When the lights went out
I know it's been eons since I last posted, but life gets in the way sometimes. [Read: I forgot about this page] Okay, I'm jumping back into the writing game with a bit of original fiction! This I wrote as an assignment for my English 1020 course last Spring). ^_^ I'm rather proud of it (and not just because it got me an 'A') and wanted to share it with others besides my professor and a few friends. Enjoy!
When the lights went out
She stood, a silent vigil set against the rising column of flames, the lone witness to the destructive glory. Interruptions to her solitude never crossed her mind as the nearest town was twenty miles away. It would be morning before anyone knew of what had happened here and by then the silent vigil would be over and its observer gone. The flames chewed their way up the sides of the building, crawling over the porch and climbing the old, rotted banisters that should have been replaced years ago by the matron whom preferred to be deep in her cups than spare the pennies for repairs, to eagerly lap at the rope holding up the sign bearing the building’s name and heritage. The sign fell to the steps of the porch and flipped out onto the grass close to her feet.
A quiet roar filled the air, nearly drowning out the desperate screams from inside. The screams causing a shiver to go down her spine and yet she did nothing. She gazed on, the light of the flames danced across her front, coloring her hair and dress orange-red while her long, straight tresses and the angle of her head cast her face into shadow. Regardless of her body’s reaction she didn’t hear the screams from the burning building; she was hearing other screams. The voice was younger, but no less frightened, no less pained. The smell of sulfur that enveloped her nose from the inferno before her was fused with the burning smell of another fire, a long ago fire. Her hand twitched as the memory seemed to play out against the flames before her eyes, as though shown from a projector onto a screen.
The fireplace, a bright flame raging in its belly, spread its merry light across the sitting room walls. A small, delicate figure sat, quietly, contemplating deeper and with more seriousness than a six year old girl should as her eyes gazed into the hypnotic dancing of the flames. She likely would have remained there, lost in her thoughts had the door to the sitting room not been thrown open with a mighty crash sending her skittering to her feet in terror. Her heart hammered in her chest like a hummingbird as she gazed into the red faced fury of the Matron whom swooped down upon her like an avenging demon to grab her by the arm, shouting at her about thieving. She was frozen, too terrified to blink, let alone protest her innocence. With a look of unholy glee the matron informed her that since she wanted to be a thief on a straight track to Hell, then by the Lord, she’d give her a taste of that Hell and thrust the small hand, attached to the arm she held, into the flames. The young screams and smell of burning flesh flooded throughout the room, out into the hall, and up the stairs where several other young faces peered down out of the shadows and into the room through the still open door.
The loud CRACK of the porch collapsing covered the last of the fading screams from inside the pyre and seemed to flip a switch in her memory and it was as though she were seeing another scene. A nine year old girl sat, curled into a ball on her bed staring out the window into the night sky, dreaming of being a bird and flying off into the darkness to freedom and safety. Her head turned as she heard the hall clock chime eleven times, a tremble starting in her limbs as she settled beneath the old, threadbare sheets that had been donated by some prosperous patron some ten years ago or so.
Her eyes were locked on the door to her cell-like room, waiting, praying, not tonight, not her, not tonight. Her heart felt as though it stopped when the heavy footsteps quietly padding down the hall stop before her door. The quiet ‘click’ of the lock and the door swings open, silently. He always kept the doors well oiled. It wouldn’t do for anyone to hear them open and close at night. His face became illuminated as he stepped into the moonlight pouring in from the window, a smile creeping across his face that made her want to scream in terror, to beg and plead with him. She lay tense and silent as he slowly closed the door and crept across the room. She knew better than to make a sound.
An almighty ROAR chased away her horror filled thoughts as the roof of the building collapsed in on its self, sending a thicker cloud of inky smoke up into the already dark sky where the smoke column had blotted out the stars overhead. She drew in a deep breath, the heat of the flames and the smell of smoke chasing away the horrors that played so predominantly in her minds’ eye. She never moved from her spot as the flames consumed the last of the building which had been the only home she’d ever known; barely blinking as the black, charred walls crumbled in, the roof no longer holding them in place.
Not until the flames had died to embers of red and the night breeze had begun to carry away the last of the thick, choking cloud did she so much as twitch. Her eyes dropped to the old board lying about 10 yards from her feet, the only remnant of the once prominent old building that had dominated the landscape that wasn’t black. She took a deep, shuddery breath, turned her back to the now decimated remains and walked away, leaving the sign on the grass to proclaim the identity of what had been there to the authorities that would arrive at sunrise, the billowing wisps of black smoke alerting them to the disaster. After all, she wouldn’t tell them.
At Saint Mary’s Orphanage, they never talked about the things that happened when the lights went out.