What The Fox Said

Chapter 2, Flames

It wasn't the stereotypical romantic thing you were probably hoping for. As I looked out of my window, I looked at him. He was covered in a black grime from the head to foot. He looked scared,very scared. I saw what he was so afraid about. The city was on fire. The whole of Sacramento was alight. I couldn't hear anything except for the occasional yelling and screaming of people. I would of thought that it would be louder. Then I realised I was wearing my headphones and the window was shut. I took them off and opened my window.

"POPPY!" Flynn shouted,"I'll catch you; want you to jump!" What? He wanted me to jump? I didn't like the idea of jumping and breaking every bone in my body as I crashed into the concrete pavement. I shook my head. "Please! You have to trust me on this one!"He shouted. I closed my eyes and fell. I landed on something soft. Flynn held my hand and we raced away from the burning city''.

He ran super fast and I had trouble keeping up with him. Eventually, I slowed down, extremely out of breath; I was dragged by Flynn and I was travelling through mid-air, That was impossible for any human to do. We were going so fast that I could just see a blur of orange and black. He paced to a jog when we reached a field. Eventually, we were walking through the corn. I could smell burning wood on him that would probably never go away. We eventually reached an old, wooden windmill.  

"Let's regain our strength here." He called; I agreed with him. I was so tired. My arms ached and my head hurt. My lungs had taken in some of the smoke from the fire so I found it difficult to breathe and also, I was mentally tired. I needed to sleep so I could finally take in what was happening to me. After what I saw, I felt sick. Flynn opened the old worm eaten doors and we entered the old mill.

The mill was dusty and full of cobwebs. I could taste damp wood in the air. When we arrived, it was sunset so there was amber light shining through the cracked, glass windows. The windmill was entirely deserted and looked like it was abandoned for a long time. Flynn laid me down on a large haystack and with difficulty I soon became fast asleep.

I had a horrible nightmare,chased by the people I loved engulfed in fire. They  seemed furious with me. I remember feeling very scared. Even worse, I didn't wake up for a long time so the dream kept repeating itself.

I woke up to a cold sweat dampening the haystack that I was sprawled apon also, I sat up straight and stared out of the cracked window. It must of been early as the sun had just started to rise and was staining the sky a light pink colour. In the mid ground, I saw a sunflower field. There was an old farmer, in a tractor, extracting them from the earth. I stepped out and watched the sunrise for a while. The pinkness, soon became a peachy-orange shade, before turning brilliant blue. I waited an eternity for him to return. There wasn't much to do in an old windmill, except hope he was going to come back. When the sun was setting, Flynn returned with a dead,skinned rabbit in each hand. It was strange he had not returned in the day, isn't that when rabbits are awake and are easier to catch?

"Happy Easter!" He smirked. I smiled at him, I've missed him. 

"He managed to light a fire and slowly roast the rabbits in sunflower oil. When they had fully cooked it, it was night he handed me a roasted part of rabbit. He didn't know that there was something about me he should know before I ate the rabbit; I decided not to tell him for now.

"Since when were you a survivor?" I laughed.

"I was a scout,"he smirked,"how's the rabbit?"

"Good, good!" I knew this awkward conversation wasn't going anywhere. We just sat, silently eating our rabbits. It was good kill; I didn't tell him I was a vegetarian. I was just happy to see him. Being a guy, he finished his rabbit way before me. He threw the carcass into the fire. There was still oil in the rabbit and the fire rose. It reminded me of the fire that destroyed my home. I sighed and put my half eaten rabbit to the side. Flynn saw this.

"Was'up?" He asked, worriedly but sort of kindly too. He was so nice, I thought.

"Nothin', I'm just thinking of the fire that destroyed Sacramento (my home town)." I was telling the truth. My parents, all my friends and my house and countless others were just charred ashes. A tear rolled down my cheek; a soothing hand wipe it away. I realized that my parents were locked in the house as the fire killed them. They probably didn't even know before it was too late and the fire had infected their. . . our house.

"Hey, don't cry." Flynn soothed. This just made me cry harder. Even though he didn't mean to. His dark green eyes stared into mine. My heart began to race; it was not because I was upset. It was leaping with the emotional feeling. I hid it by reminding myself of all the damned people of my zone at least.

"Why not? Almost everyone I cared about was dead!" I presumed, I hoped I was wrong, I was. It turned out that the firefighters came just in time. Though I didn't know at the time. Being a bit of a drama queen, I liked to think of the worse possible thing that could happen to me, I don't know why, the human brain works in strange ways (as I was going to find out very soon.)

The amber flames stayed, glued in my brain, even when I closed my eyes. I didn't want to sleep; I might have bad dreams, so for the next couple of days in the barn, I just stared up at the ceiling, thinking. Which, thinking about it, was probably worse.