World In Turmoil

4: The Flood Of Fire

The howling winds brought the pure scorched heat of the oncomming flames into Ren's face.

The city was little more than rubble now, fires still leaping higher into the distance, catching onto the neighbouring fields and hills as it began to migrate along the shadowed horizon.

But.
The Last Stand Navy fleet had ceased its bombardment.

Yet they still just... stayed there.

As if their job had not been done, and now demanded a gloating stare.

The burning must have been little more than a light show to those megalithic creatures. Those battleships, that now stood over these lands like a fresh kill...

There was a rustle of stalks behind him as his sister came bumbling frantically through the fields, her body crashing down beside him.

The harsh grating cry she screamed echoeing into the distant night.
She flung swaths of dirt at the burning metropolis.

As if willing it to stop. To survive. To resist. Not even to dare to die.

The cold silence stung against the furious gale of heat that approached.

The fields kilometers below them began to burst and crackle into flames as the hell fire jumped on the wind from the city into the cultivationlands.

The oncoming storm.

The winds caught the streaking spires of fire, and began to carry them like starved hounds straight south.

...towards them.

Ash and soot began to pelt down upon them as the winds even from this distance lifted the distant remains of war into the sky.

Sat on both knees, hands gripping little tight wads of dirt, Elana darted eyes across the vast ocean of fire. Across the vast blanket of flame that eclipsed her view.

Frantically she began to rise, forcing her strength into one effort. Staggering up onto her feet, she pushed toward Ren.

His face was a mask I cannot bare to describe. Torture mixed with abandonment. Horror and serenity.

Surrender.
The wind flicking his short hair across the place.

She grabbed him by the shoulder and started to shake him wildly her cry piercing the distant roar of fire.

"Ren we have to go!"

Silence.

Her throat tightened, mouth drying.
Shards of ash pelting her body.

"Ren?!"

The figure infront of her remained unmoved. His shoulders saging, head bobbing. Eyes fixed on the oncoming storm.

Her voice pierced again, grabbing both of his shoulders and...
"Ren we need to go! Come ON THE WIND IS PUSHING A FIRE STORM TOWARDS US!!!"

His despondent form gave her no notice. Not even his eyes twitched at the screaming voice.

Eyes grey and dark. His face dead like a grave.
Voice. Soft.

And broken.

"My, my life... yours... how...?"

His slow stutter, a waterfall of crackling sounds. A broken voice rising from his ashes.
"My...
...Dear creator...
My... Sara..."

His reality rushed in, and collided head first with hers'.
Everything that had ever been, was now ravaged by flame off in that distant raging ember of a city.

No.

She started, pulling at her strength, pushing into his shoulder.
"Ren!" Her voice splintering. "REN, WE HAVE TO GO NOW!" Shaking him with both her hands, the hopelessness of the situation started to sink in.
"Ren...! Ren please!... PLEASE!!!"

"Sara was down there..." he stuttered, throat gulping at his will to cry, eyes locked on that faint orange fiber of a lost future. Blood drained from his features. His cheeks a pale white.
"My... My..."

"DAMN IT REN, WE NEED TO GO NOW!" Elana screamed into his ear. In pure desperation, she placed her arms under his armpits, and started to drag him backwards up the dirt cliff , but his weight was far too much for her alone,
"You weigh a bloody ton!"

The flames were only a mile out by now, gaining at an incredible pace. Black smoke pouring forth, covering the sky. An unnatural night had fallen.

Horror overtook her, and she crouched down by Ren's face, and planted an open palm smack in the side of his mouth. Ren seemed to awake, he stuttered, "Ah! What?... Elana, just leave me... I dont... I cant... live."

"SHUT YOUR SELF!" She screamed. Once again, trying to pull him up the side of the hill. Foot by foot, meter by meter she dragged him through the fields, the wind whipping her hair and pushing the stalks of wheat nearly flat against the ground. Half a mile out, the flames leapt closer like a pack of rabid wolves.

Tears now streaming down her face, as the pure burning agony of her muscles stuck burning stakes into her lungs. She couldn't keep this up for much longer.

"Ren, listen to me. I know the LSN were your hero's, come on, I know they were your alpha and omega, I know!
But please... you need to get up now. You might of lost your heroes, and your woman!
But please, don't make me lose my brother!"

Her form crumpled to the sodden earth, and began to cry into his shoulder,

"I... I can't do this... You're... too heavy for me... please. Please! I don't have any strength left..."

Ren, for the first time, turned his head towards his sister. Face slack. He scanned her watery eyes.

In a single fluid motion he pushed her back, rocked up onto his feet, caught her under her legs and hoisted her up. In a feat of pure determination, he began to march up the hill. Boots crunching the earth. Arms quivering with his last reserves of strength. Barely enough to hold her.

The fire was only meters from them now. The pure heat incinerating everything in it's path. Ren could feel the heat on his neck as he carried his sister up the incline.

Through the rising smoke, he could just make out the figure of his father, stood. No. Running towards them. With... a blanket?
No... that couldn't work, Ren thought.

"REN, ELANA!" came the muffled cry of their father as he dashed through the fields, a blanket like thing flapping in his arms.

Ren kept marching, no matter how much his lungs stung, and smoke bit into his throat.
Consciousness was fading.

"Ren... put me down... you can't walk for the both of us..." Elana began.

Eyes dark with rage, face a mask of fataly feral determination, he whispered with a savagery into the sootened sky,
"My heroes... My love. Lies. Burned lies. So... so..." fresh tears spewed forth, "Burning in fire. I have no future."

It was apparent that Ren had no concept of surrender right now. He was determined to bear the weight of the world. Even if doing so was the worst option.

"Ren, you need to let me walk..."

Placing one heavy foot after the other, Ren stomped through all opposition, "You hauled me through my sludge of self pitty. Now... Now I'm hauling you. My only sister."

Their father final managed to reach them. He swung the blanket over them and pushed the two with all his strength. Forcing Ren to put his sister down.

"Keep going!" He ordered, barely audible over the sound of the roaring fire, literally right behind them. Hungry for death, ready to rip the flesh from their charred bones.

"Just keep going!"