Fire - A Short Story

Fire; 

Thea reached out her long bony fingers towards the golden doorknob. There’s no denying that she was eager to find out what lay behind it, but like always, fear dominated these feelings and the teenager found herself snatching her hands back as soon as they made contact with the shiny, hot surface.

Her parents were still working, despite the late hour, so she was home alone. She couldn’t help but pondered over the danger of entering, as she stood there in her bedroom in front of the large doorway. It was huge, made of the darkest wood imaginable, but if you looked carefully, you could see intricate carvings. Each one was highlighted with shiny golden detailing. The structure itself was impossible to miss, and this fact was what confused Thea. It was the first thing her eyes were drawn to as soon as she entered her tiny box room. So surely it should be the first thing anybody else entering would see? But no, it wasn’t, because no one else could see it at all.

It had been there for a couple of days, giving anyone the opportunity to view it, and maybe venture over the ground lines, but every time Thea even brought it up the subject of conversation was turned down by her parents, who would tell her “Your imagination is quite exquisite!” in their stuck up voices.

But was it just a figure of her imagination? Was she just telling her mind that this door was here in order to keep her levels of boredom at a minimal? It was just there, standing over her in all its glory, waiting. Waiting and screaming for Thea to come and open it! There was no other way to tell if she was making things up, to go through the entryway was her only option. And again, Thea found herself lifting from the edge of her bed and taking tiny little footsteps towards the door. She closed her eyes and did it. She turned the burning handle and crossed the threshold.

Her skinny body stayed tense as the fear of what she just did oozed from her body, because she had finally done it, and when her mother got home she could tell her that she was wrong and that it had been real and it does lead you somewhere new and exciting. She opened her green eyes wide; impatient to know what made this new place so exciting. But it was as though she hadn’t opened them at all. Perhaps with all the sudden excitement her brain was somehow delaying activity, so she tried again, allowing a few seconds for action. Nothing happened. She brought her hands to her eyes, thinking forcing them open would have to do, but she felt the slimy surface of her eyeball. They were open. This new place, had it caused her to go blind?

She worried, if she wasn’t so unsure about her eyes, she might even have cried. Her worry escalated to a thousand times worse as she felt something brush against her soft skin. She frantically felt around, twisting her body trying to find the source, but again, there was nothing.

She had no idea what she was doing when she sat herself down, maybe she was hoping this was a dream and if her body got bored enough she’d wake up. But somewhere inside, Thea knew this wasn’t a dream. This was real, because not only had she never gone to bed, but she could feel everything, and the growing laughter was so shrill that no one in their right mind would be able to think it up. She was so sure about this that she suddenly felt brave and stood to her feet. But sudden winds pushed her back down, and with her went her levels of courage.

Her long hair was whipped in all different directions. She could only imagine that this is what it was like to be in the eye of a hurricane. She might have been worried about the winds, if her body wasn’t being filled with joy about the fact that she could make out the grey swirling of the wind. She could tell the direction she was moving in and found herself spinning with it, causing her to get severely dizzy.

Within the same minute that the wind started, it was transformed to a ring of fire, which would have been even more worrying if hadn’t posed as a form light. Thea could see everything in this world now, although there wasn’t much too it. She was inside, and the height of the room couldn’t have been an inch taller than she was. It was like a really long hallway. Every single surface was grey, and concrete, although the floor she was standing on was burnt a charcoal black, and around her were piles of ashes, which caused her to shriek in alarm. There was fire, and it was coming for her. The laughter came back, or maybe it was never really gone.