The Night Of Broken Glass

Prologue ~ Fire

          Smouldering fire licked at the buildings like a hungry kitten with a saucer of milk, crackling, playful, gentle at first. Fire flickered, flared, lept, and spat showers of sparks like a fountain. Plumes of black-grey smoke wound itself around the buildings as a snake devouring everything in its path. Choking clouds of noxious smoke. Inferno, blazing out of control. Ash floating to the ground like great dirty flakes of snow, showering onto everything, sprinkling onto the ground.

          I watched the ever burning fire that blazed in front of me, in the streets. I could not breathe, nor could I hear my heart in my chest. I was alive watching everything burn. What once was beautiful cracked and wilted under the weight of the seemingly weightless fire. The bright turned black and ascended in the air in dark grey plumes of darkness and misery. Carrying the dreams and lives of many to another place far beyond the stars. No matter how much effort was given, the fire didn't cease its reign of terror. I could not run, nor could I scream. I only watched as they burned. My home, my family, everything. Their flesh turned black as fire ate greedily at their mangled faces and torn backs. There was no escaping it, the pain and death it caused, and the dreams it stole.

          That's when I jolted awake, the screams and cries finally able to escape my trembling body.