In the Valley of Ashes

I awake from the darkest of slumbers,
And find myself barefoot in the Valley of Ashes.
There is little to no sound,
Other than the warm wind.
It sweeps across the dusty plain,
Kicking up dust in small twisting wisps.
I can hear howling, distant and high above,
Among the impenetrable surrounding mountains,
That jut sharply from the earth,
Like massive, jagged walls surrounding the valley.

The desolate valley floor around me begins to shake,
A deep rumble vibrating through me,
As though something below fights to reach the surface.
The warm wind suddenly stops.
The ash riding the breeze falls like dried snowflakes,
Covering everything in a pale death shroud.
The ground before me trembles violently.
An ancient, cracked road rises to the surface.
It stretches out into the grey distance ahead.
The road is crudely paved with enormous stones,
Filled in with dark gravel and ash.
Its edges are gouged violently from the earth,
The churned ground revealing the landscape’s secrets,
Dark clay-like soil and countless shattered skulls.

Far away, I hear the road continuing to break the surface,
Its birth echoing across the valley.
The rumble eventually fades,
As the path finishes carving its way toward the mountains.
Their peaks are so impossibly high
They disappear into pale blue clouds.
I set off along the Thunder Road.
The silence follows me.
Only the crunch of ash beneath my feet
Marks the passing of time.
After what feels like days, perhaps weeks,
The road widens before me.
The air grows heavy.
Dark clouds gather overhead despite the clear sky beyond.
The shadows around me begin to move.
They twist and coil together,

Rising from the road like black smoke.
From their midst emerges the first of the three entities.
The Tempest.
Its form is never still.
A towering figure composed entirely of storm and darkness.
Its body shifts constantly between shapes,
A giant cloaked wanderer,
A horned beast,
A skeletal king,
A whirlwind of screaming faces.
Lightning flashes beneath skin made from thunderclouds.
Its eyes burn white,
Like distant stars trapped within a hurricane.
The wind returns.
Not as a breeze,
But as a living force.
It circles around me with impossible speed,
Pulling at my flesh and clothing.

The ash rises from the valley floor,
Swirling around The Tempest in vast spiralling columns.
Within the storm I glimpse fragments of my life.
Faces I once loved.
Places I once called home.

Old triumphs.
Old failures.
Moments I had buried beneath years of forgetting.
The Tempest speaks.
Its voice is the sound of mountains collapsing.
“Everything returns to the storm.”
The visions whirl faster.
Memories tear through me like knives.
Every joy.
Every shame.
Every cruelty.
Every kindness.
Nothing remains hidden.
I fall to my knees beneath their weight.
The Tempest towers above me.
“The living believe they own their memories.
They do not.
When they die, the storm reclaims them.”
Its enormous hand reaches forward.
Made of cloud and lightning,
It presses against my forehead.
For a moment I remember everything.
Every second of my existence.
Then the memories scatter into the wind.
The Tempest dissolves.
Its body breaking apart into a thousand screaming gusts.
The storm vanishes.
The valley becomes silent once more.
Only the road remains.
Waiting.

I continue onward.
The Thunder Road stretches endlessly ahead.
Time loses meaning.
The sun never moves.
The mountains never seem any closer.
Eventually the road leads me to a plateau of black stone.
There, standing upon a jagged outcrop,
Is the second entity.
The Storm Caller.

Its head is that of a raven,
Ancient and intelligent.
Black eyes shine like polished obsidian.
Its body is both woman and skeleton.
One side clothed in pale flesh.
The other stripped bare to yellowed bone.
Great feathered wings extend from its back,
Each feather glossy and black as midnight oil.
The wings spread wider than a ship’s sails.
As they move,
The air groans beneath them.
The Storm Caller watches me approach.
Its head tilts slightly.
Studying me.
Judging me.
When it speaks,
Its voice comes from many directions at once.
The whisper of feathers.
The cry of carrion birds.
The howl of distant storms.

“You still carry the weight of the living.”
The creature extends one skeletal hand.
Upon its palm sit three black feathers.
Each feather burns with silver fire.
“Choose.”
I hesitate.
The Storm Caller waits patiently.
Finally, I take one.
The moment my fingers touch it,
A violent gale erupts across the valley.
The feather dissolves into smoke.
I am no longer standing upon the plateau.
Instead I stand among countless graves.
Every gravestone bears a name I recognise.
Family.
Friends.
Strangers.
All the dead whose paths crossed mine.
The Storm Caller stands among them.
Its wings folded.
Its black eyes fixed upon me.
“The dead are not lost,” it says.
“They are carried.”
The graves begin to vanish.
One by one.
Swept away by unseen winds.
Soon only empty ground remains.
I realise the truth hidden within the vision.
Memory fades.
Names disappear.
The living forget.
Even entire generations are eventually swallowed by silence.
Yet something deeper survives.
Not names.
Not monuments.
But the consequences of lives lived.
Every act.
Every choice.
Every kindness and cruelty.
All carried onward by forces unseen.
The Storm Caller spreads its wings.
Thousands of black feathers erupt into the sky.
They become ravens.
An endless flock circling overhead.
“The living fear being forgotten,” it says.
“They should fear never being understood.”
The ravens disappear into the clouds.
The vision collapses.

I find myself standing once more upon the Thunder Road.
The Storm Caller is gone.
Only a single black feather remains at my feet.
I leave it behind.
And continue walking.
The wind strengthens.
Ash and debris scour my skin.
The road climbs higher into the mountains.
My body grows weaker.
Though I no longer hunger,
No longer thirst,
An exhaustion deeper than flesh settles within me.
At last I reach the end of the road.
Or what appears to be its end.
There stands a colossal gate of black stone.
It stretches beyond sight in every direction.
Before it sits the third and final entity.
The Keeper of Souls.

It is impossibly old.
Its form resembles a giant seated upon a throne of skulls and roots.
Long robes woven from darkness cascade around it.
Its face is hidden behind a smooth white mask.
Thousands of tiny lights drift beneath the fabric of its robes.
Like stars trapped within a night sky.
As I draw closer,
I realise the lights are souls.
Countless souls.
Moving endlessly within the darkness.
The Keeper opens its eyes.
Two pale flames ignite behind the mask.
The valley grows still.

Even the wind dares not move.
“You have come far.”
Its voice is calm.
Almost gentle.
I stand before it.
Unable to speak.
The Keeper extends one hand.
Within its palm rests a small flame.
The flame flickers softly.
I recognise it instantly.
It is mine.
My soul.
My life.
Everything I ever was.
Everything I ever could have been.
The Keeper studies me.
Then asks a single question.
“Do you remember how you came here?”
I search my mind.
For the first time,
The answer emerges.
Not as words.
But as certainty.
A final breath.
A final heartbeat.
A final moment.
Then darkness.
The road.
The valley.

The truth crashes through me.
I am dead.
The revelation strikes harder than any blow.
Every strange silence.
Every impossible sight.
Every entity upon the road.
They were never obstacles.
They were guides.
Witnesses.
Custodians of the dead.
The Keeper closes its hand around the flame.
“You remember.”
“I do.”
The Keeper nods slowly.
Then gestures toward the gate.

Hope surges within me.
Perhaps this is the end.
Perhaps beyond the gate lies peace.
Perhaps beyond it waits reunion.
Rest.
Meaning.
The Keeper’s eyes dim.
“There is no gate for you.”
The words hollow the world around me.
“What do you mean?”
The Keeper rises.
The stars within its robes swirl violently.
“Your soul belongs neither to life nor death.”
The mountains groan.
The valley trembles.
The Thunder Road behind me begins to glow faintly.
“You are bound to the space between.”
I stare in disbelief.
The Keeper points toward the endless road.
The road I travelled.
The road that now stretches beyond sight.
The road that never truly ends.
“You walk because you cannot arrive.”
The truth settles upon me like ash.
I was never travelling toward a destination.
The journey itself is my prison.

The Tempest stripped away my memories.
The Storm Caller severed my ties to the living.
The Keeper has revealed my sentence.
I turn and look behind me.
The valley appears endless.
The mountains form a circle without end.
There is no exit.
No horizon.
No dawn.
No night.
Only the road.
The Thunder Road.
The Keeper fades into darkness.
The gate vanishes with it.
Soon I stand alone once more.
The wind returns.
Warm.
Relentless.
Ash drifts across the valley floor.
Covering my footprints.
Erasing all signs I was ever there.
In the distance,
The Thunder Road rumbles once more,
Rising endlessly from beneath the earth.
Always stretching ahead.
Always leading nowhere.

I begin walking.
What else can I do?
The mountains watch in silence.
The ash falls without end.
And somewhere beyond sight,
The Tempest waits.
The Storm Caller watches.
The Keeper remembers.
While I walk the Thunder Road forever,
A lost soul in the Valley of Ashes,
Neither living nor dead,
Condemned to wander the endless limbo between both worlds,
For all eternity.