Raven Winter

We were lost in a desert of ice, a wasteland of white as far as the eye could see. We did not remember whence we had come, or where we were going. We barely knew we were alive at all; only our desire to survive kept us pressing ever onward.

The silence was only broken by the dull plodding of our footsteps, or by sudden winds of such force that they threw us back and knocked the very air from our lungs. We never spoke, never looked at each other. I couldn't say how many of us there were, I only knew that there were others like me.

I could not feel my limbs. I only had the faintest awareness of their presence, and cared little so long as I could keep moving. I felt neither hunger nor thirst, nor even fatigue. I was devoid of all feeling, save for an irrepressible urge to go forward, always forward.

We traveled over icy plains, or perhaps it was a frozen sea on which a thin layer of snow had come to rest. The land was flat and dreary, never changed by the presence of so much as a single bush or tree. There were no slopes, no pits; just an endless stretch of white.

I could not say if we were progressing or never moving forward at all. I had no sense of direction or time, I did not know if we had just set out or if we had been moving like this for an eternity. We simply were. Ours was a bleak and meaningless existence, every step one we had taken before. There was nothing for us but to move on; I do not think that, if we'd really had a will, any of us could have stopped if we wanted to. What difference would it make? There was as little point to continuing as there was to stopping.

Every now and then the thought would occur to me that maybe we were not even alive, that we were part of some godly game or enduring the torment of punishment divine. Perhaps this was Hell; perhaps Hell was simply the absence of emotion and purpose- perhaps Hell was this nagging thought that you never truly mattered.

It was difficult to say if I had returned to an earlier point in time: if it was some sort of loop that made me stuck in the same thoughts and motions, or if I was really progressing and simply returning to old thoughts because nothing ever seemed to change.

There was a faint thud, the sound of something heavy dropping onto the thin layer of snow covering the ice. One of us had fallen, but I could not stop to turn and look. My feet dragged me ever on, whitherto was still unknown.

There was another thud, and soon there followed more, until the novelty had been replaced by the slow, uninterrupted rhythm of thuds, like some sort of awkward drum was beating our pace for us.

Now the landscape was slowly changing. Here and there were snow-covered bushes, and with some effort I could see- or imagine- trees in the distance. Far ahead there was a column of smoke, and I was starting to feel queasy, like a sinner confronted with the eternal flames of Hell.

The thudding continued, but I ceased to take notice. There were new sounds now: the cries of crows, the shrieking of vultures, the hungry call of the raven. I drew ever nearer, and the sky started to blacken with thousands of birds circling the same area. Occasionally one would stray from the mass and pass me by, and I knew that they went on to feed on the bodies behind me.

We were far fewer now, but still I was not alone. We passed a small wood. Every snow-covered branch was seat to a bird or two and they were all watching us with beady eyes, waiting for us to fall. The snow was thicker here, and here and there lay humps of snow which largely covered a body or two, but could never quite hide an arm or a leg or unidentifiable bit of cloth uncovered by the wind.

The smoke turned into a ruined town, levelled by air raids and further crumbled by infantrymen's bullets. There were birds everywhere. We passed through the empty streets, past smouldering homes and charred remains of which we did not wish to know the origin.

A sense of dread started to grown in me, and with it the return of feeling in a tidal wave that nearly knocked me off my feet. Suddenly there was fatigue, and hunger, and an overwhelming sense of sadness and loss.

We reached the town square and we stopped. Before us, past the remnants of a fountain, stood what once had been a church, lovingly crafted by countless hands over the course of a century or so, some time in the Middle Ages. Now all that remained was a few bits of wall, and half a pillar here and there, all blackened by fire and smoke.

Everywhere among the rubble lay human remains. I could not fathom how many people they had been, how many more had been wholly consumed by the flames. In the back of this ruined church was the steel skeleton of a perambulator, its shape only barely recognisable.

There were bullet holes everywhere in what was left of the walls. The townspeople- the ones who had survived the raids- had been driven into the church, with a complimentary shower of ammunition. After that, the church had been torched; its doors most likely locked and bolted just in case someone had somehow survived the massacre that had taken place.

I started to feel nauseous as my mind reconstructed what had happened, until my legs gave way and my stomach saw fit to express its opinion on the whole ordeal by sending upwards its stock of gall for a lack of anything else to eject.

When I finally ran out of gall I started weeping, and when I ran out of tears I simply sat on my knees and stared. I could not escape this war, any more than the people in the church had been able to. I had left behind a ruined town until overcome by oblivion, but the town I had come to was much the same as the one I had left behind. If anyone had survived they were gone now, and any remaining provisions with them.

I got up when a raven's cry alerted me to the birds that had begun circling me, assuming that I was another meal. I looked behind me for the first time, and found some three score people with me in the square- some praying, some weeping, some simply staring into the eternal stretches of their own minds.

There was nothing left for us here save a road to follow, and there was no knowing if the next town would be liberated or in ashes. There would be something to eat, perhaps, and however slim the chance, it was still a chance.

I set out again with feeble hopes, not looking back to see if anyone followed. Before long I was back on the icy waste, listening first to the birds and then to the sound of footsteps. I could tell there were others with me, but I never checked to see how many. We were refugees, but in some ways also prisoners of war, imprisoned in a desolation we were desperately trying to escape, urged on by death's winged harbingers; ever onward, for eternity.