Ashen

There was once a beautiful town, far away from civilization, from the expansion and disruptions from the cities. It was said to be a town of peace, beauty and never ending sunshine, yet the day the Volcano erupted, everything changed. The town of Ashen had quite literally befallen to ash.

It wasn't the kind of ash that would desecrate the land or fill the air with a horrid smell, it's effects had grown in a way that it mutated and changed the people who lived in Ashen.

Your skin may blister or crack, it can even create a sack on your back. Their lips will melt off as your hair starts falling out. Your lungs to expand till they show through the skin. The blood to curdle or to pour down the drains.

Lisa Redder knew this all too well as a resident of Ashen, with a population of one, that is if you're only including the humans that occupy the town, for what hides in the night can only be described as monstrous, mutilated beings into a different species. She feared the day one of them would kill her, yet she knew the mutated beasts, for they were once her family, her neighbors and people of Ashen. 

She would inoculate but never kill, especially as her husbands life hangs in the balance. You see she has a real purpose for staying in Ashen, her studies and knowledge from being a doctor in the town has helped her tremendously to work on a cure. To turn them all back into the people she once knew and loved. 

The problem is administering it, while they try to kill her. Their minds are warped like their bodies as anger fuels their every instinct, the rage becoming unbearable to control. She knows most have succumbed to the ash, yet a few had been immune, her and her husband being among them, yet what do wild creatures do to the lesser animal, they kill, eat or play with their food in a vicious hunt.

She knew most have died in the months that have passed, yet she still knew her husband to be alive. He was one of the few who would fight with in the ring of ash at the border of town. It's filled with the mutated people of Ashen and is the most dangerous place to go, yet with her telescope, she has seen with her own eyes, her husband with in the ring, fighting for his life.

He'd always win, yet she knew the day would come that he won't get back up, that he'll be lying in the ash, dead. Her cure has been tested over the days, fixing it to the right antidote. She now carries a bag, filled with the viles as she looks over her once sunny and bright town, now shrouded in darkness. Her heart begins to beat viciously but who else will save them but her? She looks to the skies and prays she makes it out alive, with everyone else.