The setting sun glowed blood-red, staining the blue-gray tombstones a russet hue. Five graves lay silent on the hillside. The last one was empty, its stone already set, but with no name engraved upon it. The wind swept through the pines, whispering as if telling the story of six names: ideals that had once flared like sparks in a troubled age, only to vanish into dust.
“Life is like duckweed tossed by rain, while a broken land drifts like willow fluff in the wind.” The verse carved into the central tombstone had faded, but its strokes remained deep. No one knew how the six had gone from strangers to comrades, or how they had gone from standing side by side to parting forever. All that was known was that in an age of iron and fire, they had tried with their own flesh and blood to hold up a sky on the verge of collapse.
Now the sky remains, while the people have turned to dust.
