City On Fire

13

Ella was still awake long after everyone had fallen asleep. It was freezing but Melissa had given her a blanket insisting she take it. She said that she couldn’t possibly but she again wouldn’t have it.

Now very grateful Ella sat wrapped in the thin grey blanket struggling to stay awake. She was exhausted but the last thing she wanted was to fall asleep. The last thing she had the strength for after a day like today was another bad night. She shoved her hands into her pockets and her fingers brushed over the rosary. Pulling it from of her pocket she held it in her palm debating the likelihood of a celestial being hearing the prayer of someone sitting in lonely back street. In the end she decided against it and put it back in her pocked before pulling the blanket up to her chin.

Despite her best efforts she eventually fell asleep and it was probably the worst it’s been in a while.

The nightmare started where it ended the last time. With her on the ground surrounded by dead bodies all looking at her only this time, she could see the aggressors. There were a group of men who carried riffles over their shoulders but as they walked past al the bodies each had a hand gun and they shot anything that looked like it could still get up and walk. When size eleven get to her he held the gun right between her eyes. Determined to get a good look at him she didn’t as much as flinch. The last thing she saw before he pulled the trigger was a missive scar on his neck and right arm and a sadistic smile. She shot up and looked around her but everyone was still asleep and everything dark and quiet, just as she had left it. Blinking rapidly she settled back down wiping away the one tear that had managed to make it to her cheek.

Every time she closed her eyes, even for a second, she saw that man’s face. Trying to steady her nerves she took one deep breath after another although it wasn’t working all that well. The thing about her kind of sleeping was that very often she fell asleep but didn’t fully realise it and then when the nightmares started, though she realises this couldn’t be real, she had trouble distinguishing between what was real and what was not.

Such was the case when she suddenly found herself in an old house which was falling apart. A layer of dust covered everything that wasn’t already destroyed and the leaves that had blowing in from open windows made it look all the more like a tornado had been through the place. It was pitch dark and Ella had to strain her eye to avoid walking into anything. Despite her best effort though she tripped over an overturned chair and ended up face down on the floor.

“Ouch.”

She was more sarcastic than actually wounded. As she got back up to her feet she saw a very faint light coming from behind the stairs. Using the railing of the staircase in front of her she made her way to the light source.

Just behind the staircase she found a door half open and inside a circular staircase leading down into an oval room which was lit by three candles but its most striking feature were the massive bookshelves lining the walls. In the middle of the room sat a man at a table. He was hunched over with one hand in his hair writing something. Ella stepped on to the first step but not an inch further. The last thing she wanted to do was disturb the man who she swore she heard crying. He was locked in grief and every now and again she saw him reaching for a bottle. The poor thing was distraught. She watched him down the last of the alcohol and insert what he had been writing into an envelope. The envelope in turn he placed on a small stack of books and bound everything with a black ribbon. A part of her felt guilty for intruding on the man’s anguish but she felt like she just couldn’t leave, not yet.

After staring at the package for a moment he pushed it to the side before bringing the empty bottle to his lips. Finding the bottle empty he threw it across the room and it shattered against the wall. Ella, already a little shaken from her sudden change in location, was startled by the sudden show of aggression but stood her ground. “You can’t go on like this.”

A second voice came from the corner of the room and as footsteps approached she could hear a dog start to growl. An elderly man with thinning white hair and a massive beard stood with his hands in his trousers pockets. Breathing heavily the man turned his eyes from the shattered bottle to his company and as he did the dog leaped from the shadows in front of him and stood ready to attack.

Ella hadn’t recognised the man or the house but she remembered the massive black dog and now understood the man’s anguish.

“How am I to go on then?”

The dog was foaming at the mouth and snarling violently but didn’t advance. It was calm again in an instant when its master rested a hand on its back.

“This is all I can do now.”

The old man, unfazed by the animal’s vicious behaviour mere moments ago, walked up to the both of them and leaned against the table.

“You, both of you, are trapped in this violent circle that will eventually consume you. You must stop.”

After stroking the dog’s head for a while the man went straight to the next bottle. Grabbing it by the neck he fell into one of the chairs by the unlit fireplace and removed the cork. The dog, in a similar mood, went and sat at his side resting it’s head on the man’s lap. “Are you really going to waste away down here?”

The dog pulled back its ears and growled when the old man spoke again but its master quickly calmed it by stroking one of its pointed ears.

“Of course not, I intend to find them. Perhaps I am not fated to destroy them but it will not be on the account of a lack of trying.”

To Ella’s shock the old man looked up the stairs and right at her, he could see her.

“I do believe their end is closer than you think.”