The Ash - By Ellen Boucher

Ellen, aged 9, is a member of the afternoon group of Windmill Young Actors.

THE ASH

The ash was falling, falling from nowhere. I stared into the nothingness. I didn’t want to walk but something was pulling me. Perhaps it was the restless spirits that lay under years - so many years - of ash that always fell, always would fall and always had fallen. I was carrying something, it felt important. It was on my head. I couldn’t carry it anywhere else. Something wouldn’t let me. But it was so heavy. It weighed me down. Then I was sinking. Now it wasn’t just a thing on my head, something was pulling at my legs. The spirits were luring me into the underground world, just the way my entire civilisation had been taken. Then I stumbled. I was on the ground. The spirits had taken me. I couldn’t get up. I just lay.

A light was shining on my face and my body was numb. An entire millennium under the ash and now I was free. I’d forgotten how to move. I managed to rise. I kept rising. I was in the air. But my body was as light as air. There was nothing left of me. I was a spirit like all the rest of my people. I wasn’t free. I was gone. Now I was just a spirit desperate for revenge on my evil death.