids in her class, and most kids in said class also only had one parent while the girl had both.

Deep down in her heart, they hurt her drastically, but she had to hide it. They envied her, and she knew it.

They were jealous.

Of her. Her riches, her parents, her smarts, her beauty...but alas, they also wanted her silenced because she was a loudmouth, tattling goody two-shoes.

The teachers did little to nothing to stop their little charade.

But the girl also knew things they didn't--she was able to read before school started for her. She already knew her numbers and ABC's. To put it simply, they were already expecting someone dumb, perhaps dumber than most of the kids who went to the school, when she was enrolled.

She proved them wrong, and even the teachers ridiculed her for her intellect.

She lived in a neighborhood where intelligence was shunned heavily, sometimes feared even.

But after someone in her own family (step-grandfather, to be accurate) went and molested her, her family moved when she was 10. It was for the best then, as the accused was sent to prison for only four months out of two years.

They wanted to get away from that neighborhood. Since then, it was a hellhole for her. She never wanted to leave her precious tree behind, but had no choice as it was growing and already planted.

Her precious tree....

I miss my tree.... Flora thought as tears began welling up in her eyes.

My tree... She remembered bitterly that the all the branches of the tree were cut off once, and they somehow regrew as if the tree defied death. That was what gave her hope--a tree defying fate by merely regrowing its limbs.

But here, that hope was far away now. Those happy, faraway days spent under the shade of her tree in the heat of summer.

I want my tree. The mare sighed through her nostrils as she began trotting further down the road.