The crackle of burning wood seized the night in a scorching symphony. Flames gnawed through everything in their path, reducing it all to fodder beneath their reach. They rose and fell like the breath of a god — a god forged by men — raging against the wooden world built to contain it. With every roar, it declared the power of its makers and their unrelenting will to cleanse the world of sin.
From a far, as one looked unto the moonlit river valley they would notice something strange. During the night the river valley was a gentle contrast of the flourishing green meadows and fauna split by a gentle stream that glittered with stars. The cloudless skies built the perfect setting for the moon to take full view of the green terrain that lashed across the escarpments of the valley and without hesitation giving the onlooker an awe of relief as they admired the scenery settled in the middle of warring escarpments. It was a green oasis in an expanding desert yet it didn't yield to the forces around it and existed as a nourishing well for dreams to the wounded souls .
But tonight it was different.
The warring desert had finally broken the walls surrounding the oasis and let loose its untamed fury onto the residents.
Given the already dark skies, its dark ominous shape was still traceable. It looked like a mountain of a rising dark silhouette, arms fully stretched out wide welcoming all to its embrace as its face glared down on all that fueled its ever expanding form. Dark thick smoke, almost cloud-like, hovered and grew with it giving it an obsidian cloak that defined its more than obvious reach.
Underneath its cloak an ember arose. A raging ember.
Red, scarlet, yellow and a hint of greenish-blue shaded the bottom and ends of the smoke cloak. They raged and flickered, exchanging intensity as though vying for top contender in brightness in the dark foreground of the night. And in as much as they complimented each other into giving the giant silhouette of smoke a vibrantly colored cloak, their purpose was far from benevolent.
It was whimsical, cynical, tyrannical… words are at a lose in describing the consequences of executing commands from a child's tantrums. A thing was for certain, for the onlooker gazing at the scorching river valley their eyes would tear, they would cover their ears to escape the sole cry that screeched the night, their thoughts would try as much to wander far from the picture of themselves under the absolute grasp of the colored cloak of the silhouette.
***
" Single file everyone. Make sure that you are coupled together. " A worried yet calm voice said.
Around it was a group of approximately ten children, all draped in white tainted brown by the earth, each holding onto two other children amongst them. Their eyes were gradually reddening with tears slowly streaming down their dirt ridden cheeks. The white matter around the pupil shimmering and flickering a faint orange color, as their eyes darted around. This was the first time for them.
A first time for them to see and feel an oppressive dark smoke that slowly circulated in the air around them sting their eyes and lungs. It was the first time for them to see a devouring and elaborate flame slowly eat down what used to be their homes to nothing but dying ashes and charred wood. First time in seeing a fully scorched pillar crumble down almost taking one of their own under its molten cracks. First time for them to experience a night under the cover of a thick dark smoke that even obscured the night sky and the shimmer of the stars.
Yet even in the distress around something else was stranger.
" Make sure your masks don't fall off. " The voice said again. It lead the group of children, navigating across the charred earth path.
" Inhaling the smoke is bad, okay."
As she said that one of the children's mask fell off. It was loose to begin with, needing a few more startled steps to knock it off. The child quickly uncoupled from his two respective compatriots racing down after the mask.
The mask was nothing special. It was shallowly and simply knitted together but not to an expert's liking. Even so, in a crisis like this it was the only thing that protected the children from their current existential threat.
As though intentional a sudden gust of wind from an impact of a crashing building rushed carrying the light clothed mask with it. The child scampered away from the group in hopes of catching it.
Futile.
" Wait don't stray way from the group. " The voice shouted as she watched the child chase after the mask.
Her hands were tied.
In her hand was the hand of another child and drawing farther and farther away from her was the mask chasing boy. Her head turned, frantically, to and from the child running farther from her and to the now shouting children calling unto their fellow age mate to come back.
Futile.
She could only watch as the child draw closer to a burning building and pray, pray to the saints, that he would not get lost in the flames.
Suddenly a tug pulled on her long white dress. She looked up.
"Miss! … Miss! … the building… " the girl by her side said pointing to crumbling roof top of a building and to the boy drawing closer to it. The girl's worried voice echoed through her mind igniting her instinct.
She let go of the little girl's hand and shot out towards the boy.
Her mind raced.
' I'm too late. '
' Come back… ' she cried.
But inevitably she had acted too late and as for the boy, he was too close to the crumbling building.
Her hand was stretched out as she ran towards him. She couldn't reach him.
The boy's hand rose in one final jump to the mask. By its strands he hooked onto it.
Enthralled his eyes shifted back to the group, meeting those of his worried caregiver who was desperately running towards him. Above him he could hear a crack. It was heavy with a crackling sound behind it.
A distance away his caregiver had fallen to the ground, possibly due to her long dress. The boy followed her eyes, raising his towards the currently falling flaming wooden plank crashing towards him.
The events that transpired next were sudden.
It began with a Burst then followed by a Crackling Crash into a gritting Grunt and finally into a plunge.
A plunge into a ball of roaring flames.