The Embers Book I: The First Fires Of War

Chapter One: Just Another Day.....If Only That Were True.

"Mate, like you need to ask!" laughed Jamie, sneakily slapping him in the face as payback

"So how’s your little brother doing? Any change?" asked Taylor. Jamie's brother Peter, who was only seven years old, had been in hospital for the last month in a coma. He had been struck down by some arsehole in a hit and run.

Peter had run off into the road just ahead of Jamie and his parents when he got hit by the car. They still hadn't caught the person responsible. The doctors initially said he was extremely lucky to even be alive

 "No. Nothing yet.” Jamie paused momentarily. “But at least he isn't getting worse and that's the only upside to it I guess," He said, sounding like that's where he wanted to end the conversation.

"Exactly! He'll get better soon. If he's anything like you, he's tough enough to get through it," replied Taylor as he gave Jamie a reassuring smile and a slap on the arm.

The lecture dragged on and on for the next hour until they had their free period, which they had forgotten about so they decided to head off to McDonald's. Jamie and Taylor walked side by side down the hallway on the second floor looking out at the city outside through the ceiling high glass windows. It was surprisingly sunny out and the bright rays reflected off the busy traffic. ‘Barmy British weather,’ thought Taylor, ‘Its November but it looks like June!’

Taylor looked down the corridor and just as he did, a huge blast erupted about twenty feet away from the window at the far end. It sent him and Jamie flying backwards. peppering them with glass. Taylor felt his elbow crash into the floor, wondering if he'd broken it due to the searing pain that pulsated through the bone sending tiny electric shocks through all the nerve endings. He had the air violently blasted from his lungs as his back hit the floor, from the force of the explosion.

He could smell a mixture of fire and burning flesh. Taylor gagged and heavily vomiting up the bread that he had eaten earlier. Jamie was a little way behind him. He sat up on his elbows looking dazed and confused but relatively unharmed.

Taylor looked down the hallway again, towards two heavily burnt corpses lying sprawled out just a few feet from the epicentre of the blast. Bits of bone showed where the flesh had been stripped back by the intensity of the fire. What Taylor had only just realized was that the fire was as black as night; he watched it still smoulder parts of the floor and the walls of the corridor.

As he stared with a mixture of shock and awe. Three men began to emerge from the darkness of the flames. One of them was the strange man from the bench earlier but his eyes were now jet-black in colour. Even more shocking were his arms, which from his shoulders to the very tips of his fingers were consumed in black flames.

The arms of his jacket had been burned away and despite the flames, the signs of scarring on his arms were visible as if he’d been burned by something in the past. But as flames licked their way over the man’s flesh, they appeared not to burn him at all despite the intensity of heat it must have been giving off. The other two men wore leather jackets, one was black; the other who seemed to lead the trio, shrugged his brown coat off revealing a toned body still in a black top.

 Taylor thought that he was hallucinating or maybe had a concussion. He tried to take in the peculiar sight before him but his bleary eyes failed him. The man at the front looked straight at him and smiled. His eyes held no warmth, only the promise of death and pain which swirled within the pure blackness of his pupils. Taylor started to panic and hyperventilate, as his asthma made a rare appearance.

‘Shit!’ thought Taylor as his chest rose and fell faster than he ever thought possible. ‘He's going to kill me and he's going to kill Jamie as well.’ He wanted to move, to run but he couldn't. His body wouldn't let him. He was frozen to the spot.