Rubble coats the ground, thick and large stone pieces blanketing bodies and spitting flames. The sky is a hazy orange, the sun is barely seen through the clouds of ash, and a pair of gloves sit on the hands of a lifeless adventurer.

The gloves are worn and they’re dirty. Even before the world fell, they weren’t in their top condition; old scratches in the leather can be seen, and the tip of the right thumb is patched with rookie stitching. The thing had been coming apart for a while.

The adventurer had wanted to see the world; first they lusted after the stars and the sky, but after coming to terms that flying was a dream reserved to those only with wings already unfurled, the adventurer had abandoned their wishes and instead investigated the prescience already on Earth. Fires around the world, ice dissolving, skies graying, clouds bunching and omens of demise. Who knew how right the adventurer would be, and who knew how close the disaster was to them all?

The gloves certainly didn’t know. They’ve known many things: how the acrid desert sands feel in their grooves and how snow drips and melts over their faces. They’ve known the stuffing that makes them whole, and they’ve known skin on their fingers. 

They have not known the orange sky, or the scent of smoking flesh, they have not known the cold of dead skin against their leather, and most of all:

They have not known being alone.