The Lost Gems

Chapter 9

March 6th
7:15 a.m

I woke up to the strong smell of ashes, it burnt my nose. The fire only laid around five feet away from where we had been sleeping and it must have gone out during the night. The small trail of grey smoke was blowing directly into my eyes and stinging them.

I tried to get up and away from the smoke but couldn't because Sals arms were wrapped around my waist. I instantly started to panic.
My family had been killed by fire and smoke.

It was a cold afternoon. Diamond, Tanzanite, and I had gone out to dinner one night to celebrate an achievement we had earned from the school. We would have usually ate at our own houses with our families but this was special to us and we wanted to spend the time with just us three. We decided to go to a newly opened restaurant even though we never had ate there. It was empty besides us and the workers. The village was awfully quiet tonight and everything seemed eerie but we weren't going to let that ruin our time together. After we had sat down and ordered three different entrees to share it had suddenly turned awkward. We still were the only people at the restaurant and the employees were acting strange. It had been twenty five minutes since we had ordered or food and we were starting to get impatient. The waiter finally came.

"Here is the steak and Swiss burger with extra fries. The battered chicken fries with ranch and the personal pepperoni pan pizza." He said in a harsh tone as he slammed the food onto the table.

He was tall and pale. Grey eyes. He had brown dusty hair and his skin almost appeared to be a light grey which made him look lifeless. His name was Jim and he couldn't have been any more rude. Which was weird because usually the people we lived around were sweet and understanding of us. Something was surely going on. We ate the food which was surprisingly delicious, paid, and left. We started to walk home, our houses were all next to each other. We lived in a village where all the houses were the same and plain.

" I'm sorry for the bummer night guys." I said with a half smile to the girls and gave them a hug.

We were about one block from our houses when I had started to smell it. It was the smell of smoke. Fire was banned from our village because it was a danger to people and could cause possible harm to others or buildings that we couldn't afford to replace. I had a horrible gut feeling. We had looked at each other with fear and instantly started to sprint towards our houses but it was too late.

I began to scream and tears began to cloud my eyes. Tanz and Diamond stood there for a moment staring out at all the houses in shock. After it had sank in they began to scream and cry too. Tanzanite fell to her knees. We tried helping her up but it was to tragic. There were no signs of other people around. They were trapped inside the burning buildings. The only noises around were the crackling and falling of the fire and wood. There was no saving them, our houses had collapsed in front of our eyes crushing and killing our beloved families. It was their way punishing us by killing our families because we were different and they protected us.

The burning buildings ignited the dark starry night. It was so bright that I had to look away. But the falling of the school house and other small buildings made me jump. A giant cloud of smoke was heading towards us so fast that we couldn't react fast enough. It was everywhere stinging our eyes and burning our throats. We got up and ran the fastest we could to the farthest building breathing rigidly and wiping the tears off of our faces. Our lives would never be the same now that our families were killed and we didn't even get to say goodbye. The only explanation for the killing of all the people in our village would be the Onyx...considering they were the cause for everything.

As I started to panic even more the smoke seemed to surround me. I hadn't realized that I had stopped breathing. The smoke brang back a recent tragic memory that had changed my life for the worse including Tanz and Diamonds lives.

I started to scream and squirm as I was about to almost loose it trying to get out of Sals arms. I coughed and kicked Sal right into the shin causing him to wake and release his grip on me. I jumped up and ran away from the smoke. Crying and breathing as if I were about to drown. The smoke brought back so many horrible memories that I wasn't able to handle and each time I had reacted in panic. Everyone was awake now and on their feet confused and scared by why I was screaming. Once everyone had seen the smoke and the tears streaming down my face they understood and knew to back off and let me calm down. I had been emotionally unstable since my family had died and even more unstable since all the weird happenings had been occurring in the last few days, I don't know how long I was going to be able to take it for. After a few seconds my breaths had returned to normal and only light tears flowed down my face. I was confused to see why the attention was shifted off of me.

Tanz, Diamond, and Salvatore were staring with open mouths at the fire. Had I missed something? Did I accidentally burn myself? Was I imagining this all? I looked over at the fire and had to keep myself from screaming.

I hadn't realized it till now but we were all staring into the grey eyes of a mutant, he was crouched down by our fire with a bucket of water. He had put out the fire. He was the cause of the smoke.

Vote and comment~Ellsa