A far distant horn was heard, somewhere far beyond the sinking mountains and the blackened earth of Terra.

  The sky was a dark grey, the air itself was now inimical to life. As if it was a poison with a mind of its own, weighing heavy upon my intent to breathe. The stench in this accursed air was appalling. It was the sweet stench of decaying corpses combined with the acrid tang of burning oil and chemicals. It was a dystopian abyss of a shattered earth.

  Permeating was a mist of darkness that failed to shroud the death all around as far as there would be. Ruination was all encompassing.

  The war's debris were all around, along with the damning deeds that could never be forgotten.

  Our convoys were burning wrecks, it's passengers burning charcoal of meat by now. Tanks stood deformed and ripped apart. Mounds of corpses strewn the streets, soldiers and beasts alike. But further ahead, among the ruins, the buildings were lined with mounds of executed civilians.

  The lamp posts still wore the hanged people we've left behind. None were spared in our passing then, not even the mothers with their children. The little ones dangled the most in the wind of death as they were the lightest.

  The signs attached on the few were still visible.

  ''SECESSIONIST''

  ''DEGENERATE''

  ''BEAST LOVER''

  ''TRAITOR''

  ''REPROBATE''

  The horn was heard once more, reverberating throughout the burning surface of Terra. It called willingly to be heard in its search.

  Far off in the distance... the world was burning. Once majestic cities were crumbling, smouldering ruins. The great forests that our great-grandfathers planted now aflame, the tendrils of their flames touching high up into the skies.

  Our greatest weapons ignited the atmosphere. And the ocean was a tar black from pollution. Chocking the shores with dead sea-life. The earth generously cracked open at our sacrilege of polluting it with our weapons of hate. Letting forth seas of lava, spewing more unbreathable gasses to choke the last vestiges of life.

  But all was already dead in this world. And I couldn't escape it.

  -''(@$$^#)'' A faint voice registered with me among my confused thoughts. Yet it pulled at me.

  There were bellows below me, greatly muffled but not quite muted. It was a chorus as if an innumerable mass were gathered at just this point. There was a silver road in which the glint barely shinned off anymore through the dust and the grime. I was laid vigourless in the middle of it, while each side of it was as black as soot. It felt as one could fall into eternity if it had the misfortune to slip into it.

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  This was the knife's edge I was upon. I could feel...hands, deathly cold, invisible. Trying to materialise, trying to grasp me. They dug into me as their malice gave them form, their hatred for me power. Black hands came out from the edges of the road towards me. Their grasp pained me greatly. But as much as it did I laid unmoving, my body as if dead already.

  As palpable as their intent was I could not be moved from the spot I was felled upon. A warmth was enveloping me all this time from atop of my body. And with it, a great weight that held me in place where I was.

  The hands were now digging into me with malignity. Cold, and spreading great pain within me. And more than that I felt I couldn't think anymore. It was becoming more and more difficult to remember.

  The horn now bellowed louder, somewhere closer. More sure of it's way. Several of the largest buildings in the far distance fell in quick succession as if unable to stand some thing's unstoppable march.

  With great difficulty I realised that they were trying to drag me down into the abyss. Into Hell. So many died then and so many souls ripped from life with terror and fear that the fabric of our world was torn open. I was standing on the last stretch of hallowed ground where Joshua had passed on his sacred, last pilgrimage.

  -''Gaah!'' I couldn't help but give out a bellow of pain.

  The horn now blared closer, certain of it's way. A cold, ghastly beacon of light could be seen not so far away from the forest of black char, aiming in my direction.

  The dark arms were now fervent at clutching me. Violently trying to scuffle me off my spot before I would be taken by something else. They wanted me into that eternal pitch black damnation where they came from along with them and their torment!

  -''Cass^#)!'' A voice spoke half clearly, so familiar. But... I couldn't... I couldn't grasp whose was it despite it seemingly touching me to the depths of who I was.

  The desperate arms felt as if tearing me to pieces. But hard as they tried I would be unmoved, and I would remain whole though their force was titanic in their intent. My limbs felt frozen numb by now, but the warmth upon me held a semblance of life flowing into my being.

  The cold beam of lifeless moonlight now shone brightly in the direction of the island that was the silver strip road I was upon. The horn now bellowed in surety, calling to me. The enormity of a massive, derelict snowpiercer, reminiscent of my mother's Brumalian folklore was now coming to rightfully seize its last passenger.

  Purgatory was coming to take me.

  -''Cassiel!'' A close but distant voice spoke softly from somewhere. So delicate but so charged with emotion. It beckoned me warmly to something I was so intimate with. Yet... its owner eluded me amidst my mind wracked with pain and consuming amnesia.

  I was forgetting... my soul was being pulled apart by the dark and damned shadows around me. But a fervour was lit within me by the touch of that voice. A burning desire within my soul as it recognised something. It filled me with determination, I needed to know. And more importantly, I knew I wanted whoever's voice beckoned me almost... desperately.

  -''Don't leave me, Cassiel!'' The heavenly voice was heard almost as if besides me, with an anguish I could almost touch.

  A hand like no other grasped the back below my neck with an unparalleled force. It was unlike any other, not cold nor warm. It's figure crouching besides me, basked in a shadow as it blocked the ghastly light behind him. Even so his touch and his old smoky-wooden smell was closely familiar.

  -No. Not yet.

  The hand imbued me with vigour as it started lifting me. His voice, weathered with the experience of a long lifetime spoke again.

  -God willing your time is not now, Cassiel Avenarius.

  -Don't let her waiting son. Go to her.

  Then, my eyes widened with true realisation. Just as the snowpiercer burst through the hill of war wrecks and the mounds of the dead alike.