Sacrifice

• Tess Mcwilliams, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2020

Flashes of violent blue cut across the abyss above. It’s accompanying rumblimbing echoes around me . A storm was close. Torrents of rain slashed the hollow. It only takes one vicious blow for the spark to catch. The howling encourages the spark to blossom. A vibrant dance of red and orange towering higher and higher. Their flickering tendrils reach out invitingly before snatching another in their dance.

Panic surges through me, pushing at the brim, demanding to come out. My house, my most loved companion moves swiftly. Pulling us from the hollow as the tendrils draw ever closer. We climb steadily through the haze, a panting breath struggling to be drawn from the dense air. I’m dragged by the neck, sharp claws sit me on the edge of the fence as the flames chase us. Her claws grasp the wood but not quick enough. We can’t fight fire. We can only outlast it. And I outlasted it through her sacrifice.

Time. Not noticed by them. But the unimaginable pain coursing through wood lasts too long. It has to stop. In great numbers they provide fuel to the rage. It skins them alive, and eats their beings to stay alive. They provide it with life by sacrificing their own. Futile human efforts help them, but not enough, not fast enough. By the time the visible enemy is gone, few of them are standing. But the ones who still stand side by side, feel what I feel. The burning sensation coursing from the bottom up. It’s starting. It’s continuing.

The pitter patter of falling rain falls over the blackened country. A natural answer to quench its thirst. To finally put a stop to the deep covered burning. To stop the torture, not slow it. Too much sacrifice has been made. The worst fires for twenty years demolishing the dry, crippling areas affected by drought. The human families running, crying, mourning over loved ones who were lost, just as I have, just as I am. A small fire at Crestwood blossoming into pandemonium. But that is only the beginning. We always are. There is never only us. The wildlife trying to save each other, the trees burning trying to stand together. And still we suffer. Still, the world suffers.

I watch as the blackened lump burns, smell the acrid burning of flesh as I sit helpless, waiting for salvation. Waiting for her to come back. I call to her but I know she won’t respond. She can’t respond. But the dancers still rage on, asking for more. Her sacrifice wasn’t enough. They eat away the fence line, narrowing down to my post. I turn but am blocked. It reaches out and my screams go unheard in the night air. It courses through my veins. I smell my own hair burning, no my flesh. I was being burnt alive. With no one to see. No one to hear a little koala joey’s screams burning in the red hot glow. No one to watch the last koala burn. Do they care? I don’t think so. If they did, they would have acted sooner.