The Pathless on Paths---------Chapter III Part 2

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The Citadel Square was the name of the city center square, located at the heart of the city of Caterpool, named by its founder, who had passed away in to history so long ago that little is known about the person. It was the home to several high-tech companies, including the international entrepreneurial empire, Giavoni Innovations Inc.. The square was dense with skyscrapers, being the gathering place of nearly all of them in the city, truly a jungle of cement and glass. Yet at the very center a vacant land was kept uncultured by construction, and it was made into a park, the closest bit of nature the citizens could gain access to. Karrson loved the place. When he grew tired of the blue and gray buildings that filled the city, he would pause whatever was at hand, heedless of its importance or not, and stroll in the park. The Park of Caterpool was its paperwork name, but citizens merely named it “The Park”, as it was the only park near at hand. When he had recovered from the blast, he climbed to the rooftops of the school and looked upon his beloved park. This normally would have meant detention if he was caught, but in the mess of that afternoon none heeded him, and he found himself quite alone, when Hunter had gone elsewhere minding affairs of his own. He had expected to see no more than perhaps only the stumps of a few less destroyed skyscrapers, for judging by the glass grit in the dust now seen everywhere, no buildings surrounding the square survived, but were all turn to dust. Just like the the state they were in before their becoming of building materials, thought Karrson. Another lose for humans. He was right about that, but the destruction was worse than he had expected. Nothing could now be seen blocking his sight of the park within the square. Places that sky-reaching, glass-covered buildings once stood now naught remained. Only rubble and wreckage unrecognizable for what they once were: the last remnant of the pride of Caterpool City. The area surrounding the square was a wasteland, also, but the effect of the blast seemed to have dropped dramatically as it reached his school, for the buildings near were less of a wreck, and behind him the city stayed somewhat intact. But that did not bother him as deeply as what saw next. The park was now simply a large crater in the ground. A humungous crack in the earth from which now a great billow of smoke arose. Its width and size surpassed Karrson’s reckoning, for it seemed more like pillar that the fathers of the world had made to up hold the sky, and prevent its falling upon our heads. Gray it was like the dust he had seen, but darker, and unlike smoke that one could see through with effort, it was more pungent, thicker, and block the view behind it like a sheer wall. Karrson realized that it was not smoke, but was the aggregation of countless particles of dust and ash. An erupting volcano it bore likeness to, and the choking fumes it exhaled was slowly dirtying the once blue sky. And even as Karrson watched, the black gray curtain swung shut around the afternoon sun, near night fell. It was as if the world had lost its colors, for all things became dull and stark under the inadequate gray light that passed through the barricade of the dust screen with final effort. The racket in the school died down much, and someone shouted words inaudible to Karrson, as if it was heard through water. He did not know, but he had seen his last sight of the sun for a long long tome to come. A gray dust rain began to fall.