I stood, empty in a dark corner alone, surrounded only by air thick with dust. Cold, the light creeping from beneath the stationary door gave hope to a brighter day. A future.
Everyday, I, a voluptuous piece, saw shuffling feet pass the door. Blocking light as their thick soled shoes squeaked against possibly tiled floors. Behind the closed door, sounds of drills and booms and clashes surmounted. The constant crescendo of day would quiet down to a harsh lullaby to mark the end of another day. On rare occasion the loud sounds would dim to a bare buzz with only a few crashes in the night.
Then it all ended.
Silence became imminent. Not even the familiar buzz that accompanied them was alive. No more the squeaky shoes planted against the ground. Then the lights went out, and the scene of black and dust was my closest company. I could feel the dust around me begin to build and fill every crack in the room as it settled in and coated me inside and out. Suffocation was imminent as the room became infested by that and rats.
And the fear; oh, the fear, came crashing in. The abyss that I knew was near came to. A vase I am could do nothing to get out. I had no legs to flee, no voice to call out, no breath to be heard.
For years, darkness was all I knew, yet in that moment, I knew loneliness.
Though one day, men clad in white entered. Glowing ethereally as they entered, the light from the outside made their backs cast shadows across their face. And the main man reached forward, then reaching inside me and grabbing what was hidden inside. A hidden relic.
"Hey guys, I found it!"
Thousands of other men came rushing in, all staring at me in I awe, plumes of dust come up from beneath their feet as they cram themselves to see the object inside the man's hand, any left over rats had scurried away to their dens.
It was shiny and new, despite its age of at least a millennium. I will never understand how something so old could look so new. This was not a phenomenon that was bestowed on me as through the years, I cracked and dusted.
That didn't matter, though. I was no longer alone. Finally, people will know of me. And my world became much bigger for it. Though the dark wasn't what I should've been afraid of.
Lines of light thrashed out of the piece of metal melting the man holding it, his screams soon followed by others, and they rushed to the exit, tons of dust filling the air from their impatient feet. They didn't make it fast enough as they soon became hit by the power of the shiny object, and the air smelled of burnt melted and charred bodies.
The floor was filled men clad in white, now black and red, and they never moved again.
But at least I wasn't alone.
Disclaimer: This is work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
