Inferno

• Ebony Mcnichol, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2018

Hearing the panicked snorting of horses, I surge forward, destroying everything in my path. Fences and walls won’t and can’t stop me. Using the sound, I creep from tree to tree getting ever closer to a fence line surrounding a small, wooden home. Spotting the homestead, I circle every side as flames lick the wood of the dry and feeble walls. Smelling the smoke and sensing the danger of my roaring flames, two dogs began to bark, backing away from my scorching heat. Finally jumping a fence not yet consumed by my body of fire, the dogs run to safety, even though there is no such thing as that innocent thought anymore, not with the whole of my world filled with my fire, my destruction.
Surrounding the house, I creep forward with my body made of flames and breath made of smoke, while embers fly as fast as small, red arrows toward the crumbling home. Feeling no human sympathy, for I am not human, I let my unexplainable rage fuel me, and I rush at the house. Hearing loud bangs and pops as windows and captive gases explode from my heat, I am partially satisfied. Reaching out a hand of fire, I touch a nearby tree, setting it quickly alight and smoldering to ash. My fire spreads while trees crackle and groan in my midst, burning into charred lumps of wood, all the while I am climbing higher and higher into the smoke clogged sky. Blasting through the crackling of my flames, a loud, horrendously loud, earsplitting noise reaches my hearing. Turing my head of orange flames, I watch a red machine park itself around 100 metres from my burning wall.
Reaching out hands of flame to a nearby tree, I set the leaves alight, throwing my head back and cackling like an evil witch, hungry for blood to be spilt. The tree quickly turns to ash. Still watching the little red machine, I noticed a long pipe like thing on its back, which was being unraveled by tiny humans in yellow uniforms. Suddenly, a fine mist of water shot from the pipe, trying to put out my gorgeous flames. Enraged at the feeble attempt to put me to rest, I seized the truck in my hands. Rage, destruction, destruction, rage are all that I think as the truck melts in my hands. Little men with small, worthless lives run away as I get closer, and in my moments rest, I watch them panic and call for help that may never come. Thinking only of consuming as much bush as I can in my flickering flames, I burn the dry grass near the melted truck, letting my embers fly through the air. Violent winds shape my flames as I lift my head again and cry out, “Do not fight me! I am unstoppable, I am all powerful, and you will pay with your lives if you try!” The wind howled, but I climbed higher and higher, my inferno burning brightly.