Living Pictures

• Lauren Thomson, Grade 6, St Mary's Anglican Girls School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

As I looked at the picture, I noticed that all the people in it looked scared, like they were running away from something; hiding, fearing for their lives. One girl in particular, looked like she had been knocked over. My eyes soon got sore from staring so long, so I blinked them a couple of times. When I stopped blinking and focused my eyes and mind back on the picture, there were no people in the picture at all!
That night, as I tried to get to sleep, I heard happy laughter. I shone my torch on the wall and was about to get out of bed when I saw a shadow
dancing on my wall. It was a girl, twirling around her long skirt, creating beautiful patterns on my wall. Her hair was in a neat bun, but that is all I saw, for I could only see her silhouette. There was also music playing, but before I could recognise it, the happy laughter faded into terrible shrieks and screams. Then the shadows turned into moving
pictures. I then noticed that there was a volcano in the background, shooting out clouds of ash. I could finally see the girl’s face properly, but she did not look like the silhouette I saw earlier. Her dress was tattered, and her hair was not in a neat bun, but a bun with hair flying everywhere. She looked about sixteen years of age. The ground shook,
knocking tiles off the house roofs. Everyone was running from clouds of dust and ash. The clouds of ash stopped travelling just behind the girl.
That’s when the explosion happened. The ground started to shake again, knocking over the girl. A volcanic explosion. Someone was screaming something; a name. “Annabelle!” shouted a woman. “Mum!” shouted the girl. They ran together and then embraced each other as a third wave of dust and heat covered them. The picture on my wall disappeared to the sound of the doorbell. I climbed out of bed and went downstairs to answer the door. As I was walking down, I realised that there was only one place that survived two giant ash and heat waves in a volcanic eruption, but didn’t survive the third. The picture must have taken place in Pompeii, which meant that
the volcano I had seen was Mount Vesuvius! I answered the door. There were two figures there. That’s when I realised that it was Annabelle and her
mother.