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Section one.

Waking, he could see soft beams of light shining through the various gaps in his shack. The heat that’d struck him in his strangely intact dream was nowhere to be found, although he did feel groggy. Only, the heat was completely absent. The floor was chilled. Usually, the flame would offer some sort of heat on mornings like these.

Rolling over, he saw that the flame wasn’t there. Both were gone. Though he was irritated, he felt that he’d other things to worry about. Pondering something silently as he inspected the remnants of the flame, he got up and lifted his door. He felt dirty as he’d sweated through his sleep.

He didn’t pay much mind to the scenery. As he tuned out the tweeting of birds, the grass he trampled on seemed dejected, their dances in the wind going unnoticed.

After walking for a while, the sound of his soles firmly crushing grass morphed into a crunching; the sound of sediment. He reached the edge of the pond. By now, the beauty of nature was finally enough to overwhelm him. Worms squirmed away from his feet as he walked, pill bugs rolled away slowly, frightened by the giant that had arrived.

Leaves blew in every direction, old and new, winding and cradling in the air as they fell to a rest onto the pond’s surface. They made for a serene decor. The sun’s scant shower of the light, impeded by the clouds above reflected seamlessly off of the pond, producing a soft glow. Birds made their home in the trees surrounding, a concert of chirps sounding every now and then.

Predators prowled high above and below; the circle of life was truly beautiful. The boy could no longer keep a straight face, a smile blossoming in the mesmerizing beauty of his surroundings.

Shaking his head free of his wonder, he squatted down and began to sift through the sediment. He managed to find only pebbles, insects scurrying away once freed from their tunnels. His expression was staunch as he searched, the sun already over his head by the time he’d finished. As it warmed the back of his neck, his sweat mixed in with the pond water that drenched his clothes.

Finally, by his side lay a pile of rocks that resembled the ones he preferred the most. Setting them aside, he quickly leapt into the pond for a wash, unbothered to take his clothes off. Curious fish grazed his legs, unafraid of the newcomer. He played with them, even picking a few insects off of the shore to feed to them.

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The sun had almost met with the tip of the cliff once he finished. It was getting late. It seemed that he’d taken a while looking for what he wanted.

Swimming to shore, he grabbed the handful of rocks he’d left earlier and made his way home. Although his clothes were wet, the temperature wasn’t so that they wouldn’t dry in time. Besides, he felt that a cold night was easier to endure than a dirty one.

Giving the grass he tread on a slight drizzle, he noticed that he hadn’t checked on the biggest rock in the vicinity. Looking over toward the cliff-face, he figured that it would be a good area to test his findings. Passing the shack on the way, the cliff began to tower over him, obscuring the sun.

Taking one of his stones from the bundle in his hands, he wiped it on his shirt in order to dry it. His clothes were soaked. Relieved that cliffs couldn’t judge, he blew on the rock until at least the tip was as dry as it could be, placed it near the cliff face and took a deep breath.

Later, a scratch appeared on the surface, but at the cost of grinding down nearly half of the brittle rock in his hands. No sparks of any kind made an appearance. His posture slumped a bit before throwing the rock aside and moving on to the next. One of them could be the one he was looking for, so he kept trying.

The sky darkened further as many scratches accompanied the initial. His eyelids began to sag, growing tired from his toiling. He only had a few to go, and took out another rock to try. As he scratched the wall with it, something brightened his vision. His vision immediately sharpened, but he’d missed it.

His heartbeat accelerated as he wondered if he was just seeing things. He tried again, his hands slightly shaky. From the friction point, a short line of “flame” reflected in the boy’s eyes, shooting out before disappearing in an instant. He’d almost missed it again.

His eyes, wide with excitement, noticed that the piece in his hands was chipped. It seemed to chip rather easily, and was of a darker shade than the rest. He kept it in his hand as he tried the rest. There were only two, including the former, that had any effect. One as big as his palm, and one painfully small, the width of his pinky.

He didn’t feel that the stone wall had any special characteristics, and he already had a stone in his shack. Looking down at the stones on the ground for reference of what wasn’t effective, he made his way home. It was the dead of night, extremely silent, but he wasn’t afraid. He’d been outside in these conditions often. Closing the door, he began collecting remnants of the flame he had in the corner and placed them in the center inside the circle of rocks. He readied the materials he would need and crossed his legs. A long night of rattle began.

Bang! In his hands were two rocks, the jagged end of his fire poker, and the mysterious dark variant. As they banged against each other, they sometimes produced sparks, which he theorized could ignite the leaves and bark if done correctly. The hard part for him was getting the sparks to go in the right direction, along with enough to ignite. They were extremely small in diameter, and timely wind could easily blow them away.

He’d already accumulated numerous cuts on his fingers from hitting the two together. In the dark, his face was constantly illuminated by the sparks, a focused expression revealed as sweat dripped from his hair off of his chin. Juxtaposed to his chubby, childish face, it looked slightly eerie.

In a last-ditch effort, the boy figured he should put the material and rocks closer together, aiming the direction of the impact closer together, sometimes even scraping. This proved beneficial, as more sparks landed on the materials.

Eventually, one of the sparks had enough time to consume and grow, eventually no longer a spark. It grew into a flame, but it began to consume again. Quickly, the boy scrambled to the corners of the room and grabbed as much as he could, raining dried tree bark and leaves onto the flame before immediately falling asleep in the position he sat in.

Jagged, black rocks lay scattered around him, his lack of technique evident. A slightly bigger piece lay just shy of his hand, grinded down until only a thin layer remained.