Falling Skies

Fourty One

"In my dream... I can't breathe, like the room is full of smoke from a fire..."

"December! December, wake up!"

December's eyes open frantically, nails dragging across his chest as he awakens to a world of black. His eyes open and close repeatedly, hand rubbing against each eye as he attempts to see through the suffocating darkness, to distinguish reality from the back of his own bewildered eyelids.

"December!" The voice calls again between frantic coughs, a hand wrapping around December's shirt collar with a rough shake. "Get up! Now!"

With each pounding shake of the collar he slowly awakens, mind coming too as the smoke of the room floods the back of his throat, sticking to each lung as he coughs against its restraints. The entire room is blanketed in a fog-like smoke, the scent of a campfire heavy in the air, a crackling sound drifting into the room from somewhere too far off.

Ryder falls into focus, dark eyes wild as he grips his cousin tighter, pulling December's body from the bed in one swift sweep. He's stronger than he appears, December's body tumbling from the force of his pull as he grasps his cousin's hand in his own.

Ryder leaves him no time to think, no time to breathe or steady himself against his surroundings as he drags him to the corridor drowning in smoke. They don't speak, only that eerie crackle filling the air as they run through the stone corridor no longer chill against their bare feet. Rather a burning heat striking their soles as they rush down spiraling staircases and past heated gemstones, breaking into the night air with heaving breaths.

Every gasp burns as smoke crawls into December's mouth, breaking its way through dried lips and forcing its way down his throat as he gags against the air. Sweat plasters December's body, chest heaving as he finally pulls his hands from their place on his knees, body straightening as he turns back to the castle behind them.

The pristine castle, standing as it was before, not a scratch or a burn to be seen.

It's the Earth that burns. The Earth being devoured in the flames, drowning in the ash that falls from the starless sky. Puffs of hot and cursed snow that coats their night shirts, burying itself in Ryder's pitch black hair and accumulating on December's lashes. The smoke draws thicker here, a sticky fog that lies stagnant in the air though the sight it tries so hard to shield still remains.

The sight of red and oranges blending together against the black of a starless sky. A vision of destruction that licks at the back of their sweat drenched necks and smothers them with the overwhelming odor of burnt wood. The scent clings to their skin just as it had that day, when the heat of the flames joined with the scent of blood and burning flesh. When the white bled into black, and a world of bright lights shattered into a world alit by flames.

The day that Heaven was stripped away and the Hell it concealed all along clawed it's way to the surface, released by the cleansing flames that ultimately set them free.

"December-" Ryder's broken off by a fit of coughing, black shirt pulled over his nose though it does nothing to filter the smoke and flames. "Grab my hand! It's coming from over there."

Ryder's hand clasps his own, the touch he swore to himself he would never forget again. Now that touch digs it's way into his flesh and crawls it's way into his mind. The sight of his cousin wide eyed and determined, a strength he never knew he had, burning itself into his memories like the flames that swirl around them.

With their hands clutched tightly, Ryder sets off towards the source of the flames with December in tow. Their hearts beating rapidly against the pressure of the smoke though they force their bodies to continue. To run past the bright world that's now gone black, to run under the blood red moon shielded by black clouds. The same moon that's guided them so many times now blinded by smoke.