ruin

" This was once home to a magnificent civilization you know," he grips a sweat-stained, filthy bandanna in a tight fist while with his other hand he presents the barren desolation before us with a magnificent flourish. "Travelers from all over the place would congregate here to exchange their stories, to speak of their dreams, desires, fears..."

I gaze out into the vastness. It's deathly quiet here; nary a sound except the soft whistle of the dry wind pressing against my helmet. It's a dead world - a drab, nondescript sea of dunes. Undulating waves that ebb and flow every now and then briefly revealing fragments of obsidian stone - a fleeting glance of the foundation of ancient structures -which are just as quickly covered up again.

My guide continues, "Yep, all of the trade routes passed through here once. They say this was a place where reality could give way to the fantastic. And the fantastic, it could be passed off as the mundane and real." He strides to the edge of the cliff, inches away from the precarious drop-off, and points toward a small outcropping of sand and rock miles away from our vantage point. "The great library of the Seraphim was rumored to sit right there, right in that very spot!" He lets out a snort as he drags his handkerchief across his sweaty forehead. "If you ask me, it's all bullshit."

I arch a brow. "Why would you say that?"

"If this place was so amazing then why was it abandoned so many years ago? Why's it been allowed to deteriorate to... to this? Where are all the travelers, the thinkers, the scholars, the dreamers - where are they now?"

I inhale sharply, a clever answer on the tip of my tongue, then I catch myself in pause. I know my response would have been the incorrect one - an inadequate one. I turn away from the guide, my gaze returning to the sprawling, vacuous darkness.