Ablaze , ᶦᵛʸ

Ablaze

Char lined her creased face. Tears rolled down either cheek, clearing a path amongst all the ashes covering her skin. She reached up and wiped them, staring down at her smeared fingers.

Lifting her head up, she looked around, scoping her surroundings.

Two corpses lay dead on the floor, having succumbed to the fire's fight. Her parents.

"God, what am I going to do without you?" her crackly voice came, like a shaky rumble, from her throat.

She coughed, choking on the thick smoky air, her arms wrapped around her chest as she struggled to navigate the halls of what was once her home; now a burned hellscape, trapping her inside.

"Help!" she tried to scream, but her lungs were horribly weakened and it came out as a raspy crumble.

Her legs crashed underneath her and she fought desperately to get back to her feet but in her state it was nearly impossible to.

"Shit..." she coughed again, and got on her fours, pawing through the carpet and trying to go around the fire- but it was everywhere, the flames licked the walls, the building slowly deteriorating in the fire's destruction.

She gasped, breathing in the noxious fumes, consuming them. "Please," she whispered to no one in particular, just the universe, to herself, begging silently for her life, even though she knew it would soon all be over. Then... she heard her name.

"Emlyn."

Graham.

She pulled out of her daze, her vision spinning as she tried to grasp ahold of her surroundings. Was her brother there? She swore she heard his voice calling her name. She dragged herself across the floor, rolling feebly through the fire.

Her clothes caught aflame and she let out a pitiful squeak of pain as her skin burned, scorch marks sinking into her exposed skin.

"I need to get out," she croaked. "Graham?" She kept crawling through the blazes, feeling the fire devour her body slowly, cremating her in a slow and excruciating way.

Emlyn reached up and blindly got ahold of the doorknob, twisting it with as much force as her sickly strength could muster up. She pushed, leaning her dead weight on it, and falling to the grass in a heap of flames.

"Em!" screamed someone, a voice she could vaguely recognize. But the fire... the flame was eating her alive, and oh, the pain...

And she felt a rain of water pour down on her burning body, extinguishing the killing fire.

Groaning, Emlyn felt arms reach under her and pick her up, carrying her someplace.

She was set down gingerly, and she felt soft hands place an ice pack on her forehead, wrists, arms, and legs. "It's okay, Emmy," they whispered, and Emlyn let the darkness swallow her whole.