Dead Feeling

The End of the World

Flames roared out of the roof of the house, reaching to touch the moon that dangled over Niki's golden brown hair. He watched the firemen file out of his house one by one. Niki hugged his knees for a form of comfort until he saw the last fireman walk out empty handed.

He shoved past the Police Officers, Paramedics, and Firemen, bounding thru the broken front door of his home.

In the distance Niki could hear the authorities shouting at him,, but he ignore them. Niki covered his mouth with his elbow, coughing up smoke.

He made his way through the broken house to the dilapidated stairway. Fire rose up and caught ahold of his sleeve. He could feel the heat and patted his arm til it was out. He pushed his way up the steps til his leg fell through the last stair. He could feel the fire underneath him.

The broken wood in the step stabbed through his leg as he pulled and pulled his way out to no avail. Niki threw his head back and groaned, annoyed that he couldn't get his leg out.

Finally he decided to stop doing it the nice way and reached down to the wood. Niki pounded at the weak wood til it broke apart, tear a gash down his leg. When the wood finally broke in two Niki pulled his leg out and started down the hallway, entering the first room.

The butterflies he had strung up on the ceiling for his little sister were nowhere to be found, engulfed instead in the fire. Niki looked everywhere in the room, in and underneath her crib, behind her dresser, in the closest, even at the bottom of the window, but he found nothing.

Niki pushed toys and boxes out of his way and made it back into the hallway. Back down the hall to his right the fire frighters had just made their way up the stairs and looked at him in the face. The firemen began chasing him as he made his way to the end of the hall and into his parents room.

He made another quick sweep of the room, lookin in and under the bed. When the firemen got in the room Nikj shoved the bathroom door open, there was only one place they could be.

The blue shower curtain was now singed up nearly half way, black char lined the jagged bottom and golden embers still glowed at the ends.

When Niki touched the hot plastic it nearly crumbled under his fingertips. He shoved the curtain open.

Threw the dust and smoke of the haunted home Niki could barely see though he knew exactly what he was looking at.

Niki's vision began to blur as his throat stang as his eyes did. A heavy hand landed apon his shoulder and Niki fell to his knees.

There behind the curtain was the charred bodies of his mother and his three year old sister. Though her tears were dried Niki could tell, as he always had, that his sister was crying. In life, nor death could she ever hide her feelings from him.

Niki's mother's hair covered her face, her beautiful blonde hair now singed brown and burnt away.

The fireman began to pull at Niki, but he refused to move. He cursed the Gods above him, wondered why he left that night, simply to be mischievous. He thought it should have been him, to take him and his cursed body away, but there he sat, and there they lay instead.

Arms reached around him and picked him up, he could not stand on his own. He dropped his head to the black floor board, his mother's clothes still lay on the ground, she had just gotten home from work and was taking a shower. Sydney must have ran to her for help when the smoke seeped into her room.

They turned and began walking out of the house, but Niki heard something from the bathroom. It was his mother's voice, she was trying to say something.