The Good And The Bad - Volume 1 (ABANDONED?)

Chapter 6: High Peaks

Luke:

As I looked down at my feet I felt dead inside. I didn't have shoes on and the sharp gravel dug painfully into my bare soles, I could feel the cuts growing and my feet were numb after a few metres of walking, the burns left my skin raw and everytime my shirt passed across my chest I winced, which happens a lot when you're walking. But still none of that compared to the pain that emitted from the orange glow that bathed the gravel I was walking on. I could hear the fire behind me, snapping and crackling and twisting around the wood, making the building groan painfully as it scorched it black. My home for my whole life, falling to pieces behind me, that was the most painful.

I wanted to cover my ears and forget it all but I couldn't, it invaded my head and blasted through my ears. All of the noise just made me feel dead inside. All of it but one. A new born sound of a phone dialling, it was quiet, almost silent among the raging fire, but it was still there. And I knew help was on the way, but in the back of my head I knew they wouldn't be fast enough.

Behind me the womans high heels crunched on the gravel, each step finding it's ground, only to be uprooted, sending piles of pebbles carreering away, each step making it's mark, and I swear I could see a smile on her face even though she was outside my view, I felt anger rising but I pushed it back down, it wouldn't help me now, the memories of the fire burning on my chest were kept fresh and healthy by the continuing pain that still remained as their legacy. If I tried anything I was sure those memories would be revived even more vividly than before. I can't be reckless.

The Man stopped abruptly in front of me and I stumbled forwards, trying to stop myself at one seconds notice. I stuck my hands out as I began to fall but withdrew them instantly as they collided with the sharp edges of the rocky driveway. I went sprawling and my chest scraped across the rocks beneath me I cried out as my chest began to sear with pain, the burn showing it's objection to the fall by making it excrutiatingly more painful. Behind me I heard the woman laugh, out loud and blunt, but soon the pain clouded my hearing and my eyes became blurry, soon her laugh was only a memory replaced with what sounded like deep breathing underwater.

I couldn't move because of the pain, I felt small rocks slowly tearing my shirt, only making my chest more vulnerable, more gravel just invaded my body. I heard a car door open in front of me, but no one made a move to help me up. I heard the woman pass by me up to the front of the car and I managed to roll onto my front, I looked up at the womans face, to be granted by an obvious attempt to spray gravel in my eyes, I flinched back, but I had time to see  her, and I was right she was smiling. Smiling.

I managed to roll over painfully and as I lay on my back I was escaping the pain momentarily. The man's strong arms hooked under my body and lay me down across the back seats, he didn't shove me in and almost took care not to anger the burns, I think there was a little part of him that regretted seeing a fourteen year old kid with a shredded shirt and tear streaks across his skin with what's probably a fourth degree burn across his chest, maybe, not likely, but maybe.

Gravel slowly fell from my chest to the floor of the car, with every one the pain shot up then dropped like the stones. I could'nt move or even close my eyes but the pain spreaded form my chest like a volcano, having no trouble moving. The car sputtered into life below me and sent my body rocking back and forth, my vision switching from the glaring skylight to the grey roof of the car, I couldn't stop it but right now I didn't care.

I screwed my eyes shut and tried to think of something, anything else but the pain that coursed across my body. I was breathing deeply and my breaths were ragged, each one lifting my chest, only to make it snap back again as it protested having the scarred skin stretch. No matter what I tried my mind stayed immediately focused on my chest, pain was designed to catch your attention so you knew when you were hurt, right now I knew I was hurt and my attention was hooked.