Valentine

Foreclosure

1

There was nothing really special about that day.

When I look back, I try to find signs of what was to soon come. Maybe the temperature shifted lower than usual. Maybe the sky was unusually stormy for a summer day. Maybe the air felt more like it was holding its breath.

I frequently strain my mind to remember to the point where I'm imagining things that didn't happen.

For me that day, all that I had to concentrate on was to find excuses to tell Mrs. Elle to avoid babysitting Leihla, her 6- year old daughter who was spoiled as milk and that devil of an older brother Christian. Ha. The Irony.

The fact that she deemed me, a 14- year old teen who didn't give a damn about responsibility and was still in that phase where she thought the whole world was against her, fit to babysit an effing child. Still, my irresponsibility and 'don't-give-a-fuck-anymore' attitude must've stemmed from the fact that my brother was constantly high and couldn't keep his hands to himself, or that my father once again left us for another woman. This time, I didn't think he'd come back. Not now that my mother, the one pillar in our family I could lean on, ran away the night before.

Now that I thought about it. My life was already pretty fucked up then.

Why not add a dose of hellfire more?

And I mean this literally.

All I could remember before they fell was that the sunset was glorious. Pink, orange and blue folds interloping with golden light peeking through one last time before an ominous cloud drifted over and covered it all up, blanketing the valley below with darkness. Too dark for twilight.

Maybe this was all the warning there ever was after all.

And then they fell.

Beautiful twinkling lights floating down like little fireflies. They were breath-taking. So breath-taking that I stopped trudging on that lonely stretch of road and looked up once again only to gawk at the sight. As it neared though, I discovered that they ranged in different colors, but what got me was that each individual light flickered on the same color, yet different shades of it.

I felt no alarm when I reached out to catch a particular blue light heading straight towards me- didn't notice the horses in the surrounding valley's terrified neighing as they galloped away.

I was so fascinated that it never really occurred to me, that this strange ball of light might be not so harmless at all.

As it neared though, it seemed to dart around, shifting almost imperceptively to the left, then the right. I heard a hiss before it abruptly stopped descending and hovered two inches from my face, way past my outstretched hand.

My grin froze when I smelt it; a horrible, stinking smell worse than rotten eggs. It smelled like burning flesh- and was still doing so.

I slowly put my hands down and inched away from it. Whatever it was. Suddenly, my common sense came rushing back and my instincts screamed only one thing: Run.

I took a total of two steps back, watching if it would follow me- it didn't. Before I turned and bolted. Back the way I came, up the hill, I looked back. It seemed to turn and watch me run. I whipped back around and came to an abrupt halt. The hill gave me a perfect view of the valley floor below.

The city of Astoria, Oregon burned.

Screams can be heard all the way up from hear. A plume of fire erupted in a building faraway. My breath caught in my throat and I backed up a step yet again.

I had nowhere else to go.

Glancing up, I saw that those things were still falling. Hundreds of them seeming to pour out of the heavens like an endless stream. A dozen were heading towards me.