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    The Color of Ash
    The Color of Ash
    The Color of Ash
    Ebook32 pages31 minutes

    The Color of Ash

    By Kameko Murakami

    ()

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    About this ebook

    When she left for work this morning, Beth was just another face in the crowd. But now, something’s changed. Now, she holds a power that she neither wants nor can control.

    Her touch is death.

    Steel and stone warp and crumble in her hands. Buildings fall around her, and the very ground beneath her feet dissolves like sugar in water.

    She dares not touch another human being, not after the last time... and all the blood... and the screaming... and the ripping and tearing of flesh...

    She is no longer a normal woman with a normal life.

    Now she has become death, the destroyer of worlds.

    And all she wants is for it to stop.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKameko Murakami
    Release dateMay 19, 2012
    ISBN9781476401003
    The Color of Ash
    Author

    Kameko Murakami

    Kameko Murakami is an author and oddball who lives, works and breathes in a somewhat-haunted Victorian in San Francisco that she shares with a dog which appears out of thin air (but only when it wants to shower in her bathroom), a sometimes roommate who is fond of breaking and entering, and far too many dusty books to even bother with counting. She is the author of numerous author's bios for Smashword's Kameko Murakami Page, most of which ended up reading like postings on an internet dating website. Kameko Murakami also likes walks along the beach, making breakfast in bed and loving the same kind of obscure bands that you do. She used to date a Serbian with a handlebar mustache. She doesn't have the Serbian anymore, but she does still have his motorcycle, so there is that. When not tirelessly working on making the world a better place through the power of naps and general laziness, she sits at her antique desk, alone with her thoughts, writing by the light of a single candle, producing stories to entertain and delight, if you're into that kind of thing.

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      Book preview

      The Color of Ash - Kameko Murakami

      THE COLOR OF ASH

      Kameko Murakami

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2012 Kameko Murakami

      See and Read More at kamekomurakami.com/

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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      The apples were what first gave it away.

      Two red apples, ripe, unblemished, sitting on her kitchen table. She’d bought them at the corner store on her walk that afternoon, and carried them home without a bag. She put them in the kitchen, planning on washing and eating one after she’d stripped out of her work clothes, which always smelled like the ghosts of cigarettes and coffee and wasted mornings. She changed, putting on jeans and a fresh T-shirt, then slipped into a pair of low top Converse sneakers. Her work attire might have needed to be professional, but at home, she was far more fond of comfort than style.

      The apples were shrunken and desiccated when she went back into the kitchen. It was as if they had been sitting there, untouched, for weeks.

      What in the hell..? she muttered. She picked up one of the apples and the skin of it tore in her hand, leaking a clear and stinking juice which dripped between her fingers and spattered onto the wooden table. She picked up the other apple, which split and seeped as well, and tossed them both into the trash under the sink.

      She turned on the water and began to rinse her hands. As she did, the water coming from the faucet sputtered once, twice, and then, as she watched, turned into a fine brown dust, thin as talcum powder. The water had not run out; it had transformed, the liquid turning into little puffs of dust which slipped smoke-like out of the mouth of the faucet and over her hands, until without thinking she reached up and turned the faucet’s handle, which stopped the dust’s flow. She turned the handle again, but nothing—no water, no dust—came out of the faucet now.

      She brushed her hands together to clear the dust from them, and what was on her sloughed off into the sink, where it mixed with

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