The pure heat crashed against the thin flame retardant blanket, like ferocious waves against a helpless beach.
The smell of burning life. A powerfull scent of ash and smoke.
The roar of blazing flame woke Ren from his semi-conscious stupor.
His hands splayed out across the dry earth. His body like a discarded dish rag. Crumpled. Fingers twitching, head acheing, lungs on fire, legs...
Legs?
Ren bolted awake, alarm and panic springing forth into his mind, sending stabs of thought bristling across his psyche.
He was alive. Alive.
But...
His heart started pounding at an insane rate.
He clutched a dusty hand down to his right leg, and the pain suddenly roared into his mind like an orchestra of impending doom.
The blanket had failed to cover his whole body.
Ren contorted in agony as the searing pain truly began to register. He flailed, rolling around on the ground, trying to suppress it.
He pulled his legs up to his stomach. His left one had been lucky enough to allready be half way under the fabric blanket. All it suffered was a light burning of the trouser leg.
But his right.
The flesh was charred from his thigh to his ankle.
The smell... unbearable.
Like a burnt log of wood, the surface was brown and flaked.
Beneath the fabric. Like an oven, Ren felt his insides cooking.
With what little of his mind was conscious, he decided to spit on his hands, and vaguely begin to rub it on his burns.
In a blundering effort to cool down.
Not the smartest move.
His pain only intensified as if a thousand needles were lodged into his muscle.
Once again sending a spasm of contortion across his body.
Forming his hands into fists he pounded against the earth, trying to suppress the pain by sheer force of will.
Forcing himself to live.
Outside, the fire began to slowly die down as it used up what fuel it had left in the surrounding land.
Laying there, deep breaths puffing the fabric up, and gently down, Ren waited.
The initial panic was over. His deep breathing working to calm his nerves.
But now a flood of thoughts had an opportunity to barge into the sanctuary of his mind.
He was alone.
In the middle of the northern field.
His home. If it was still there...
Was south.
He needed to get there.
The cellar must of survived.
As Ren tried desperately to think, a darkness began to fog his mind.
It swirled through his head like a dark mist on the open sea.
He needed to get back to...
Someone...
Somewhere...
...somehow.
The ground flew towards his face. Blackness.
Ren. Short on oxygen. High on stress.
Had fainted.
YOU ARE READING
World In Turmoil
Science FictionAmongst the empires of the galaxy. Between the factions and the territories. On a rustic world left to itself. A young man had heros once... They were a force sworn to protect. They were a navy of saviours. In a time of need. ...
