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Burning Embers: Part Eight

Posted by archifCLICarchive from National - Published on 14/02/2011 at 11:25
2 comments » - Tagged as Creative Writing

  • Embers?

Burning Embers: Part Seven

I raised a trembling hand to my face. What? Had I heard her right? She grabbed my wrist and ragged me further down the tunnel, in resistance I tugged away from her. To my horror tears burned the back of my eyes and a lump rose in my throat. Burn? As in to death?! “I - I can’t...” I began to say but Brande’s intense stare stifled me.

“We’ve been over this. Believe me or die here, because I’m going ahead with this. If you don’t burn with the lot of them Ash will kill you because she can’t control you like the others.” Brande held her stare so intensely, like a stone statue in a graveyard hardened by sadness and grief. I closed my eyes. What had I done to deserve this? Why couldn’t I have been a normal teenager with normal problems? I sighed heavily as I felt Brande’s stare burn through me.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly. “Okay.” I repeated with more conviction. Steadying myself and trying to overcome the tidal wave of emotion searing within me I opened my eyes to face the dark reality that awaited me. “What have we got to do?”

The plan was, in my opinion, not fool-proof. It had so many flaws, so many loopholes. Brande had run me through it briefly, talked me over the basics and structure of how it worked. There was only one thing completely and utterly horrifically wrong with it. It involved killing them. All of them. Including Flint. It was later in the day by now; I had only barely managed to keep my cool through breakfast and dinner. The place was rigid; I could sense the lack of independence Ash’s clones had every time we were in the same room. Including Flint. I bit my lip deeply as thoughts racked my brain. I lay casually across my bed, alone and unaware of Flint’s whereabouts. Or anybody's whereabouts for that matter. All that mattered was that Brande had told me we had to take down this whole place, tonight. 

How were we going to do it? I misunderstood Brande the first time she told me the plan, if we were to literally set fire to the whole cave system it probably wouldn’t have much effect. Being a kid who could breathe fire generally meant you could stand temperatures higher than the normal human being. We also didn’t burn easily, let alone to death. No, Brande’s version of burning was quite the opposite but no less as painful. We were going to flood the caves. And believe me when I say if I was to get caught in a flood it would burn. It would definitely burn.

Time went on. I lay for hours rerunning what I already knew was definite. Looking for an escape, for a way out. Brande would arrive soon; she had been doing the hard work while I lay like a coward, hiding from the truth. I couldn’t let her kill Flint. I couldn’t. Every second felt like an hour as I waited for Brande to come and collect me. I would tell her we needed to take Flint with us when we escaped. He had been my friend ever since the first day we left and I wasn’t about to abandon him now. I tasted blood and realised I had bitten through my own lip through my growing anxiety; beads of sweat were collecting on my forehead. Where was everyone? As if she had heard the question Brande silently slipped into the room. Her face was tense. Tenser than usual.

"I have something to say about-" She cut me off. Her eyes widened by an inch which told me instinctively to be quiet. “I’ve done what I said I would but Ash has called a meeting.” She began her words clipped and cold. “She wants us all to meet in the hall. Now.” My eyes widened also, in dreaded fear.

In normal circumstances a meeting wouldn’t really bother me. But who knew how long the meeting would last, longer than ten minutes I would assume. And that was just about the amount of time we had to get out of here before the place filled with water.

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IMAGE: Plastic Fireball by Nomad Studios 

2 CommentsPost a comment

RoLouG

RoLouG

Commented 63 months ago - 14th February 2011 - 13:47pm

OMG I'm hooked! post more quickly! this is brilliant!

Tansi

Tansi

Commented 59 months ago - 23rd June 2011 - 13:56pm

Where is the next part Sambow?! I need more I tell you more!!!

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