Fire Pillar
#Snippet 2 - Prologue
CW: first person, fire, implied death of minor characthers.
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Prologue.
Only when I saw the high pillar of fire- No! After that, the fire wasn’t enough to bring me back to reality, in truth it was the reason my mind was lost to begin with.
When the fire was cripting around me, my vision was blurry and all I could see was the small frog plushie, somehow it was still whole, its green and purple fur turned black, I blankly watched the fire consume it to ashes, maybe it was the fire because I’m sure something inside me turned ashes at that very moment.
It was when I could no longer see it that the world became noisy again; screams of despair were fading already; burning along with the houses and cripting sound of fire, the houses were falling with loud crashs and thuds, sometimes making someone scream in pain, sometimes making the crying stop once for all
Now listen as I must let you have as much context as I had back then; I didn’t have the easiest of life. I have gone through many things in all the long years I've been alive. Many days I felt weak and helpless, everyone feels like that once in a while, but I never felt as weak as that moment, nor did my legs give up under me so quickly as that day, it’s terrifying what realization can do with someone.
I felt the smell of burnt bodies and smoke while I fell on my knees over light-green shards of glass that could have been a window just a while before.
My shocked mind forgot every word but one; Why?
My mouth screamed that word out so many times, over and over, I couldn’t hear them, either because the fire was too loud or my throat was already too dry. Now my heart? The same heart that was unaffected by so many blows that life bestowed upon me? It was in shards, smashed by the heavy guilt I never thought could exist.
But my mind didn’t allow the guilt to kill me. Survive. It wasn’t even a thought, it was just instinct, but it was enough to clear my mind, and oh, how much I wasn’t enough! I felt pain; my knees had painfully bore the weight my legs long gave up to, my hands were also hurt. I looked down at burned skin on them, only then I noticed I wasn’t breathing, my lungs struggled and started to burn as everything else. I covered my mouth and forced them to work.
I got up. My body seemed to have grown roots and become one with the ground. But I got up. The fire was blurry again as tears rolled down from my eyes like a stream, yes, I was crying but at least I was standing, my mind was a mess but my feet were firm on the ground. I took a deep breath and looked at the destruction around me. The fire pillar. My mind screamed, making me recall the unnatural fire that burned everything down. I knew I wasn’t in the place to blame anyone, guilt is a complicated thing, responsibility not much, the one who burned those houses, those people, the small frog plush...and the one who held it. I firmly decided I would find them, even if I had to burn everything down all over again.
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This WIP and Canis are the only ones in first person.