Fire

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March 5, 2018


In the darkness, the light of the flames cast on stone walls were ominous and foreboding, their shapes monstrous beings that lacked substance. The chill wind swept through the tightly-enclosed space and challenged the heat of the fire. Despite the provocation, the flames licked the surface of the low ceiling, heating the cool stone. Around the fire sat several shrouded figures, their shapes a bare outline in the dark. They were huddled together as if the fire was not enough warm their shoulders, shuddering like the slightest gust of wind would cause them to collapse like a house made from twigs. The people wore rags of cloth that hung loosely on their frames, their bodies skeletal in the low light. Their skin was pulled taut across their bones, so thin it was almost transluscent. Their stomachs were carved hollow, signs of past hunger gnawed through decaying teeth that rattled in their gums. There were four around the fire, an indistinguishable amount lying in the shadowed crevices of the cave. One of the few stretched a bone of an arm to the pile of leaves and sticks, shoving with just enough force that they were engulfed by the flames, orange sparks devouring the remaining kindling. His eyes were depressed, sunken holes in a face with concave cheeks. His eyebrows set low, he gazed at his companions before staring back into the fire.

"How long?" He muttered.

A woman, head shrouded by an infested wool blanket, leaned forward.

"You know when they'll come," she said, her throat lacerated by starvation and days without water.

The man glanced over his shoulder at the heap by the entrance to the cave. He warmed his hands once more over the fire before getting to his feet, leaning slightly in his step. Reaching into the pile of clothes, he unearthed a blunt piece of medal, brandishing it like a sword. The fragile light glinted off of the silver as the earth began shake, pounding striking the earth in a terrible uproar.

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