The Fire Within

• Maia Pricken, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2020

Well, it finally happened, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. A fire in the woods. Three friends dragging a body. Covered in blood.


My image was blurred. I couldn’t remember much back then but the lifeless body that lay in front of me is of something I can never unsee. That night began like any other, Me, Soph and Riley, us clueless teens out for another night of sneaking around our parents’ parent’s curfews and gulping down another one of those tablets that Soph got her hands on. Why did we do it? After countless PD lessons about “risk-taking”, we should have known better.

I couldn’t speak for the others but I guess somewhere inside me I knew where my change in behaviour came from. These past few months I had been feeling really down. Nothing out of the ordinary though, Mother’s bruises getting more intense, Jake hasn’t been seen for a while, Father’s drinking problem consuming every last crumb of his old, nurturing self. But nothing out of the ordinary, right?

***

The sun reflected off the rich greenery right into my eyes, awakening me. My head spinning, my heart beating out of my chest, I looked around only to see Riley and Soph laying beside me, on the blood beaten forest floor. I tried to gather my thoughts and make sense of why I was here, but my mind grasped nothing but vague images that I was too uncertain to determine their reality. In an instant we were all awake, looking around the vast bushland around us. Soph seemed to remember more than us, she was shaking and struggling to find words. I glanced down the clearing only to see the body. Suddenly distant memories flooded my mind.
“did we do that?” Riley whispered.

I was certain I wasn’t capable of doing something so terrible, but the effects of drugs bring nothing but uncertainty. Below us lay the lifeless body, perhaps female, or no maybe it was male, the dark cut out mask covering the identity of the body. But why did it have a mask on? Maybe it wasn't even us? Maybe we just found it!

Had we killed them, had we not, it wouldn’t change much. If we came forward all evidence would lead get led back to us. Father’s drinking would probably get worse and no one would believe us anyway. Now, all we need to do is get rid of any evidence that will lead back to us and go upon our day as it were any other.

There we were, Soph, Riley and I, the three innocent girls from Whinster High, bound together by a secret that will haunt us for the rest of our lives.


Well, it finally happened, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. A fire in the woods. Three friends dragging a body. Covered in blood.