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The Setting Is in one of the World Wars, I forget which ><.
My breath came in, shaky, longing, desperate. Around me people screamed. Only hours before this had been a peaceful place. A child cried- I remember him laughing, playing with a small bouncy ball. There were fires dancing around the buildings, consuming them, eating away at carefully worked metal. People were screaming from inside, I heard them, desperately calling for their mothers and loved ones. Above all of this, planes were roaring, dropping more bombs. I heard another explosion, rocking the ground, but I could barely feel it.
I could hardly feel anything. My body, my soul felt empty. There was only regret, regret that I could not live, could not help.
I let the wisp of air escape my lips.
I was only a kid, only another in a large family. I had never received the honor of being first born, or the love the youngest had had poured on him. No, Dianna and Alex had those blessings. I had gotten Alex out of the house though, that was a good thing. I hadn’t let him get hurt. Mom will be happy about that at least.
I sucked in another breath of air. My lungs hurt; the air was filled with smoke. I lay outside in the street, the flames beating on my body. I could almost feel the flames eating my body, beating at my skin. Almost, but not quite, not quite enough pain, not quite enough heat. It was all fading together, just blurring away.
I let out the smoky air slowly, cherishing the feel of air running through my air ways.
I remember just this morning I had been complaining because I got stuck with a burnt piece of toast. Amazing what death can do to a person. Really shock their priorities into the right order. I mean, I’ve lived fourteen years, and the only thing I’ve managed to do worthwhile was save my little brother in the last few minutes of my life. All that time, I could have been helping people, helping Mom look after everyone and clean up the house, helping by cooking once in a while. I was just a selfish person.
The air scalded my throat as I breathed in. I think I sucked in a bit of ash, or maybe an ember. Didn’t matter really. Soon I’d be dead. Mom would have one less mouth to feed, Dad would have one less kid to try to get him to play with them. I was really quite a useless person now that I thought about it. They’d be better off…If they survived.
The air burned just as much going out as it did coming in. I could see the flames dancing along my skin now, eating up my clothing. Mom had made this shirt special for me. It was the only bit of clothing I had that wasn’t a hand-me-down. She really did love me, for all my faults, for all the times I had yelled and screamed and acted like a brat, she did care.
I forced myself to take another breath, this time pulling in a bit fire with it. I heard another scream echo, this one really close, I think it was me.
All I could do was scream. It hurt a lot. Life hurt. The flames were whirling together now, becoming one large, flickering, red wall. The edges of my vision were darkening. Sad really, that the first time I consider the fact that I had never helped others, I’m about to die.
I tried breathing out, cursing the fact that my body had decided to kick the pain sensors in hyper drive, hoping that I could get rid of the heat now burning up my body from the inside. The smoke though, it was denser now.
I breathed in, attempting to get more air and only getting smoke, thinking that now maybe, if I try, I might be able to help some one else, even if it was only myself.
It felt good now, to think that one of my last acts had been to help my brother. The blackness consumed my vision. The screams around me had faded. There were voices still though. I wondered what they were saying…
I let the breath escape my lips.
 Rudyard Ascher · Sat Apr 05, 2008 @ 06:36pm · 0 Comments |
