monastary

There's nothing left here.

No monks shuffling through the courtyard, no livestock braying in their pens. And bells in burned towers do not toll. Everything is gone, turned to ash. Perhaps after the rain comes, and washes away the soot and smoke, one could call it beautiful. A perfect portrait of time lost. But the ghosts of lives cut short will always echo within these walls.

The willow in the center of the courtyard, whose branches should shake and groan in the wind, smolders silently. It was haunting before but now, blackened and smoking, it was doubly so.