Oblivious To Reality

• Brydie Comiskey, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2015

I can never start, but to finish is a whole different story. The beginning complicates the ending. You may start with fire, but eventually, a fire will burn out into simple ash, smoke and impure nothing. You may start with ice, but ice will always melt, into pools of deep, disorientated, darkness.
We may start from two, but we will not end as two.

I watch as the bright, red ambers ignite the cole, black sky, creating sparkles of tempered smoke left to trail. The houses burn into sufficient nothing's and the people are scattered, dead, alive, and passing on the dirt trails around the swamp. Some bodies rest at the waters edge, others seem to have been given less opportunity, less time, to get away. I hear everything, and yet, I still hear nothing. The pained cries of women and children, the sweet whisper of wind through trees. The defying cracks and creaks of timber giving way, of walls caving, roofs crushing. The savoured crunch of leaves as deer trod carefully, dancing through the trees, the valleys, the overgrowth, scurrying in the opposing direction of the water, and of me, and of my burning village...

Reality has not condemned me just yet, I stand amidst the tall grasses, watching, with charcoaled fingers and bleeding knees. I don't know why I'm waiting. The time I consume is more precious than any amount of money or gold. There is nothing but death here, where the evil kill the innocent for unclaimed land. Yet soon enough, the fire will have burnt the land to ash anyway.

Armoured nightmares pierce the dusty alleyways. Even fire stays clear from their paths, shadowing behind them, fearfully, like a pup to its cruel owner. Faces are not to be seen, but the clinking of metal against metal and ripened, crimson blood on swords is enough for me to succumb to the inevitable. I cower. Amidst the tall grass and ankle deep waters I hide, slowly crawling, gently pushing reeds, careful to make no sudden, abnormal movements. Muddied water corrodes my mouth and somewhere along the way the water deepens. But just as water deepens, it must also shallow, and as I lift my shaken body up the trail that separates water from dirt, a fever of relief corrupts my system. For a split second I become overwhelmed with myself, almost proud. Until a hand grabs a fist full of my once golden hair.

I felt beady, grey eyes, burn blades into my face as I store into the shinny, mirrored plate of his armour where two pectorals would have meet below. I store deep Into the polished depths and saw a girl; she looked about 12 with vibrant, blue eyes and murky, blonde hair crusted with dry mud. Her face was stunned. Eyes wide, lips parted the slightest bit, tears brimming her lashes, and I realised, that that one dirty girl, was me.