Survivors

Chapter Five - Dinner with a Stranger

Apparently she knew that though. “Don’t…lie…to me!” She hissed out her voice crackling with anger and an aura of white hot fire seemed to burn from every pore of her body as she slowly moved towards me, her eyes almost without any pupils.

I stood my ground. “I did not lie.” I hissed back my own anger beginning to manipulate my thoughts and actions. What anger I did have, seemingly evaporated from me with the heat from my quickening pulse and in its place I was left with clear thoughts, clear enough that they were like the Caribbean Seas.

I smiled and leaned away from the girl who just looked at me in shock and disbelief. “What does it matter, you’re here, I have the soup and we still have a few more minutes of light.” She sidestepped allowing me to go first; she obviously was smart enough to learn from her mistakes.

As I began to lead the way I heard her voice following me, a mocking tone adorned into her words, like in the supermarket, “I know you were lying.”

By the time we finally stopped, the night had finally prevailed and had won the sky. I had quickly collected some twigs from nearby which were brittle enough to start a fire with. An easy task since that was basically every piece of vegetation around.

The girl assisted me in collecting the wood and soon we had a nice sized pile before us I produced the lighter I had in my bag. Before you jump to conclusions I do not smoke, it was just for when I had gone camping, so I could light fires when it was necessary.

The girl looked questionably at me when she saw the lighter. “I don’t smoke!” I snapped, she didn’t comment. I began spinning the little wheel to produce a flame. I almost jumped back when it finally appeared, a glowing red beacon in the lonely and dark street we were in the middle of. I could already feel the night sucking at the warmth.

London was now geographically similar to a desert in the terms of temperature. I lit a tiny piece of a stick and held it out dropping it onto the fire and trying to keep my body as far away as possible.

Soon the flames had filled our little pile and I eyed the element cautiously, it was reaching up to try and catch everything and wrap it into a deadly embrace of fire.

I tossed the can near the edge to be heated, but not so far in that I would have difficulty turning it. Already the flames was peeling of the remainder of the label and forcing them to try and curl up the can to safety. However the merciless flame didn’t care and I watched silently as the flames devoured all that was not metal.

I glanced up to the other girl, standing in the opposite side of the fire. She seemed entranced in the fire but unaware that the light was bathing her face in its glow, leaving her skin a tint of yellow. But I had seen the pale complexion that was unnatural for this weather; she should at least have some form of a tan. But her face was the same, no tan lines, unlike me. Her hair, which I had first assumed was a black colour but is actually one of the darkest shades of brown I have come across, fell down her back in slight, natural waves. Part of it was pushed behind her ear and was slowly falling out, it was on the same side that the little frog perched, also watching the dancing flames. Its scales, or whatever it was had embraced the fires light and had turned red.

It was then that I truly remembered what I had forgotten.

“You didn’t happen to see a fox outside the supermarket, did you?”

~Victoria

I narrowed my eyes at her. She was really odd, her frosty eyes settled on me and captured me in their stern gaze. A fox. Yes a fox. I think I'd seen a fox. Had I seen a fox? Probably. Yes! Yes I had. I'd scared it away. Was it hers? If it was... I could get myself out of trouble and make up a very elaborate lie; which was one of my many, many talents. But what was the point in lying? I hadn't done it for a while, I was out of practice. I didn't want her finding me out – she was in possession of my dinner after all. It wasn't difficult to tell when she was lying though; she wasn't very good at it at all.