Scorched

     I watched the city burn.

     My life and dreams and future were like ashes blown away.

     I was safe they told me. I was safe and my brother was safe and I was protected by the people who ended up deserting me. I was gone.

     I waited in this glass high-rise that it’s only purpose now was to watch as the city burned to ash. Was this the World War Three that people spoke about for so long but never really believed in? I knew the city all around me was burning, so that meant the building I was in wouldn’t last very long either. I walked away from the window and laid down on my bed. The room was sweltering because of the lack of air conditioning, but still I covered myself in blankets like I always did at bedtime. All I could do at that moment was wait for that moment when I see Jesus face to face. I closed my eyes and surprisingly went to sleep. I was jolted by a wave of air out of my bed and into, the air? Surely not. I saw no reds and yellows and greys of fire and smoke. Only black. And that’s not just it. The air felt chill. I was falling? Why wasn’t I hitting the ground? Was I in Hell?

     Stop it, Delilah. This sounds too cliché.

     But I was. I was falling.

     “Excuse me, Ma’am,” A voice spoke in my ear.

     I panicked for a second before I fell to the ground. I landed right on my face. I put my hands flat on the ground close to my face to be able to lift up my head and chest but not my legs. I couldn’t see anything. Not even the blackest of nights could have created this dark of a sky.

     But the voice I never heard again. Only silence.

     “Hello”

     The noise startled me once again, and I fell back onto my face.

     “It’s alright, Ma’am,” The voice was gravely, “let me help you up.”

      In that instant, I felt a hand touch my shirt as he pulled me with force up to my feet. My legs were week and bent when my feet touched the ground. But once again, the man, beast, monster, helped me up once more.

     “Better put out that fire of yours,” the voice said.

     What fire?

     I looked down and raised my arms only to find out that my own body was.

     “Delilah, how long can you possibly stand the pain of your own life? How long will you be afraid of what is all around you, Delilah. How long will you keep on playing over and over this useless game inside your head? Will you fight or will you just turn the other cheek and act like this isn’t happening until your body starts eating itself? And you still choose the path of denial? You can’t fight when it’s too late. You cant stand. You cant even end it, Delilah! Because in the end, you are the world’s! What more could you possibly do? Become like me?”

     I turned around and in circles, trying to follow his voice. Tears were swallowing up my face, and not even squelching the flameless fire that consumed my body. And in the distance, when the voice halted. A light shown in the figure of a man. A red light. A bright light with flames and fire and smoke and heat. His body and face appeared in the midst of it all. His eyes shown like black sapphires and his grin was so wide, it appeared to be touching his ears. But his sapphire eyes were slipping down his face past his wicked grin as his skin melted and dripped slowly off his face. His hair was sizzling as his mouth opened wide. In that moment, he let out a blood-curdling yell that felt like I myself was smoldering and melting away. I was yelling. I was enraged. I was stomping my feet and throwing my fists back and forth with my eyes tightly squeezed shut.

     This has to stop.

     The body that was melting away was standing in a boiling puddle of his own flesh and still, continuously crying aloud. “This isn’t over, Delilah.”

     His bones collapsed in his own flesh and the sound ceased.  

     I held my eyes closed for a few beats longer before slowly peeling them open.

     “Bad dream?” A voice spoke. “You were shaking this whole cottage!”

     My eyes were fixed on the straw roof above me.

     “Bad dream,” I whispered, not having a clue whether the mother of the house would hear.

     I stood up slowly and walked over to the mirror hanging on the wall.

     My hair was charred.