Post by Elizabeth on Dec 31, 2013 19:28:10 GMT -5
Elizabeth held her hand over her brow to shield her eyes from the high noon sun. Standing on a wide, flat green hill-top edging out of the mountain side, she glanced at the majestic city on the beautiful horizon where beyond its splendid architecture lay the sparkling sea, unfolding like a never-ending curtain of water as far as the eye could see. The city looked tiny from where she stood, about the size of a cherry, but Elizabeth knew for a fact that by the time she made it to its gates it would look a thousand times bigger in proportions, not to mention vibrantly alive with the activity of the hundreds of people who lived there. In her travels, she had heard so many stories, which she had believed to be nothing more than fairytales—the beauties and wonders depicted could only be imaginary to her and not possibly man-made—about the famous trading port of Basra that she could hardly believe the city itself was now so very close to her, merely a couple of miles away. Elizabeth felt like she had suddenly trespassed into the fairytale world of the many stories she had been told. She felt as if she were standing on a line; if she took a step back she would be in the world she had so far explored during many years, but if she stepped forward, she would enter this new universe, into a place, if the stories she had heard were true, enchantingly different from everything she knew. The latter was the step she would take. As always, her only way was forward.
Elizabeth breathed in the fresh air as a gust of wind ruffled her hair. She let out a content sigh. “Finally…a piece of civilization.”
Duke raised his head from his intense grass-grazing session and neighed his agreement.
Elizabeth turned to the brown-coated stallion. “What? Growing tired of me already?” she asked jokingly.
Duke twirled his ears and looked at her with a teasing sideway glance. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and, shaking her head playfully, smiled at her faithful mount.
The good spirits only knew how thankful she was for Duke. She had managed to buy him with the money she had earned in the last village and he was the most amazing traveling companion she could ever have wished for, the complete opposite of the last horse Elizabeth had purchased. That one, named Temper and stubborn as a mule, had been a complete disaster. Elizabeth had never seen a horse, and she knew her lot about horses, as mean and obstinate as he—his owner had probably been insanely happy to get rid of him and pass him on to her—and so had been overwhelmingly pleased when Duke came along, with whom the connection between mount and rider had been instantaneous.
Duke was always calm and patient, curious and eager to learn, and incredibly smart. Aiming to stay true to his title, he had a classy, natural bearing in his stride, holding his head up high and flexing his paws with grace no matter if he was walking across a stream or galloping across a hill. Elizabeth liked his company very much. At least she had someone to talk to. Not that she didn’t like travelling alone but when she spent weeks trekking in the solitude of forest trails and brambles, having a noble steed to converse with helped her keep her sanity. Elizabeth also knew that Duke liked her, too. He was constantly nuzzling against her, keeping her warm and protecting her. Once he even snatched her arm so she wouldn’t step into a hunter’s trap.
Elizabeth trusted Duke with her life.
“Well, looks like we’ll both enjoy a nice hot meal tonight,” Elizabeth mused as she studied the panorama beneath the cloudless blue sky. Still separating her from the splendid city was the luxurious forest she and Duke had been traveling across for the past couple of days. Judging by the distance, she estimated that they could reach the city by nightfall if they made good pace.
Turning around, she walked over to where Duke was grazing. Crouching beside her backpack, she fumbled inside it to retrieve an apple. Duke’s head spun up. “Huh-huh,” Elizabeth warned him. “You ate yours this morning. This one’s mine.”
Taking a mouthful bite in the fruit, Elizabeth swung her backpack on her shoulders and holstered herself up into the saddle, taking hold of the reins with her free hand. “Come on. We’re only half a day away from a bath and a warm bed.”
Duke perked his ears forward and resumed to a walk, heading back to the trail they had left behind about a half hour ago to take a lunch break and admire the scenery.
Elizabeth could tell by the condition of the trails that they were not often traveled on. Although they were wide and still viable, many brambles had taken roots everywhere, rocks had fallen in the way from sideway steep slopes just like tree branches and even whole trunks on a few occasions. Many a time Elizabeth had had to go by foot, leading Duke behind her, to improvise them a trail because the original one had deteriorated to a state of non-existence. She took hope that the one they were currently treading on would soon show a certain degree of popularity. They were traveling toward the city so it was only logical to assume that the closer they got to it, the more official the trails would become.
Elizabeth was also glad for the clear blue sky above her head, which made the wood trip easier. With the sun, she knew exactly where she was going; all she had to do was keep heading east where Basra was. If the sky had been covered with thick grey clouds, veiling up the sun, it would have taken her much longer to collect her bearings and pick the right trails.
Elizabeth leaned forward in the saddle to duck under a low pine branch. Once she and Duke were down the mountain and into flat ground and once the trails widened and cleared, they would be able to pick up the speed. Elizabeth couldn’t wait to get a bath. She had been on the road for two weeks and her two shirts desperately needed to be properly washed with soap and not just stream waters, not to mention how hot the summer season was. She couldn’t wait to sleep in a bed, too, for a change. She had enough money to rent a room at the local inn.
Elizabeth took one last bite of her apple and gave the heart to Duke who happily chewed it down and neighed, showing his front teeth in appreciation. Elizabeth found it funny whenever he did that, as if he were literally grinning at her. Smiling back at him, she let the reins rest on Duke’s withers and gathered her long curls up to tie them into a bun to let the base of her neck enjoy the small breeze blowing through the trees.
There was only one thing that worried her about getting to Basra. Duke. She had bought, sold and traded many horses during her travels but Duke was one she was not willing to part with. She didn’t know why exactly but she just couldn’t give him away. She couldn’t fathom passing him on to somebody else. In the past two weeks, Duke had become her horse. The feeling totally baffled Elizabeth because she had never before developed such an attachment to anything. Ever since she ran away from Amberdale, she traveled light, with only what she needed. She came and went, meeting new people, making friends that eventually became like family to her; she spent months with them but then one day she just took off again, heading somewhere else. The people didn’t understand why she chose to leave them and Elizabeth hated it when they harassed her with questions, because it appeared she herself didn’t have the answers. She just couldn’t stay put. Even if she came to love the people she met like family, she just needed to keep on traveling.
Elizabeth believed that maybe she was looking for something. What, she didn’t know, but she figured that when she found it she would know, and maybe then she wouldn’t feel that insatiable need to constantly be on the road.
The trail before her suddenly split into a fork. Squinting as she glanced up at the sun through the green leaves, Elizabeth picked the left one, the one she estimated would head east. After a couple of minutes, when the path was finally wide enough and seemed like it would stay that way, she heeled Duke into a gallop. Ears twitching sideways, Duke took off without hesitation, happy to stretch his paws in their comfortable graceful strides. When she rode like the wind with Duke, the breeze on her face and the rhythmical thumps of his hooves on the forest ground as the trees flashed by in her peripheral vision, Elizabeth felt one with the world, completely free.
She decided that she wouldn’t part with Duke. When she reached Basra, she would rent a stall in the local stables for him and when she was done doing whatever it is she would do in the city, she would take him and they would travel somewhere else together. He was her horse, now. She wouldn’t leave him behind like the others. She just hoped she had enough money to buy some food and rent both a room at the inn for herself and a stall for him.
As Elizabeth lost herself deep in thoughts, Duke abruptly dug his hooves in the ground and skidded to an unexpected halt. It was so sudden that Elizabeth was almost thrown off over his head.
A rush of adrenaline immediately spread in her veins. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” she asked alarmingly as Duke stomped and bobbed his head frenetically.
Elizabeth let him back away a couple of steps but tried to keep him steady as she surveyed the nearby woods to check if there wasn’t any threat lurking about. Horses were always spooked for a reason. Elizabeth knew it could as easily be a silly butterfly that had scared Duke as it could be something truly dangerous, but before she could spot the cause of his sudden distress Duke suddenly reared and roughly backed away once more, snorting in fright. Elizabeth tried to sooth him down but when he wildly reared up again, the jerk was so strong and sharp that she lost her balance. Elizabeth fell off the saddle with a yelp and hit the ground with a heavy thud. When she regained her senses she saw Duke gallop away down the trail they had come from as if the devil himself was chasing him.
Spitting out dirt and grunting as she tried to get her wind back, Elizabeth shot to her feet and ran after him. “Duke!”
But he was gone. The thumping of his hooves on the trail fainted in the forest until everything in the woods seemed to become deadly still.
In the sudden oppressing silence, Elizabeth yelled his name again, cupping her hands to the sides of her mouth. “Duke!”
Her own voice reverberated back to her.
Elizabeth now remembered why she never let herself get attached to anything in her travels: because it would most likely be taken away from her. Just like Duke. Spooked as he was, he was probably already a good distance away by now. She could track him but who knew how long that was going to take.
Elizabeth sighed heavily and brushed debris of dirt off her white shirt. So much for a warm bed and a hot meal. She glanced up the trail that lead to Basra, wondering how long it would take for her to reach the city by foot, and then glanced back down the road where Duke had raced off.
It didn’t matter how long it took. He was her horse. She would track him and get him back.
Looking around as she wondered what on earth had scared him so badly seeing as he was always so calm all the time, Elizabeth straightened the straps of her pack and began walking down the trail after Duke. Horses ran away from danger, not into it.
As an acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils, Elizabeth stopped dead in her tracks. Something was burning. Something was burning and it couldn’t be a simple campfire because Duke knew what that was. It was something else, something bigger. She turned around, straining her ears. It was faint but she heard it: the spits and crackles of a roaring fire.
In a flash, Elizabeth broke into a run down the trail, following the sound of hissing flames and the fetid scent of smoke. Within minutes she emerged into the back of a clearing where a small two stories house was being consumed by a blazing inferno. The whitewashed walls were still intact but the stray roof was roasting like a pyre. Flames were searing through the windows like powerful tentacles trying to escape the confines of the walls. The fire looked alive, as if a wild, fiery monster from the underworld itself was eating the house from the inside.
Seeing no one nearby, Elizabeth ran toward the building and shouted as she searched for the door. “Is anyone in there!”
When she located the main door in the center of a fenced front yard on the other side, the only answer she got was an angry burst of flames from a nearby window. She ducked down to avoid being grilled. When she came back up, she wondered how long the whitewashed walls would last. Surveying the forest close by, she quickly verified if the flames could spread to the trees and was relieved to see they couldn’t. Racing around the building to the left, animal pens attached to the house’s wall caught her eyes. With the fences half crashed down and beginning to catch flame, chickens were going wild and running for their lives. Someone obviously lived here but was nowhere in sight. Elizabeth hoped they weren’t trapped inside.
She called again as loud as she could over the rumbling inferno of destructive flames. “Can anybody hear me!”
Still, she got no answer. The fire was too big. The windows were consumed by hungry flames that hissed angrily and Elizabeth knew if she opened the door she would only give the fire more air to feed on and then be roasted alive in a blast. But she couldn’t enter through the windows either.
As she debated what to do, over the spits and roars of the blaze, she heard a series of coughs from the window to her left. Someone was inside.
Elizabeth twisted her pack off and threw it on the ground. Fire tentacles tried to snatch her as she raced around the building again, searching for an opening she might have missed. Eyes darting around hurriedly, she suddenly halted as she noticed the shutter doors next to the pens. As they were most likely leading under the building, she hoped the fire hadn’t reached the deepest floor yet. Chickens cackled in terror and wildly flapped their wings as she ran past them. Yanking one of the shutters open by its round iron handle, Elizabeth waved her hands through the gust of smoke that puffed out. Without losing a second, she ran down the stairs two by two.
A heavy cloud of smoke clogged the whole basement. Even with her sleeve pulled over her nose and mouth, Elizabeth had trouble breathing and seeing where she was going. After a few steps, she found the ladder heading to the main floor. Holding her breath, she quickly climbed the bars and pushed against the trap door with a grunt to get it open. When it gave way, she squeezed herself through and winced at the burning heat of the flames that crashed all around her once she was inside the house. Elizabeth felt like she was thrown into the infernal pit of the underworld itself. All she could see was fire. Roaring, tantalizing flames curled and coiled everywhere, like blazing, wavering prison bars.
Squinting and coughing against the scorching heat and the smoke, she called out. “Is someone there!”
Elizabeth heard the faint groan of a man to her right. Wheeling around, she saw his legs sticking out from under a massive bookcase that had collapsed and pinned him to the floor. Elizabeth rushed to him, circling behind the big piece of furniture. The man was barely conscious.
“Hey! Stay with me! You’re going to be alright! I’ll get you out of here!” Elizabeth shouted over the bellows of the fire.
A beam above her head cracked. The second floor was about to give way. Elizabeth crouched down beside the man, sliding her hands under the bookcase. When she felt like she got a good enough grip, she lifted the massive furniture with all her might. Grunting with the insane effort and the lack of air to nourish her muscles, Elizabeth knew she had to flip the thing over because the man would never be able to crawl out from under it on his own. The bookcase weighed a ton. Adrenaline was the only thing working in Elizabeth’s body as she strained and groaned against the crushing weight she tried to lift. With no air left in her lungs and her arms burning both from the physical endeavor and the flames, the bookcase finally flipped over and crashed to the floor.
When Elizabeth turned to the man, he was coughing his life out of himself. The beam above their heads cracked again. It wouldn’t last much longer. Elizabeth hastily reached down for the man, draping his right arm over her shoulders as she wrapped her left arm around his waist and pulled him up as best as she could. Though the man seemed to daze in and out of consciousness, he supported himself enough for Elizabeth to guide him through the flames. But she knew she would never be able to get him down the ladder leading to the basement. He would break his neck in the descent. And they couldn’t escape through the door either. If they did, they would be roasted alive.
Squinting amidst the heat of the hissing flames that danced like lethal snakes everywhere around them, Elizabeth saw a heavy blanket bunched on the ground where the man had been trapped under the bookcase. She turned to the dizzy owner of the burning house.
“Hang on!” She reached for the blanket with her right hand. Quickly, as the weak man wobbled on his feet, she wrapped it securely around the both of them, careful to cover their heads.
As a loud cracking sound of splintering wood planks rumbled above their heads, Elizabeth glanced around to locate the door which was now their only way out. It was to their left, a couple of feet away. Elizabeth went for it, guiding the half-conscious man through the vociferous firestorm as the second floor gave way with a deafening roar of breaking wood beams.
Wrapped in the blanket, Elizabeth and the man crashed through the door and out into the front yard. Like a wild animal trapped in a cage, the blazing inferno exploded around them as the fire fed on the strong, newfound gust of air coming in from the open door. The second story collapsed onto the main floor in a thundering crash of smoke, flames and splinters of wood and whitewash. Elizabeth and the man stumbled forward in the dirt, propelled by the force of the explosion.
As she landed flat on her stomach, Elizabeth quickly covered her head with her hands to protect herself from flying debris. She could hear walls collapsing and chips of woods drip-dropping everywhere around her like rain.
When the blast calmed down, she couched and groaned in pain from the hard fall. Twisting around, she stole a look at the remaining fire. Finally able to take on a free and unrestrained rate now that they were free of their cage, the tentacles of flames feasted on what was left of the house, clearly intent on consuming it all until there was nothing left but ashes.
Elizabeth checked on the man beside her, bundled in the blanket that had saved both of their lives. He was unconscious but he was breathing. Shifting her weight to her knees, Elizabeth flipped him over so he would lie on his back. Grabbing him under the shoulders, she dragged him away from the house lest other pieces of the building crumbled down, to a big old tree to the side of the clearing, not far from the trail leading to the forest.
Grunting from the effort and couching out the remnants of smoke that still clogged her lungs, Elizabeth slumped down next to the man after tucking the blankets to his sides and deeming him comfortable enough. She rubbed beads of sweat off her brow with the back of her hand and looked at the flaming house. Studying the way the fire was eating at the structure, she tried to estimate whether the main floor would survive its fervent bites or not. She came to the conclusion that with a little luck, part of the whitewashed walls might make it. But there would still be a lot of work needed to restore the house to its original state.
Elizabeth looked down at the man on the ground. With a clean-cut goatee, wearing a pair of dark brown trousers and a burgundy shirt laced in a v at the collar which had a rim of finely woven designs matching the ones on the cuffs of his sleeves, the man was in his early fifties. Strong-jawed and muscularly built, he had short dark hair with specks of white and grey in them.
Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel a mix of sadness and helplessness toward him. Although he was alive and well, his house was an almost complete loss. He would have to go through an incredible amount of work to repair all the damages.
Bringing up her legs, Elizabeth rested her arms on her knees and watched the flames spit and hiss through the windows and the roof. Relieved that she and the man were both safe and sound, she watched, powerless, as his home was consumed by the lethal tentacles of the raging fire.
She had lost Duke today.
The man lying at her feet had lost his entire home.
Elizabeth breathed in the fresh air as a gust of wind ruffled her hair. She let out a content sigh. “Finally…a piece of civilization.”
Duke raised his head from his intense grass-grazing session and neighed his agreement.
Elizabeth turned to the brown-coated stallion. “What? Growing tired of me already?” she asked jokingly.
Duke twirled his ears and looked at her with a teasing sideway glance. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and, shaking her head playfully, smiled at her faithful mount.
The good spirits only knew how thankful she was for Duke. She had managed to buy him with the money she had earned in the last village and he was the most amazing traveling companion she could ever have wished for, the complete opposite of the last horse Elizabeth had purchased. That one, named Temper and stubborn as a mule, had been a complete disaster. Elizabeth had never seen a horse, and she knew her lot about horses, as mean and obstinate as he—his owner had probably been insanely happy to get rid of him and pass him on to her—and so had been overwhelmingly pleased when Duke came along, with whom the connection between mount and rider had been instantaneous.
Duke was always calm and patient, curious and eager to learn, and incredibly smart. Aiming to stay true to his title, he had a classy, natural bearing in his stride, holding his head up high and flexing his paws with grace no matter if he was walking across a stream or galloping across a hill. Elizabeth liked his company very much. At least she had someone to talk to. Not that she didn’t like travelling alone but when she spent weeks trekking in the solitude of forest trails and brambles, having a noble steed to converse with helped her keep her sanity. Elizabeth also knew that Duke liked her, too. He was constantly nuzzling against her, keeping her warm and protecting her. Once he even snatched her arm so she wouldn’t step into a hunter’s trap.
Elizabeth trusted Duke with her life.
“Well, looks like we’ll both enjoy a nice hot meal tonight,” Elizabeth mused as she studied the panorama beneath the cloudless blue sky. Still separating her from the splendid city was the luxurious forest she and Duke had been traveling across for the past couple of days. Judging by the distance, she estimated that they could reach the city by nightfall if they made good pace.
Turning around, she walked over to where Duke was grazing. Crouching beside her backpack, she fumbled inside it to retrieve an apple. Duke’s head spun up. “Huh-huh,” Elizabeth warned him. “You ate yours this morning. This one’s mine.”
Taking a mouthful bite in the fruit, Elizabeth swung her backpack on her shoulders and holstered herself up into the saddle, taking hold of the reins with her free hand. “Come on. We’re only half a day away from a bath and a warm bed.”
Duke perked his ears forward and resumed to a walk, heading back to the trail they had left behind about a half hour ago to take a lunch break and admire the scenery.
Elizabeth could tell by the condition of the trails that they were not often traveled on. Although they were wide and still viable, many brambles had taken roots everywhere, rocks had fallen in the way from sideway steep slopes just like tree branches and even whole trunks on a few occasions. Many a time Elizabeth had had to go by foot, leading Duke behind her, to improvise them a trail because the original one had deteriorated to a state of non-existence. She took hope that the one they were currently treading on would soon show a certain degree of popularity. They were traveling toward the city so it was only logical to assume that the closer they got to it, the more official the trails would become.
Elizabeth was also glad for the clear blue sky above her head, which made the wood trip easier. With the sun, she knew exactly where she was going; all she had to do was keep heading east where Basra was. If the sky had been covered with thick grey clouds, veiling up the sun, it would have taken her much longer to collect her bearings and pick the right trails.
Elizabeth leaned forward in the saddle to duck under a low pine branch. Once she and Duke were down the mountain and into flat ground and once the trails widened and cleared, they would be able to pick up the speed. Elizabeth couldn’t wait to get a bath. She had been on the road for two weeks and her two shirts desperately needed to be properly washed with soap and not just stream waters, not to mention how hot the summer season was. She couldn’t wait to sleep in a bed, too, for a change. She had enough money to rent a room at the local inn.
Elizabeth took one last bite of her apple and gave the heart to Duke who happily chewed it down and neighed, showing his front teeth in appreciation. Elizabeth found it funny whenever he did that, as if he were literally grinning at her. Smiling back at him, she let the reins rest on Duke’s withers and gathered her long curls up to tie them into a bun to let the base of her neck enjoy the small breeze blowing through the trees.
There was only one thing that worried her about getting to Basra. Duke. She had bought, sold and traded many horses during her travels but Duke was one she was not willing to part with. She didn’t know why exactly but she just couldn’t give him away. She couldn’t fathom passing him on to somebody else. In the past two weeks, Duke had become her horse. The feeling totally baffled Elizabeth because she had never before developed such an attachment to anything. Ever since she ran away from Amberdale, she traveled light, with only what she needed. She came and went, meeting new people, making friends that eventually became like family to her; she spent months with them but then one day she just took off again, heading somewhere else. The people didn’t understand why she chose to leave them and Elizabeth hated it when they harassed her with questions, because it appeared she herself didn’t have the answers. She just couldn’t stay put. Even if she came to love the people she met like family, she just needed to keep on traveling.
Elizabeth believed that maybe she was looking for something. What, she didn’t know, but she figured that when she found it she would know, and maybe then she wouldn’t feel that insatiable need to constantly be on the road.
The trail before her suddenly split into a fork. Squinting as she glanced up at the sun through the green leaves, Elizabeth picked the left one, the one she estimated would head east. After a couple of minutes, when the path was finally wide enough and seemed like it would stay that way, she heeled Duke into a gallop. Ears twitching sideways, Duke took off without hesitation, happy to stretch his paws in their comfortable graceful strides. When she rode like the wind with Duke, the breeze on her face and the rhythmical thumps of his hooves on the forest ground as the trees flashed by in her peripheral vision, Elizabeth felt one with the world, completely free.
She decided that she wouldn’t part with Duke. When she reached Basra, she would rent a stall in the local stables for him and when she was done doing whatever it is she would do in the city, she would take him and they would travel somewhere else together. He was her horse, now. She wouldn’t leave him behind like the others. She just hoped she had enough money to buy some food and rent both a room at the inn for herself and a stall for him.
As Elizabeth lost herself deep in thoughts, Duke abruptly dug his hooves in the ground and skidded to an unexpected halt. It was so sudden that Elizabeth was almost thrown off over his head.
A rush of adrenaline immediately spread in her veins. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” she asked alarmingly as Duke stomped and bobbed his head frenetically.
Elizabeth let him back away a couple of steps but tried to keep him steady as she surveyed the nearby woods to check if there wasn’t any threat lurking about. Horses were always spooked for a reason. Elizabeth knew it could as easily be a silly butterfly that had scared Duke as it could be something truly dangerous, but before she could spot the cause of his sudden distress Duke suddenly reared and roughly backed away once more, snorting in fright. Elizabeth tried to sooth him down but when he wildly reared up again, the jerk was so strong and sharp that she lost her balance. Elizabeth fell off the saddle with a yelp and hit the ground with a heavy thud. When she regained her senses she saw Duke gallop away down the trail they had come from as if the devil himself was chasing him.
Spitting out dirt and grunting as she tried to get her wind back, Elizabeth shot to her feet and ran after him. “Duke!”
But he was gone. The thumping of his hooves on the trail fainted in the forest until everything in the woods seemed to become deadly still.
In the sudden oppressing silence, Elizabeth yelled his name again, cupping her hands to the sides of her mouth. “Duke!”
Her own voice reverberated back to her.
Elizabeth now remembered why she never let herself get attached to anything in her travels: because it would most likely be taken away from her. Just like Duke. Spooked as he was, he was probably already a good distance away by now. She could track him but who knew how long that was going to take.
Elizabeth sighed heavily and brushed debris of dirt off her white shirt. So much for a warm bed and a hot meal. She glanced up the trail that lead to Basra, wondering how long it would take for her to reach the city by foot, and then glanced back down the road where Duke had raced off.
It didn’t matter how long it took. He was her horse. She would track him and get him back.
Looking around as she wondered what on earth had scared him so badly seeing as he was always so calm all the time, Elizabeth straightened the straps of her pack and began walking down the trail after Duke. Horses ran away from danger, not into it.
As an acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils, Elizabeth stopped dead in her tracks. Something was burning. Something was burning and it couldn’t be a simple campfire because Duke knew what that was. It was something else, something bigger. She turned around, straining her ears. It was faint but she heard it: the spits and crackles of a roaring fire.
In a flash, Elizabeth broke into a run down the trail, following the sound of hissing flames and the fetid scent of smoke. Within minutes she emerged into the back of a clearing where a small two stories house was being consumed by a blazing inferno. The whitewashed walls were still intact but the stray roof was roasting like a pyre. Flames were searing through the windows like powerful tentacles trying to escape the confines of the walls. The fire looked alive, as if a wild, fiery monster from the underworld itself was eating the house from the inside.
Seeing no one nearby, Elizabeth ran toward the building and shouted as she searched for the door. “Is anyone in there!”
When she located the main door in the center of a fenced front yard on the other side, the only answer she got was an angry burst of flames from a nearby window. She ducked down to avoid being grilled. When she came back up, she wondered how long the whitewashed walls would last. Surveying the forest close by, she quickly verified if the flames could spread to the trees and was relieved to see they couldn’t. Racing around the building to the left, animal pens attached to the house’s wall caught her eyes. With the fences half crashed down and beginning to catch flame, chickens were going wild and running for their lives. Someone obviously lived here but was nowhere in sight. Elizabeth hoped they weren’t trapped inside.
She called again as loud as she could over the rumbling inferno of destructive flames. “Can anybody hear me!”
Still, she got no answer. The fire was too big. The windows were consumed by hungry flames that hissed angrily and Elizabeth knew if she opened the door she would only give the fire more air to feed on and then be roasted alive in a blast. But she couldn’t enter through the windows either.
As she debated what to do, over the spits and roars of the blaze, she heard a series of coughs from the window to her left. Someone was inside.
Elizabeth twisted her pack off and threw it on the ground. Fire tentacles tried to snatch her as she raced around the building again, searching for an opening she might have missed. Eyes darting around hurriedly, she suddenly halted as she noticed the shutter doors next to the pens. As they were most likely leading under the building, she hoped the fire hadn’t reached the deepest floor yet. Chickens cackled in terror and wildly flapped their wings as she ran past them. Yanking one of the shutters open by its round iron handle, Elizabeth waved her hands through the gust of smoke that puffed out. Without losing a second, she ran down the stairs two by two.
A heavy cloud of smoke clogged the whole basement. Even with her sleeve pulled over her nose and mouth, Elizabeth had trouble breathing and seeing where she was going. After a few steps, she found the ladder heading to the main floor. Holding her breath, she quickly climbed the bars and pushed against the trap door with a grunt to get it open. When it gave way, she squeezed herself through and winced at the burning heat of the flames that crashed all around her once she was inside the house. Elizabeth felt like she was thrown into the infernal pit of the underworld itself. All she could see was fire. Roaring, tantalizing flames curled and coiled everywhere, like blazing, wavering prison bars.
Squinting and coughing against the scorching heat and the smoke, she called out. “Is someone there!”
Elizabeth heard the faint groan of a man to her right. Wheeling around, she saw his legs sticking out from under a massive bookcase that had collapsed and pinned him to the floor. Elizabeth rushed to him, circling behind the big piece of furniture. The man was barely conscious.
“Hey! Stay with me! You’re going to be alright! I’ll get you out of here!” Elizabeth shouted over the bellows of the fire.
A beam above her head cracked. The second floor was about to give way. Elizabeth crouched down beside the man, sliding her hands under the bookcase. When she felt like she got a good enough grip, she lifted the massive furniture with all her might. Grunting with the insane effort and the lack of air to nourish her muscles, Elizabeth knew she had to flip the thing over because the man would never be able to crawl out from under it on his own. The bookcase weighed a ton. Adrenaline was the only thing working in Elizabeth’s body as she strained and groaned against the crushing weight she tried to lift. With no air left in her lungs and her arms burning both from the physical endeavor and the flames, the bookcase finally flipped over and crashed to the floor.
When Elizabeth turned to the man, he was coughing his life out of himself. The beam above their heads cracked again. It wouldn’t last much longer. Elizabeth hastily reached down for the man, draping his right arm over her shoulders as she wrapped her left arm around his waist and pulled him up as best as she could. Though the man seemed to daze in and out of consciousness, he supported himself enough for Elizabeth to guide him through the flames. But she knew she would never be able to get him down the ladder leading to the basement. He would break his neck in the descent. And they couldn’t escape through the door either. If they did, they would be roasted alive.
Squinting amidst the heat of the hissing flames that danced like lethal snakes everywhere around them, Elizabeth saw a heavy blanket bunched on the ground where the man had been trapped under the bookcase. She turned to the dizzy owner of the burning house.
“Hang on!” She reached for the blanket with her right hand. Quickly, as the weak man wobbled on his feet, she wrapped it securely around the both of them, careful to cover their heads.
As a loud cracking sound of splintering wood planks rumbled above their heads, Elizabeth glanced around to locate the door which was now their only way out. It was to their left, a couple of feet away. Elizabeth went for it, guiding the half-conscious man through the vociferous firestorm as the second floor gave way with a deafening roar of breaking wood beams.
Wrapped in the blanket, Elizabeth and the man crashed through the door and out into the front yard. Like a wild animal trapped in a cage, the blazing inferno exploded around them as the fire fed on the strong, newfound gust of air coming in from the open door. The second story collapsed onto the main floor in a thundering crash of smoke, flames and splinters of wood and whitewash. Elizabeth and the man stumbled forward in the dirt, propelled by the force of the explosion.
As she landed flat on her stomach, Elizabeth quickly covered her head with her hands to protect herself from flying debris. She could hear walls collapsing and chips of woods drip-dropping everywhere around her like rain.
When the blast calmed down, she couched and groaned in pain from the hard fall. Twisting around, she stole a look at the remaining fire. Finally able to take on a free and unrestrained rate now that they were free of their cage, the tentacles of flames feasted on what was left of the house, clearly intent on consuming it all until there was nothing left but ashes.
Elizabeth checked on the man beside her, bundled in the blanket that had saved both of their lives. He was unconscious but he was breathing. Shifting her weight to her knees, Elizabeth flipped him over so he would lie on his back. Grabbing him under the shoulders, she dragged him away from the house lest other pieces of the building crumbled down, to a big old tree to the side of the clearing, not far from the trail leading to the forest.
Grunting from the effort and couching out the remnants of smoke that still clogged her lungs, Elizabeth slumped down next to the man after tucking the blankets to his sides and deeming him comfortable enough. She rubbed beads of sweat off her brow with the back of her hand and looked at the flaming house. Studying the way the fire was eating at the structure, she tried to estimate whether the main floor would survive its fervent bites or not. She came to the conclusion that with a little luck, part of the whitewashed walls might make it. But there would still be a lot of work needed to restore the house to its original state.
Elizabeth looked down at the man on the ground. With a clean-cut goatee, wearing a pair of dark brown trousers and a burgundy shirt laced in a v at the collar which had a rim of finely woven designs matching the ones on the cuffs of his sleeves, the man was in his early fifties. Strong-jawed and muscularly built, he had short dark hair with specks of white and grey in them.
Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel a mix of sadness and helplessness toward him. Although he was alive and well, his house was an almost complete loss. He would have to go through an incredible amount of work to repair all the damages.
Bringing up her legs, Elizabeth rested her arms on her knees and watched the flames spit and hiss through the windows and the roof. Relieved that she and the man were both safe and sound, she watched, powerless, as his home was consumed by the lethal tentacles of the raging fire.
She had lost Duke today.
The man lying at her feet had lost his entire home.
