Dance of the Flame

Fire performance

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The flaming ball hurtled toward my head and hit me square in the eye knocking me unconscious. I adjusted my position in the bed and put my hand on my left eye and felt the soft bandage cloth. Dad assured me the doctor said my eyesight was fine, and that I was lucky. Two fire incidents in two days? I glanced at the clock and saw that I had been unconscious for just over two hours. They both agreed that I was just drunk, and today just happened to be one of those accidents, wrong place wrong time type thing.

I suddenly grasped the bandaged eye in agony as I felt a wild burning ignite inside my skull. Mum shouted for a nurse in a panic and one came rushing in, she tried to give me painkillers but I was writhing in too much pain to take them in tablet form. She pulled out a small needle and a tiny bottle, filled the syringe with some clear liquid and jabbed it into my arm, injecting every drop. She assured us it was a liquid painkiller, and that the pain I was feeling was the exposed nerve endings and it would soon go.

Dance of the Flame

I forced the ball of my hand into my socket but nothing helped this intense heat coursing its way into my skull and spreading down to my chest. My mother grabbed my hand, and once again the world turned to black. My eyes flitted open about an hour later, I had blacked out from the pain. My parents were stood outside the door conversing with a doctor.

It was clearer this time. I was absolutely certain it was the same face I saw before. Its hideous fleshy face was surrounded with a body of fire, humanoid in structure but without hands or feet. Instead, its legs and arms just ended in a sharp point of concentrated blaze. The face looked like a leather mask just hovering there, seemingly immune to the surrounding inferno. A pointed chin, a lipless snarl that quivered with the rage of the fire around it, seams ran tracks across the face as if it had been stitched together, but worst of all — the most terrifying feature was the eyes.

Angry in shape but when directed at me I felt like I was feeling the excruciating fear of a thousand tortured souls, as if I could feel the agony of each poor soul before me. It stared, flames raging around it. Then it lifted an arm and directed that fiery spear of an arm toward my very heart. I felt it as real as anything.

I felt the burning fury of the sun scorching my chest. That was the point I had blacked out. My parents were worried, I was avoiding anything that could be linked with fire as best I could. However, it was now Friday and I knew the fire alarm tests happen at work on Fridays. I watched the clock nervously as the seconds ticked closer to The burning, the glare, and the raw panic I felt were all very real. He told me to feel better soon and try to focus on work.

I glanced back at the clock at noticed it was now Oh God, it was broken, the safety mechanism that warns us of fire was broken. An official came to the office to inform us that the repairman was on his way. What if they broke it? I tried my best to compose myself and walked back to my desk.

See a Problem?

In that very moment I sat down, I heard someone curse loudly from the kitchen followed by a buzz of electricity. I jumped up and as I glanced toward the kitchen I could see the microwave had malfunctioned and a small fire had started in the kitchen. My worst nightmare had just been realised. I screamed for everyone to get out and raced to the fire exit running full speed into the push bar.

I ran full force into it and fell backwards. In the next moment, I awoke with one other work colleague who was desperately trying to haul me onto his shoulder. The flames raged around us, the rest of the staff had escaped through the main entrance, ignoring me in their haste. I staggered to my feet, an orange haze surrounding my vision. I coughed violently as I inhaled a large breath of smoke before pulling my shirt up over my mouth and nose. Sam pointed toward the exit and said something which was inaudible over the crackling and roaring of the flames.

The burn on my face was particularly tender when in close proximity to the curling tendrils of fire. It was then that it appeared again. Sam saw it too. The mask-type face emerged from flames, followed by the body before the two conjoined. Every step it took toward us left a smaller fire in its wake. Sam bellowed at me demanding to know what it was. It loomed closer, teasing us with a slow pace and staring intently at us.

Two more twisted up from the fiery footsteps either side of it, into magnificent columns of fire, contorting into the humanoid shape, and parting the flames to reveal the leathery face that conjured out of nowhere. Three of them, looming slowly toward us, they raised their pointed limbs slowly as they took each step, and we both clutched our chests in burning agony.

He kept his footing but was crippled due to the pain in his chest. As I began to move, one of the Dancers twisted back into the ground and appeared again behind me. I was hell-bent on survival at that point and continued toward the window. As I approached, I could see the fire engines outside. Sam collapsed behind me and fell unconscious. A powerful jet of water burst its way through the window and hit the Dancer closest to me. It let out a shrill cry and dissolved into a puff of smoke, no sign of the face.

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I glanced back toward the other two, and the third separated from out of the body of the one at the front. I screamed at them asking what they wanted from me, the snarls turned to disturbing smiles, and they all stopped, turning their gaze to Sam. Realising there was nothing I could do to save him, I jumped from the ground floor window onto the hard concrete outside.

An ambulance scooped me up and rushed me to hospital for the second time. I sat quaking in the hospital bed as the nurse checked me over. I deeply inhaled the oxygen being fed to me through the mask. I turned my head and asked the nurse about Sam. She seemed puzzled and asked who Sam was. I told her he was in there with me, she told me to wait a second and went out the room. She returned moments later with two police officers who sat down next to me. They wanted a statement from me so I nervously told them everything I knew about the fire.

Everything except the Dancers. My parents burst in the room at that moment, but held back from pouncing on me in relief due to the officers present. I asked about Sam. They gave me the same puzzled look the nurse did and informed me the building was completely empty of bodies, and nobody was reported injured. At first I thought Sam had made it out, I breathed a brief sigh of relief before an office began to ask questions about Sam. The officers thanked me for my time and walked out. My parents replaced the officers in the two seats by my side, and my dad joked about my affinity for fire.

I just gazed emptily at him. My mind rested on Sam. Maybe he just went home out of shock. He saw those things too. But he was unconscious, none of this is making any sense. I finally settled on one conclusion that drained all colour from me and turned me skin ice cold. My mum had that same look of panic on her face I had become accustomed to.

Dance of Flames

Mum asked me what was wrong. She was an aromatherapist, so she had suggested some treatment when we got home as something was causing me to see these weird creatures. I snapped at her about Sam being missing. Dad just looked at me, he had a good front but I could tell he was just as concerned. We all just sat there, motionless in awkward silence until a nurse came in and told me I was fine and could go home. My dad thanked her but neither me or my mum reacted.

Later that evening, I was furiously racking my brain trying to figure out what to do. As soon as I got close to the room I stopped in my tracks at what I could smell. Mum was going to try aromatherapy. I felt my sanity slipping from me.

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Her tearful eyes gripped my heart. I hated doing this to her. I walked up to her and hugged her whilst assuring her that I was just tired and that I should just go to bed. She just nodded and told me she loved me. That night may have been the worst night yet. I drifted off to sleep fairly easily, but there they were, in my dreams. Six of them, surrounding me. I screamed at them, demanding to know what they wanted from me. One stepped forward and stared me right in the eye. By this point I was fed up and I could feel the fear escaping me. Nonetheless, I tried to avoid those harrowing eyes but caught a glimpse as one of them moved to my right.

I thought the eyes were horrifying enough. Several voices emitted from it ranging from a high-pitched shriek to a demonic grumble. The words that followed re-ignited the fear that had briefly subsided.

In a slow, chilling tone, it spoke. The limb came up, just as before. I had to wake up. I screamed, I pinched and bit myself but nothing worked. I thrashed about but I could not get out of this reality. A raging fire storm build up around my heart and I bellowed as pain engulfed my every sense. Were they toying with me? My eyes opened and my bedroom light was on.

I was sweating and panting heavily. Mum was sat beside me crying. She begged me to go to a doctor. I tried to convince her it was just a bad dream, and that I knew how to help myself. She hesitantly nodded and questioned me about it.

I needed to go away for a bit, change of scene and clear my head. I agreed, and she left still sobbing. My heart was still pounding, and still felt hot. I belong to them? Tammy rated it really liked it May 21, Inka rated it really liked it Feb 11, Adonela rated it really liked it Jul 31, Sherry rated it it was amazing Dec 12, Beth rated it liked it Jul 26, FeliciaKaren rated it did not like it Oct 24, Jodi rated it it was amazing Oct 24, Lisa rated it it was amazing Aug 02, Krystalized rated it really liked it Nov 30, Catherine Wilkie rated it really liked it Sep 30, J marked it as to-read Mar 24, Barbara added it Oct 03, Retroredux added it Apr 26, WNHBooks marked it as to-read Jun 22, Susan Laine added it Aug 14, NorthernLightsGirl marked it as to-read Nov 12, Sandy added it Feb 03, Lisa marked it as to-read Apr 05, Caro marked it as to-read Apr 12, Sarah marked it as to-read May 19, Joeera marked it as to-read May 24, Wendy marked it as to-read Dec 19, Georgia Harper added it Jan 26, Morgan McGrath added it Aug 17, Dawn added it Sep 09, Erika M added it Sep 18, Darcy Stewart added it Nov 07, Whitney marked it as to-read Mar 28, Whitney Small marked it as to-read Apr 01, Nancy marked it as to-read May 13, SaturNalia added it Jul 18, Carrie Wilson marked it as to-read Aug 11, Krystal is currently reading it Nov 03, Alison Lamarche added it Nov 30, Vanessa Eden Patton marked it as to-read Jan 07, Paranormal Romance added it Feb 01, Steven West marked it as to-read Feb 17,

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