A scream shatters the night air, causing me to leap off my bed. All seems calm. Heaving a sigh, I return to my covers, but not before a sickening crash sounds from outside my window. I look outside, alarmed, and watch with horror as the fallen tree is consumed by cackling flames. Heart thumping against my chest, I slip on my boots and leave the room. It is everywhere. Clouds upon clouds of smoke hang above me, and my eyes widen.
Throwing myself to the ash-coated ground, I cough violently as I make my way to the door. The sight that awaits me is horrid. Shrieking people run about, who attempt to escape the wildfire. Firefighters are already in the area, trying to stop the fire, or at least calm it, yet to no avail. The deadly flames roar as if it were a great beast tangled in a net, and it sweeps across the nearby forest, nearing the town. Batting away stray embers, I watch in terror as trees thump to the ground, as though they are huge hailstones. I am snapped back to my senses as I hear a blood curdling caterwaul.
It came from a nearby house that had collapsed under a fallen tree. A woman staggers out, coughing madly. “My daughter!” she shrieks, sobbing as she stumbles about. “She’s still in there!” Without hesitation, I leap into action, race past the woman and enter the fray. Pushing aside crispy, blackened wood, I make my way through the rubble, determined. I finally locate a weeping baby, who seems to be barely breathing. She coughs, eyes closed tightly as she wails. Scooping the baby up in my arms, I quickly retrace my footsteps.
The baby’s mother weeps a thank you, before racing off with her daughter clutched in her arms. Glancing around wildly, I see that most of the people had evacuated. Deciding that there is nothing left to stay for, I dart after a retreating group. I push forward, attempting to ignore the sounds of crunching beneath my boots. After a crunch too loud to ignore, I peer down. It is an arm, jerked upwards crookedly from its place on a blackened corpse. Horrified, I place my hand over my gaping mouth before continuing on. This is a massacre; so unexpected. No one was warned, nor prepared.
After that moment, I know that everything is going to change. Nothing will ever be the same anymore, and neither would I. I glare at the ever-nearing flames, their tall glowing tongues lighting up my narrowed, evergreen eyes. This great, glowing spirit is going to pay.
