Set in Ink

Chapter 6

I see more clearly now. It is a town, and the whole thing, every single building, everything is on fire. Although it looks deserted, I want to help.

"What happened?" I ask a small, old lady running with a limp away from the scene.

"My family is in there!" she screams, pointing to a small house that looks as if it used to be a very light and faded shade of blue but is now covered in gray smoke and dark black ash, "save them!"

I set my bag down on the stone path under my feet and run to the town, I get close to the building that the old lady pointed to and I am about to grab the door handle, which luckily is not on fire, when a flash of black lands in front of me, it knocks me backwards. What was that? Did a burnt chair just fall from the sky?

Then I feel something pulling me up. It is a boy. As he pulls me up I swear I see a flash of black flames on his wrist. I must be imagining it. No two people have the same Tattoo. I look up, he is all sharp, rigid lines. He is very tall, much taller than I am, he must be at least six feet tall. He is also very muscular. He is wearing tight black jeans and a tight black shirt that is obviously meant to show off his prominent abs. I don't notice any of this right away though. My eyes are immediately drawn to his face. He has golden eyes, the color of thick, rich, melted caramel, but they are as bright as the sun, and he has black hair, a color that reminds me of death and funerals.

It is the color of the sky that covers Gramps's stories. It is a black so dark that I lose myself in sorrow just looking at it. It is the color of the shadows in the darkest of alleys. It is the color of the ash falling around us. The ash falling around us. There is ash falling around us!

"Hey!" he shouts, "you need to get out of here! What is your name?"

"Addilyn," I say after a while.

"You don't sound too sure about that," he says smirking. "Are you sure?"

I want to slap the smirk off of his face, making jokes when a town is on fire, but I know he is trying to help.

"I am sure," I say.

"You're extremely hot," he says, as he raises his eyebrows, his smirk grows bigger.

"I hardly think this is an appropriate time..." I begin even though I was thinking the same about him.

His smirk disappears into complete seriousness as he responds. When he is serious his high cheekbones stand out even more than they did before, I notice.

"I mean your body temperature," he says, "how long have you been near the fire?"

"I'm assuming you saw me run here," I reply. "I was here for two seconds before you knocked me down."

"Right," he says with a little shake of his head. He looks distracted. "Run, run as far as you can and I will meet you, my name is Evander," he hesitates for a second, "but you can call me Vander," he says with a slight smile that I can tell he is trying to hide.

I turn and run and only look back once. When I do I see Vander jump directly into the flames of the burning building I was trying to go into. I stifle a scream by biting my lip as turn back around and run away smiling though I don't know why.

I go back to my bag and sit down on the path next to it. I curl up into a ball, wrapping my arms around my legs and burying my face in my knees. I smell the sweet and clean scent of fresh laundry and sanitizing liquid. I close my eyes and I wait. I lose myself. Though not in thought. I don't think about anything. It is almost like sleep, though I am awake.