The Prophecy

Gangs patrol the streets of rubble and corpses

Merciless in their search for the few left living

In their yellow masks and fluorescent weapons

A contrast to the off-white concrete blocks that litter the Earth

Or the grey smoke rising from those same blocks

Rising to form the new constellations of this new order

And asphyxiate any survivor brave enough to roam

From their concealed safety within the rubble in search of sustenance

Most chose to starve in their hiding places

Their bodies already resembling the skeletons

That they would quickly decompose into

Crawling between the holes in the debris

Slowly, because any noise would alert the gangs

And because every cadaver we come across

We pray for their help, hoping they haven’t been taken by the miasma

Hoping to reach their King whose death will 

Resurrect the old world and its palaces

Nearer and nearer we feel the miasma lighten

The wreckage and destruction isn’t as cluttered

Although there are more bandits gathered here

We must be close and we must be careful

Destiny is guiding me now; fate will not be defeated again

As we crawl nearer, King in sight

We hear assault rifles unloading opposite our direction

Somebody else, or somebodies else

Were close to our same goal

But they were not meant for the prophecy

Only us

This is our cue

We sprint, I tackle and hold down the King

She takes the splintered femur we found while crawling

Stabs him in the throat, and with her hands

As the prophecy foretold, rips out his trachea

Now he can speak no more lies

His cultists fall like dominoes

While they fall we smash his crown

That same moment, the unseen Queen rises

From behind the sun, to clear the rubble, the miasma

And with her whip, whip the dead back to life

Back into their shackles so that

They may rebuild the baroque buildings

The narrow, walkable gold-plated avenues

Lined with marble nude statues

The glorious hedonism that made the old days

So profoundly magnificent that

These rebels sought to destroy it out of jealousy

But the unseen Queen has returned

And we, her proselytizers, like John the Baptist, now sit

As prince and princess, thanks to our heroism

In her court to rule over those we prayed over

On our journey to reclaim what is rightfully Hers