THE CHAMELEON AND THE TRACE OF LONGING | camilo madrigal

00. By the Doorstep

Prologue. By the Doorstep.

He felt how a large plank of wood fell on the floor as he scooped the baby up from the crib. The flames surrounding him in various sizes, but all burning all the same. The cries of the baby echoed throughout the burning room, and the man realized that he had two options he could make.

Either he stayed where he was and let the fire engulf both him and the baby, or he'd make a run for it, hoping that he'd be able to escape with minor burns and that none would come close to the crying child in his arms.

He knew that the answer was obvious.

With a strong grip on the child wrapped in cloth in his arms, he took off. The flames on the ground burning away the few strands of hair he had on his arms. An echoing scream of agony that came right from his arms made him realize that the flames had reached the one he swore to protect.

The fear of looking at the child and only seeing one part of the face present was something he was scared of seeing. So he wouldn't dare look at them as he rushed down the stairs. Each step breaking at every touch of his shoes, which almost made him fall through. He held onto the child for dear life, hoping no more flames would hurt them if he simply wished.

The flames hadn't gotten to the first floor yet, and the man's wife stood in the middle of the room with a tearstained face. Her arms were filled with ugly burn marks, her beautiful face full with ash and her long black locks dishevelled from the hysteria of a burning house.

He quickly rushed towards her with the child still in his arms, "... is safe, amor."

"Oh, dios mío, mi pequeño!" she exclaimed and put a hand on the baby's cheek as it cried out in pain. A wound was beginning to appear on the cheek, and the man knew that this was the result of running through the fire from upstairs.

"We need to leave, now!" he yelled at his wife because of the sizzling sound of flames nearing them. Another part of the building fell from the ceiling, and the man knew that if they didn't leave soon they'd get killed. Either by being crushed by falling parts of their house, or by getting burned to death.

The woman quickly nodded towards her husband and took the man's hand in her own. He gripped it tightly, fearing that he'd lose her if he didn't do so. With the screams of their child continuously echoing through both their ears, they began to run through their burning house.

The flames from the second floor began appearing through the cracks of the ceiling, and the sound of their roof falling apart was a prominent thing for the two to remember. The opening of their door was getting closer by every step they were able to make.

They were almost there.

There was no reason for them to run after this.

They'd be free from the flames of their house, once and for all.

But before celebration was in order, a lit wooden torch crashed through the window close to the door. The woman's grip on the man's hand fell, and the explosion caused by the torch erupted through the first floor. The man and the woman felt themselves get pushed further away from one another, and the flames on the wooden floor formed almost exactly like a wall between the two.

"Nataliá!" the man yelled at the woman who'd gotten knocked down by the sudden explosion.

She quickly sat up from the floor with wobbly feet and watched as her husband began every way possible to get through the barrier of flames. Though it seemed like everytime he got close to getting through, the flames got bigger and pushed him back even further. But as she heard the cracks in the ceiling beginning to fall, she knew that this was it. There was no way for her to make it out alive alongside her husband and child. The only thing she could do was make sure that they'd live.