Rewriting Radiance - I have taken off my robe

In the process of rewriting Radiance, I realised that I needed some extra chapters in the early part of the book, to fill in more of the back stories of the characters. This is the new chapter 4, that comes after we meet Asher and Virgo but before they meet each other. I love this chapter and hope you do too.

    Asher pulled the coat closer around him, feeling the light fall of rain begin to seep through to his skin despite his best efforts, and the large umbrella being held over him by Uncle Melvin (not really one of his uncles at all, but an old family friend). After seven years in America, he had almost forgotten how much he hated English summers.
    Drum beat rain beat down on the hollow pine as the coffin was lowered gently into the black earth. It was quite unreal.
    Someone nearby burst into tears and had to be gently consoled - it would not do to have to great a display of emotion. His mother seemed to tut in disapproval under her breath, her face an empty mask as cold as the wind roaring over the hilltop cemetery, and whistling between the low forest of tombstones and memorials.
    No, ‘Emma Grunfeld does not cry’, he heard her mother’s austere voice saying in his mind. And neither did he.
    Someone handed him a shovel.

Radiance 22 - Those slain by the Lord shall be many

    Grey desolation spread for miles - dust, and ash, and bone. Withered and dry.
    The sky too was grey and lifeless, with nothing stirring the air, until even the border between land and sky was impossible to discern - if any such border existed. It wasn’t like an overcast day, when the clouds obscure the blue beyond - but as if all colour had been leeched from the sky itself. There was no sun, no moon. And a ringing silence filled the void, louder than thought.
    Where was this place? What had happened?
    He remembered falling, falling so far that he knew he would die before he ever hit the bottom, so far he wondered if there was any ground to catch him at all or if he might just fall until the world ended.
    There had been an explosion, something had ended - glass shards everywhere - and then the black space falling away. He looked at his hands - dusty and shaking - and noticed slivers of crystal embedded deep within but there was no blood, and there was no pain.
    Now only grey sand and dirt, perhaps the powdered bones of long-perished creatures. And here he was.
    Asher, he thought to himself, my name is Asher - perhaps I am dead.