Darkness

• Lucy Menzies, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2013

His breaths rasped through the cold night air like sandpaper on metal, every moment they were getting shorter, each one threatening to end his life. It wasn't meant to be like this, he was going to have a family, a home, but then they came. It was vivid in his mind, the smoke and the screaming of his family behind him, crying out as the flames engulfed them and they faced their final moments. Now it was his turn, but not his time. He loved his life, and he fought to hold onto it, he didn't want to go, but the darkness was closing in. Mist billowing across his vision, distorting it, finishing it. He exhaled for the last time, and gave himself up to the darkness.