I woke to the smell of ashes, hard oak and velvet wood. Wet rotting boards as soft as any pillow, gentle touch like a lover's embrace. The clock was ticking, but the hands made no move. A loud striking sound so out of place in the empty silence. A dying star amid the startling darkness. Its noise was violent, an assault upon my ears, my weary limbs itched with the intention of movement but their progress was slow. Phantom limbs moving material remains. Clothes, food, water, the bare bones essentials for a man with barely that. Watching myself move in the mirror, tuck in that nice dress shirt, like watching a corpse prepare itself for its own funeral. I looked like a walking bio hazard warning. Like the face you'd slap onto a pack of cigarettes to make sure the impressionable youth wouldn't buy them. I wasn't so sure if I looked like death, or if he just looked like me. I turned shrunken eyes away from my reflection, displeased with the distortion I saw there. I opened the door to empty streets, silent homes and lifeless skies. I took my first step into the city, solitude hanging from skyscrapers like a man from a tree. The quiet permeates all, as if the city were under water, and silence were the sea.