Night Fire

• Niamh Kerridge, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

Breath rasped in my throat like a saw as I sprinted through the trees. They waved their branches at me and leaves danced and floated to the forest floor like teardrops. Ash and smoke coated my face and made my eyes burn. The air was thick and heavy. Sweat made my hands sticky and I wiped my face with the back of my sleeve. A fire was coming. I could feel it.
What could I do? I was just a boy, eleven years old with a limp in one leg and only a rusty axe to defend myself.
I skidded to a halt and caught my breath. The sun was a blood red blotch on the horizon, drowning like a broken ship, and a slice of moon glimmered in the sky, casting no light and being engulfed by a ravenous blanket of black cloud.
Suddenly I saw it. A glimmer of red. A flash of death. It prowled through the trees, circling me, consuming trees and bracken as it went. I could hear the crackle of dying, hopeless plants as I turned and ran.
The fire chased me. I could feel flames licking my side and burning my face as I dodged trees which stood like solemn, brave soldiers awaiting destruction.
Bits of ash floated down past me, still burning scarlet. It was raining flames. I grit my teeth in anger. The fire was destroying the only place I had ever called home. Ben, a kind shepherd, had brought me in when I was only three, and cared for me up until now. With him gone, I was alone. Scared. Defenceless.
"Come here!" That was Ben's voice, I recognised it. His rusty tone, and the warmth in it, like a torch wavering in a dark hollow.
That must be him encouraging me on, leading me. I felt a surge of spirit and changed direction to head towards the voice. I remembered the black, surging river, the drop off, the hoarse scream, the surge of grief and hopelessness that would throb in my heart forever...
Ben was dead. That voice, it's not him, it couldn't be. I bit my lip as I realised where the noise was taking me. The roaring river, turbulent and merciless, tumbling over jagged rocks and spaying white foam into the air.
A hunched shape was beckoning to me, sitting on the other side of the river. I leapt, landing painfully onto the first rock, jumping the second one, landing on the third, regaining balance just in time, the jumping...
...to shore. I had made it. My legs trembled as I studied the man on the shore, his dark beard and twinkling blue eyes, his scruffy neck collar, a deep wound bound with reeds on his right arm, the same place a shepherd once hit his arm on a protruding rock in a river...
"Ben?" I whispered.