Broken people

Chapter 3

 Chapter 3

Bay

So many things could have gone wrong tonight.  The fire might not have started or the party could have been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.  It could have even rained in middle of summer.  All these things I would have accepted and I wouldn't have complained, at least not a lot.  But after such a successful night which had forgone anything that I had ever imagined, it all had to be ruined by some wide-eyed, scared little bitch who was now lying crumpled and unconscious on the dirt. 

"And this night had started off with such promise too." 

The fire died as soon as my concentration had been broken.  The barn was nothing but a pile of ash and dust accompanied by the smell of charred wood and the stink of melted plastic and fried speakers.  There was still a fire burning inside of me though, like hundreds of tiny sparks jumping around in my stomach.  They sent a rush down my spine and all I could think of was one thing: I could control fire! 

Was this a fluke or could I do it again?  Could I create the fire or just manipulate it?  Just how much fire could I control at one time?   After considering the possibilities of what I could do with my new found powers I decided that tonight may not have been a total failure after all. 

My train of though was broken however, by a faint gasp coming from the girl still lying by my feet.  I considered maybe drizzling some of the leftover oil onto her hair or something so I could watch one last thing burn before I began walking home.  Maybe then she’d think twice before ruining others people’s nights.   I probably would have too if not for the sound of voices coming towards me.  In the darkness, phone lights shone into my eyes which blinded me for a moment before I came to my senses and decided to bolt.  I quickly put the jerry-can back into my bag and swore silently when I realized that I had forgotten to take my camera out to capture my incredible discovery.  I then took off running into the night, back to my house where I would take a shower to rid myself of the smell of smoke and then begin experimenting with my strange yet fascinating affinity with fire. 

I looked up into the sky expecting to see stars but there was not one star in sight.  I could see nothing but a thick cloud of smoke stretching on for as far as I could see in the darkness.  For some reason, mum popped into my head and I wondered if she could still see me from up there through all the smoke.  Had she witnessed what I had done tonight and what was going through her head?  I shrugged it off and kept walking, convincing myself that she was probably just coughing and getting stingy eyes from all the smoke going up into the atmosphere.   

Although I told myself that I couldn’t care less, I secretly hoped that she hadn’t been watching.            

Sam

This was by far, the worst night of my life, I thought to myself whilst I rubbed my stingy eyes which were filled with smoke and tried to get a good look at the damage done to my dad’s old barn.  Yep, he was going to kill me!  The one and only thing he had said about the party this afternoon was “don’t make the papers”; well I was going to make the papers alright.  It would be splashed onto the cover, ‘Teen Party Burns to the Ground’ with a big picture of the remains of the barn.  There was fucking nothing left though, all the beer and the $5,000 speakers which I’d just bought only added to the rumble of the barn’s wooded exterior. 

Never mind that though, I’d almost fucking died tonight! 

The hay had been the first thing to catch fire and of course I was in the worst place possible – directly in the middle of a stack of hay bales which in no time at all looked like giant fire monsters reaching out to turn us into barbeque.