WILD CHILD │ barnes ¹

one

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐑𝐌

𝗝𝗨𝗟𝗬 𝟭𝟵𝟳𝟲

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A fire was burning, and not the pleasant kind, controlled inside a brick fireplace, but a raging one. The heat was excruciating. And the sound. The little girl thought it to be a bright chilli red, angry and unruly, similar to Headmistress Pimenova's voice.

Outside, the villagers were screaming - a sharp silver. 

Zhenya couldn't hear the other residents in the house running over the noises of the fire but she knew it was there. She should be running too, but the fear was paralysing - it turned her body numb and her limbs felt like jelly. Her arms were wrapped around her skinny knees and pulled into her bony chest. She was shaking, she noticed, her body was rocking back and forth. 

It reminded her of Yana from the bed next to her. 

Yana was a pale girl, a little older than she was, but Headmaster Pimenova babied her quite a bit. She supposed that it was because Yana was what the girls from Dormitory 6 called 'mentally unwell.' She didn't know what that meant but she remembered Yana never spoke to anyone and would spend hours on end on her dingy bed or by the poorly lit doorway, rocking back and forth, knees pressed against her chest as tight as the little girl was now.

Was it possible that the fire grew brighter red? The child thought she must have been hallucinating, but when she lifted her little chin from her knobbly knees, she could see the flames licking at the hinge of the door.

I have to go, she panicked.  She lifted her arms from around her body and then, her legs stretch to stand right? But they wouldn't budge. She swore that the door would fall soon. She tried again. Nothing. 

Her blue eyes were welling up from the fire and from frustration, but mostly from fear. Once, she heard the girls from Dormitory 6 discuss death. They said that when one died, the soul would go to an afterlife. 

But the girl didn't want to die. Not today.

The musty oak doors fell down with a ear splitting navy blue bang and landed a few metres from the tips of her poorly clad toes. 

But the fire was not the reason the door gave way. A silhouette stood where the door once was, fire creeping around their legs. Now the child really was sobbing. 

The figure moved forward. 

Uncontrollable shaking. 

She. 

Couldn't. 

Breathe. 

The figure - Zhenya assumed it was a he, but she couldn't really tell through the blurriness of her tears, had a strange metal prosthetic in place of his left arm. It was rather peculiar. But the man didn't seem to think so. And it seemed to work just fine when he reached down and hauled her up over his shoulders.

The man turned back through the hallway he came from.

No, not that way. The fire!

Well, it seemed that he couldn't hear her silent protest. He ran down the decaying wooden steps. 

She could see through her wild curls covering her eyes that his black pants were singed with flames.

Did he not feel the heat? Or did he not care?

He charged through the burning back doors of the orphanage, his grip on her tiny body tight - protective even.

Zhenya thought that he would leave her once a reasonable distance away from her destroyed home, but when he kept running straight towards the back alleys that were away from the horrified gazes of the villagers, she grew confused.

'Where are you taking me?'

'Bezopasnyy dom,' he grunted. Safe house.

The child had never heard the term before. Safe house? Weren't all houses safe? What did he mean? But she didn't say anything. She was tired and her mouth felt dry.

'Mozhno mne vody, pozhalyusta?'

'Net vody.' No water.

Oh. 

The child lifted her head from the comfort of the man's shoulder. For the first time she got a proper look at his arm.

'Why is there a star on your arm?'

The man furrowed his eyebrows, 'I don't know.' He looked like he wanted to say more but it was like he couldn't seem to remember.

'Byli zdes,' he said and lowered the girl to her toddling feet.

The safe house in question was a small dingy little cottage on the edge of the village. The strange man didn't look at her to make sure she was following him when he stalked inside. She hurriedly followed him.

'Sidet,' he pointed to the chair. She climbed onto the tall bench as best she could.

The man ducked into the adjacent room and soon reemerged with a cloth in hand. The child assumed it was to rub the dirt off her body and grabbed at it. He moved it out of her reach and readjusted her so she was sitting properly on the bench. 

Frowning, he began scrubbing the soot on her face and limbs, huffing now and then whenever the dirt refused to vanish. It took him ten minutes and when he was finally satisfied that she was cleaner, he rose from his kneeling position and picked her up.

'Where are we going?'

He didn't reply and marched out of the front slanting cottage and up the path, turning away from the village. 

Why was he turning away? Go back. I want to go home. But there was no home anymore, it was gone now. Tears stung her eyes again and her lips trembled. 

Was Yana gone now? And Headmistress Pimenova? Reduced to nothing more than memories and ashes now?

The man paused rather abruptly, startling the child from her growing train of thoughts.

'Vot.'

'Here' was a grand mansion made of newly painted walls and pretty red bricks. There was a rather elaborate gate for the entrance and happy little sculptures alongside the driveway. But the atmosphere felt anything other than happy. Zhenya was young but even she could feel the gloom and sadness that hung onto the structure.

Maybe the man didn't care, or he didn't notice because he lowered her from his arms and placed her directly in front of the gate, before ringing the small rusting bell to his right.

The child seemed oblivious when he turned around, still entranced by the haunting nature of the building. 

hello! 

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italics is russian