Entry for the weekly contest hosted by CommunityInteractive: W22 "Inspired Titles"

Ring around the rosie...

A pocket full of posies...

I hear children laughing. I hear them singing. All of them are young joyful voices; voices that ought to make you long for your childhood; make you wish you were a child again.

But this abandoned town, near this old graveyard, where there is not a soul in sight, is not a place fit for these young voices.

I came here when all others were leaving. Most of them were grieving families.

"It took away our children," a man said, "it took away my little boy."

Barely two weeks passed since I arrived and the old town reduced to two inhabitants, including me. The other was an old man who had no children of his own.  But he had witnessed every thing that happened. He had seen every little casket and every little coffin that was carried down to the graveyard. He had heard and seen the parents' anguish and sorrow. I asked him to tell me everything.

At first, it had been a common cold, nothing unusual among the little ones. Then it had turned into a fever. Within weeks, every child, from as young as two days to as old as fifteen years were covered in rashes and were coughing up blood. Nothing helped; no medicine could relieve their suffering.

And one by one, they passed. One by one, the little flowers wilted away. The plague took them all, until there was no more joyous laughter or singing anywhere. Since then, silence and grief had ruled this town.

My lonely companion passed away two days ago. Now it is just me.

Me and the children.

Ah...there it is again. The laughter. The singing.

Ring around the rosie...

Maybe I will leave soon.

A pocket full of posies...

Maybe I will stay in this town, in this... Hamelin... forever...

Ashes, ashes...

With the singing and the laughter...

We all fall down...