How To Be A Failure 101

Viscous Flames

As the couple settled down after a long winter day, they started their usual argument.

"I'll start the fire if you go get the pillows. " Anica said

"Honey, what happened last time you tried to start a fire? You went through a whole box of matches and after an hour there was still no fire." Her husband pointed out.

"Yeah but I'll never get better if you don't let me try!" She chuckled defendingly

Cade finally gave in and agreed to let his wife start the fire, figuring she wouldn't be able to. As he headed towards the bedroom he hollered over his shoulder  "make sure to keep the fire small!"

he grabbed one of the pillows off of the bed and smiled to himself when he saw the crib of their soon to be born son. He was reaching over to grab the second one when he heard Anica yell for him from the other room. He quickly drop the pillows and ran out to see what was wrong.

The fire place roared with anger as the flames licked at the beige carpet laying a few inches away.

"Small fire, I said SMALL fire! This is not a small fire!" Yelled Cade as came back into the living room.

"I was just trying to help you!" Anica replied

Cade sprinted out of the room and into the kitchen. Grabbing a bowl off the counter, he turned towards the sink and filled it with cool water.

When he returned his to the living room his heart stopped.

The fire had spread from the fireplace to  the carpet and was now viciously making it's way across the floor and to the wall.

The room was now filled with thick grey smoke and the air had now become heavy and hard to breath.

Somewhere to his left he heard Anica begin to cough.

The bowl fell from his hands and clatterd to the floor spilling the water.

"We need to get out!" He screamed.

He reached forward and and pulled her to his chest.

By the time the couple stumbled out of the cabin their lungs screamed for fresh air. Cade let go of Anica as they both fell into the fresh snow.

As she caught her breath Anica looked around and realized she was missing something important.

"The blanket! I need to get the baby's blanket!" Anica yells panic filling her voice.

The expecting mother stands up and sprints back towards their home.

Cade sits up and reaches forwards trying to grab onto her anyway possible.

His muscles fail him and he falls back into the snow unable to get up and go after his wife.

"Stop!"

"Anica!"

"Come back!"

Cades hoarse cries filled the forest air.  He helplessly watched in horror as Anica ran back into the burning cabin.

Seconds later the heavy timbers that made the roof caved in.

The cries stopped and all that could be heard was the cackling of the fire as it laughed at the devastation it had caused.

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Woah um, yeah so this is my first of hopefully many short stories that are going to be included in this book.
Not all of them will be like this, and I will try and put some variety in here!
Let me know what you think!