#52 - Fire

It wasn’t the screaming that woke him. It was the fire—or rather, the smoke. He could smell it, and woke up coughing. “Mama?” Kalin yelled, suddenly terrified. The smoke was all around, and now he could hear the screaming, and sounds of people fighting. “Mama!” he yelled again.

She didn’t answered. Kalin gripped his blankets tightly and stared around. He couldn’t see any fire from where he was, but he knew it had to be nearby. The top of his room was invisible through a veil of thick, brown smoke. He coughed again and pushed himself out of bed. The floor was cold, even through his thick socks.

Outside, someone screamed. Kalin froze again, and finally began to move. He pulled on his shoes and went to the door, tried to push it open. It wouldn’t budge. He pounded against it and heard himself screaming, but nothing happened. But then a lick of orange flame crawled through the bottom and Kalin jumped back. He couldn’t go out the door. There was fire out there.

But…

The windows in this village didn’t open. There was no need for them to. Ventilation shafts kept the air moving, but they were too small for Kalin to crawl through. No one ever needed to open windows; it was always so cold out it was a struggle to keep their houses warm. And if he couldn’t go through the door…

Breathing was harder now. Kalin dropped to his hands and knees, tears forming in his eyes from the sting of the smoke and his sudden terror, and he crawled the short distance to the wall of his room that was furthest from the door.

He sat and watched the fire. It was lapping at the door of his room now, and at the rest of the wall, too. He knew what that meant, he knew he had to get out. But there was nowhere to go…

Outside his window, there was more yelling. He dared to stand up and look out, though it was hard to see through the frost. But it was bright out. Not like he was used to, though, during the day. The light was all orange and red and twisted…more fire. Shadows were thrown everywhere and he could barely tell what was people moving and what was just the shadows sent scurrying by the flames.

But then he could pick out people. Not clearly enough to recognize them, but he saw a man with black and silver hair and a sword, and he was fighting with a larger man, who had red hair. Kalin froze. He’d never seen a man with red hair before, except…

They were fighting with swords, but suddenly the red-haired man stopped, collapsed. He was having a hard time breathing, Kalin realized. From all the smoke. It was everywhere…

The man with dark hair hurried over towards Kalin’s window, and Kalin pounded against it, screaming. And after staring at him for a few seconds through it, the man picked up his sword. He moved so fast Kalin could barely tell what was happening, but he turned his sword around and ran the pommel and hilt through the glass. It shattered, exploding inwards. Kalin screamed again.

“Kalin!”

He looked up. The man with the sword was Jorden. He knew Jorden. Jorden was his mama’s best friend.

“Kalin, are you all right?”

Kalin coughed when he tried to speak.

“Here!” The man set his sword down and leaned through the hole he’d broken. He reached a hand down for Kalin, who reached up. “Jump!” the man added.

Kalin tried to do so, but it was hard. The fire was spreading in his room now, and he couldn’t breathe very well. He was coughing and couldn’t stop. But he tried, and Jorden grabbed his arm. It hurt, he felt like his arm might fall off, but Jorden pulled hard and Kalin felt the glass shards scrape against his body. He screamed and could feel blood, warm and thick on his skin. But he was out.

He could breathe a little better out here, even with fire twisting everything and shining down from every building, every wall. “Kalin, run!” Jorden yelled.

“Where’s—”

“Just run!” Jorden yelled again. “As far from here as you can. As fast as you can. Just run, Kalin, go now!”

“But—”

“Go!”

Kalin tried to run, but his body felt funny. He looked down and saw dark spots all over his body, through his nightclothes. They looked black in this funny fire-light, but he knew they were dark red. Still, though, Jorden knew a lot of things so Kalin should probably do what he said, and he turned to run.

He’d forgotten about the red-haired main, though, who stood up. He reached for Kalin, who screamed. “Jorden!”

“Kalin—”

The man threw Kalin down into the snow. He hit the ground funny and suddenly his leg hurt even worse. He looked at the snow beneath him and saw that it was turning that funny, red-black color. He tried to move, but couldn’t. His whole body felt cold and numb. All he could do was roll over.

And when he did, he saw the man with red hair stab Jorden. Jorden yelled something, but it wasn’t words. He tried to step forward, but he fell down instead. The man turned back to Kalin, who stared up at him. His eyes were brown, but they looked red in the fire light. The man snarled something that Kalin didn’t understand.

Kalin screamed as the man reached for him. He screamed for Jorden to get up, but Jorden didn’t move. He screamed for his mama again and again, but she never came. The man with red hair hauled him up by his arm and dragged him to the town square. Everything there looked wrong, too. Everything was on fire, but there were more people. A lot of them were fighting, and a lot of them had red hair. Some of them were lying on the ground, not moving, like Jorden. But he didn’t see his mama anyway.

The man pushed him into another pile of people. These people were all moving, screaming. Kalin recognized some of them, but not all. More angry men with red hair were moving around them, holding swords, yelling.

Kalin thought he heard someone yell his name, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He tried to push his way out of the crowd, but someone elbowed him hard by accident and he lost his breath. He tried again, but one of the men with swords saw him and shoved him back. He ran into someone who hit him by accident and he tripped, and someone stepped on his arm and he screamed. Someone stepped on him again and he couldn’t stop screaming, he couldn’t.

The last thing he heard, he could have sworn, was his mama’s voice, calling his name. But his throat was tight and he couldn’t yell back. He couldn’t get a deep breath. He couldn’t get up off the cold ground.

He shut his eyes.