Short Story: Burning Embers: Part One
This short story has been entered in theSprout Short Story Competition
Part One:
The water looked deep and inviting. Although impartial to it, I wanted to cleanse myself thoroughly of the dirt and grime that had covered my body with the three days of constant travel I had put myself through.
“You’ll have to go somewhere else.” I called to my travel companion, Flint.
He chuckled darkly “Yeah, yeah, you women and your petty habits.”
He laughed, grabbing his rucksack and standing behind a tree. I still wasn’t satisfied. He looked around after two minutes of silence “What? This isn’t good enough?” he asked, gesturing to where he was standing.
“How do I know you won’t sneak a peek?” I accused waving my flannel in his direction, he laughed once.
“Oh please, Ember, what is there to see?” He said smoothly turning around again. I blazed red with embarrassment and anger but continued cautiously towards to river beside our, sort-off, camp. It took me a few minutes to even attempt entering the water, but after a while I managed a good five minute wash. I dried myself proudly and called for Flint to come back from behind the tree when I was fully dressed.
“Geez, you’re worse than I am. How long did you even stay in the water?” he asked with his usual rude tone. I shrugged and laughed, I seemed to be the only one who could ‘get’ him. He knew this too, as well as vice versa for me. It was one of the reasons we could be such close friends, but it was also down to... the reason we we’re travelling together.
“It’s getting dark; we better set up and start a fire. We also need something to eat.” Flint stated, commanding instructions. I grabbed a heap of dry wood to be used as fire wood from the near-by trees and also rummaged through my back pack for a tin of baked beans.
“My stock is getting low, we’re either ‘gonna need to re-stock at a supermarket- or dip into your supply.” I mused, staring blankly at the tin.
“Tis’ fine, I got plenty.” he mumbled.
I knew all too well he wanted to avoid contact with the outer world as much as possible and nodded in that understanding. I watched as Flint gathered together the pieces of wood and blew fire onto them.
Yes, that’s right.
He blew fire onto them. With his mouth.
But I wasn’t surprised, because I could do it to. In fact, that was the reason we were travelling together, or you could call it running away. To be perfectly honest, we were freaks. What normal child can blow fire from her mouth? Ever since I found out Flint could do it to we decided to run away together, and ever since then we had become (sort-off) friends.
It had been the day when I witnessed him accidentally exhale fire that I realised I wasn’t the only one. Being previously abandoned and rejected by my parents for this curse I thought I must have been a one-off freak. In fact I counted myself lucky that my parents didn’t burn me like a witch or hand me over for experiments. They must have been too frightened to themselves.
Anyway, I had wanted to confront Flint, but as I walked over to him the pollen in the air made me sneeze... Of course I blew fire out in front of everybody right there and then, instantly turning the whole school against me. It turned out others had seen Flint too and we both had to run for our lives, in case anybody came looking for us.
The night was wild and rushed. We were screamed at and shouted at until we left the school, instinctively grabbing onto each other for support. Flint gave me direct instructions to pack a bag and meet him on the out-skirts of town. I did as he instructed, despite not knowing him at all and here we were today, wandering freaks.
“I wonder if anyone else can do it...” I wandered, pushing little stones around with a stick as Flint prepared dinners (Yes, the irony of our names never ceased to haunt me).
Flint looked up at me “Well of course.” He responded bluntly. I cocked my head to the side.
“What makes you so sure?” I asked cuttingly.
“We found each other in this massive world, surely there are more.” he said calmly “Most likely with fire related names.”
I laughed, he always had away to bring his dark sarcasm into the most serious of discussions.
“I hope they don’t find us. D’ya thinks they’ll come looking for us?” I asked seriously. Flint looked down but I saw him nod his head and I sighed.
“Wouldn’t you though? If you knew two dangerous monsters from your own town were rampaging throughout your forests, searching for a way out into the rest of the world!” Flint exclaimed.
This made me stand up with frustration, “But we’re not monsters!” I shouted down to him.
“You make it sound that way.” he mumbled, still messing around with the dinner.
“Sorry.” I mumbled also, sitting down.
“Here” he said handing me a pot of baked beans for a meal. I groaned as I knew I was far hungrier than this. “It’ll do.” he lectured, making up my mind for me.
“Let’s just escape this place as soon as possible.” I prompted. Flint picked around his food and grunted which I assumed was guy-language for OK.
When I woke up the next morning I saw Flint was already dressed and cleaned “Rise and shine Ember!” he called packing away his sleeping bag.
“Go away.” I called with a few other muffled words he probably couldn’t make out.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. I heard some hunters in the trees last night” he said darkly, smiling with his eyes closed.I shot my cover down from my face and glared at him.
“How can you laugh at a thing like that! We might be killed!” I screamed while he laughed again.
“You really worry way too much. Now clean up and let’s get moving.” he pressed, washing his face in the water. I did as instructed and went through my morning regime without a word, worried sick about the ‘hunters’.
“Now you’re properly dressed I’ll explain,” he began, “You see I simply heard men’s voices and some dogs barking, I didn’t want to wake you because I knew you’d freak out if you realised there was someone out there. They sounded as if they were simply hunting deer but I think they’ve been to one of our previous rest stops. They noticed a scorched rock, from when you lost your temper, and mentioned going back to report it to send out bigger search parties. Or so I heard.”
“That means- They’re probably out searching right now.” I whispered meekly, terrified.
“Ha! Come on; let’s get going, no point being scared about it.” he proclaimed bravely, braver than what he actually felt like.
“I know your scared too, but your right.” I said quietly, grabbing my stuff together and preparing to set off again.
When we were fully prepared to go we were both stopped by a sudden gun shot. Turning around, petrified, we both saw a woman holding a shotgun, smiling broadly in the opening by some trees. Her voice boomed out proudly in a sweet ‘Okie’ accent across out paralyzed bodies.
“Well I’ll be damned. I’ve found me a pair of dragon-childs!”
A single crow flew out from the tallest redwood in the forest cawing as it left, the chilly breeze caressing the three of us in that forest. We stood, immobilised with fear as the women pointed her loaded shot gun in our direction...
Burning Embers: Part Two
Burning Embers: Part Three
1 Comment – Post a comment
Dan (Sub-Editor)
Commented 71 months ago - 18th July 2010 - 09:31am
Speaking of the short story competition, just wanted to let you all know that if you've submitted a story and it hasn't appeared yet *it will be up soon*!