︱︱WHEN I FALL ︱︱ #TheCoronaAwards2020

K A Y L A 'S DIARY EXTRACT(pages 1-8)

A story written for THE CORONA AWARDS 2020 and  gavinlestrades 

Amazing proofreading job done by Gareth92 ! Thank you so much for helping me with this! What I can't edit now, I'll save up to edit later on!

November 29th , 2019

A red curtain with black prints moving like a monster, hungry for the bodies and afraid of water.

Feathers turned to dust as they touched the ground. Thick grey arms wrapped around the darkening trees, covering beautiful Chartreuse green crowns with a layer of charcoal, as if nature itself had been coated in gun powder. All creatures left their dens when the enemy approached, leaving a trail of blood on the wet foliole. The smell of flesh was nauseating, black corpses leaned on the sad bottlebrush, listening as the last Kookaburra  spread its wings and abandoned death. A few victims lay on the hot ground, blowing steam- the reminiscence of the soul that left all bodies cold, and they closed their eyes when the ghoul swallowed everything.

The woodland changed into a hearth of cinders, dark trunks turned to ashes and crumbled like an imaginary forest filled only with screams of terror, as the flames rose up with orange sparks. The glowing embers leapt and twirled like serpents reaching for the sky. It was hard to breathe, hard to forget.

Kayla opened her eyes, startled. The blinding light made her gasp for air, like she'd been drowning and now she was back to the surface, lost in a world with millions of blurry silhouettes- bathing in the sun rays pouring through the windows of Tullamarine Airport. She got up, stretched her stiff neck, saw her parents going towards the boarding line and followed them through the crowd of faceless fast-paced people...when someone grabbed her wrist.

An old Asian man looked up from his wheelchair with white clouded eyes, whiter than the sea foams of Shenzhen and grinned. The man opened his mouth wide, revealing a dark pit with no teeth and tilted his head, without saying a word. From the way his body twisted, Kayla thought it was a parasite. His mustard yellow skin looked like an old candle under a blue cotton robe, with slim long hands touching the silvery arms of the wheelchair, staring at the girl like he was planning to eat her.

She took a deep breath and the man was gone, so she rushed to catch the plane. After all... it was a long trip from Melbourne to Wuhan. 

The fires in Australia burned down my house. It's time to start a new page.

December 2nd, 2019

Kayla walked into the antiques shop like she'd never seen one before. As soon as the door closed, she tried to greet the old man at the counter in Chinese, but he put a mask on and kept writing. She sighed and went to wander through the shelves, her eyes glowing like diamonds in the sun at the sight of so many treasures. The girl opened her mouth to ask something, but a strange taste of zinc phosphide like rat poison tickled the tip of her tongue, reminding her of fish and garlic and she gulped. 

She looked at the right shelf, the way the old wood held all the objects in place; the black 19th century vases with cherry blossom prints, mounted hummingbirds trapped in gold cages as if they could escape anyway, the Victorian Christmas cards wishing people well, fine Calligraphy pens with Korean symbols, purple kimonos made of silk and displayed next to a pair of old stained goggles. Kayla traced her bony fingers on the American type-writer, feeling the coldness of the Swiss watches, before stumbling over an odd looking horn. Shaped like a skin-colored shell with familiar inscriptions, an earthy smell of Ceiba tree and red splatters, the girl picked it up and took it to the counter. From the teeth marks on the top part to the golden letters printed in the bone-like texture, she studied it closely and asked the owner about it.