Out of pitch-black darkness came a bursting rush of energy and a searing pain in my throat and arms. I felt a cough wheeze out of my throat like a roar. It hurt so bad my I couldn't blink. The strangling cough wasn't even the worst of it. My clothes were completely torn and barely dangled off my waist. Everything in the room, including my clothing, was shredded with black and gray debris and splashes of blood all over. All sorts of pain quickly forced itself from my throat and arms onto the rest of my body. My whole body would light-up at the rise of a fingertip.
After several attempts to wedge myself out from in between my parents, I couldn’t help but look to my left and stare at my mother’s beautiful white silky dress. She adorned them with roses whenever she could, no matter the color of the rose. She would usually wait for special days to put it on…, I don't think those flowers were meant to be covered in blood and ash.
I knew I shouldn’t...but I had to. I turned to my right to see my Dad sporting his usual business tuxedo. This one was jet black. His tuxedos were always expensive, but he would always justify their prices with a sense of pride and accomplishment through hard work. He always earned it, he’d say. It’s gray now though. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s hard to see through this smoke anyway.
This was it, I couldn’t move. I wonder how long it would take for the flames to get to me. Or would I choke on the smoke first? The door I once came through is blocked by shredded wooden beams and tall walls of thick metallic wire. This bed is all this room has left to burn. I could hardly even see the walls with all the smoke coming in.
I never thought I’d find dying so easy. Or maybe it wasn’t. I found myself having two conversations at the same time, whispering to my mother and father in short bursts, too fast to even process what I was saying. Every now and then I would catch a glimpse of the conversation but it was usually the same thing. Something about roses, something about my father's tuxedo, something about me. All this, while thinking about death and how at fourteen my life is over. I guess it wasn’t so bad. My mom taught me more than any fourteen-year-old should know and my Dad taught me how to use my words to reach the worst of people. We're also rich. I know people who’d hate us just for that. Yeah. Life was short but not bad. Maybe I had more than I should of in life and didn’t share enough. Maybe those people were angrier than I thought. It doesn’t matter though, they were wrong. This was my loving family. Just this. “Being with them as my last memory...maybe that's not so bad,” I whispered to myself as I closed my eyes once again.
It was just seconds after I closed my eyes that I woke-up again. Only this time, the bedroom was a madhouse of loud noises. I could hear wooden beams snapping in half, floorboards creaking and shattering violently, and loud crackling from every surface of my house. The room was dark when I first entered and now... now it's lit up a vibrant orange. Flames endlessly reached in and out from the many cracks within the walls, growing larger and louder with each entrance and exit. My hands began moving on there own, not to save my own life, but to somehow save theirs.
Every time I blinked, something was worse. I saw the roaring fires reach out towards the bed as if they had long winding arms and I shoved my parents further and further back onto the head of the bed every time. Despite the exploding pain, I just kept acting out on my own, even if there is no way out. As the fire took hold of the bed, the black smoke took a tighter grip onto my throat. Each breath of fresh air I took was smaller and smaller until I could hardly wheeze anymore. First I stopped hearing, then I stopped seeing, and finally...I couldn’t move.
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Again! Again, I woke-up. In and out, I can't take it. This time I awoke to a sound of a thunderous slam of a door. How though? The door I knew had been crushed, broken, and burned. Now it’s somehow back. In fact, the entire room was somehow back to normal. Even my pain was gone. It was as if I blinked and the world fell quiet. Again, the door slammed with the force of a giant. I shut my eyes tightly every time it did. The sound was unnaturally loud, like an ongoing exploding firecracker. “How was it not breaking? What’s happening?” I mumbled to myself aloud. Each time the door would close it was accompanied by a powerful cold gust of wind.
Nothing makes sense anymore. I would blink and when I would open my eyes more stuff from the room would be put right back into its place. I looked to my immediate left; picture frames were untouched. I looked to my right; all the woodwork, bedding, even the hot tea my mom would always have bedside was there. Just like that, no fire, no destruction.
Everything had strangely been put back to its original position...even my parents were gone. Everything was... strangely normal. That is until my blinks began to make the windows disappear one by one until even the door vanished. Like a ghostly light, only the moonlight remained, piercing through the walls as if they were made of glass. Nothing making sense again.
"No, no, no, did I do it? I died?" I couldn't help but panic aloud. Without the pain to hold me back, I sat up immediately and began to scan the room for any signs of fire, dirt, or even blood. I found nothing. Everything appeared safe. “Mom? Dad?” I called out hopeful. No one answered. No door, no fire, no smoke, just me, and my parent's bed.
I didn’t feel afraid, angry, or panicked anymore, curiosity was all I had. Maybe the whole fire was a dream. Maybe everything is okay. I lowered my left foot to the wooden floor below as if testing the water in a pool. Right before my foot even touched the ground I felt a very familiar sensation. The air was hot. In fact, it was burning even; just as hot as it was before, only the burning was somehow contained. The room itself felt somewhere between cold and room temperature. I didn't know what to think. I reeled my foot back just as fast as I put it down. I felt a painful burn at the heel of my foot form instantly. If I dropped my foot any further down, I'd probably be cooking it. What kind of dream is this?
My emotions soon returned one by one, everything much stronger than it had been before. I held onto the bottom of my foot, lost in some kind of panicked thought. The pain is here, I could feel it with a gentle press of my finger but there are no marks. I fell back to the head of the bed, my back pressing onto the headboard in an attempt to touch something real. I had to be dead. It was the only explanation I could think of.
"God...where am I? Where are my parents? Why does everything still hurt!?" I blurted out. confused. Nothing. No response again except for the sound of my breathing in a room quieter than I thought could ever be possible.
I sat on the bed staring at mother's tea steaming. I couldn't tell if I was too scared to move or too curious too. Maybe a door would appear? Maybe my parents would. I don't know what kind of dead I am. I quickly became fixated on the missing door for some time, only to be interrupted by a loud drowned out cackle, like a hollowed laughter outside a window that wasn't there. This is definitively a voice! “God!?” I desperately called out. I sat-up straight in anticipation as if the sound electrocuted me. I listened for another cackle eagerly but the cackle was gone. Instead, a small cracking noise took its place. I scanned the room nervously; left, right, left, right. Nothing made sense again.
"God? I need you. My mom and dad are gone and I think I'm dead. I need you to take me to them." I sat and prayed again and again and again.
Finally, something started happening again. God finally heard me. I noticed the sound of something breaking and crunching echoed around me, this time from the front of the bed only shortly after I finished my last prayer. The cracking was coming from the large mirror that looked over the entire room. Something was on its way.