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“Come with me. You’ll die if you don’t!” he demands, his fingers a vice around my arm.
“Get off me!” I pant, trying to run into the flames, but his fingers skirt over my back as he wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me off my feet. I cry out in pain.
So.
Much.
Pain.
“Mama!” I scream as fire licks up the walls and over our heads, its heat overwhelming. I draw in a breath through my mouth only to choke on the fumes, on the heat that burns my throat and lungs. “Mama!”
“She’s gone. You can’t save her. Let me help you!” the boy shouts.
“I won’t leave her! I won’t!” My voice is hoarse, raw from screaming and shouting, from breathing in toxic fumes as my home burns down around us, as pain tries to take me under. My back feels like it’s been stripped raw, as though there’s no flesh or muscle, only bone. It hurts so bad I black out, then come to almost immediately. Adrenaline and the need to reach my mother overriding everything else.
“She’s already dead,” he cries.
“Lies!” I kick at the boy, furious at him.
“I could let you die! I should let you die!” he shouts, but despite his threat, he refuses to let me go. Instead, he lifts me off my feet, sweeps me up into his arms, and jumps through flames, running from the house.
Outside, cool air hits us both like a soothing mist. Fine droplets of rain from the storm that’s been brewing all day drizzles over us. But it isn’t enough.
I’m on fire, just like my home. Like my Mama.
I want to die.
Pain. So much pain.
My back is burning.
My lungs are burning.
Everything hurts.
Everything.
Hurts.
The boy runs with me in his arms across the grass and to the large pond that's situated at the bottom of our garden. He strides into the water, dunking my body under the surface.
I scream, my skin sizzling like a piece of bacon in a frying pan.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, adjusting me in his arms, but the movement just hurts me more.
“It hurts.”
“I know. I know. Just keep still. I’ll help you float.”
Black spots blur my vision and I blink them back, trying to stay awake as he cups the back of my head and holds me beneath my knees, careful not to touch my back this time. I don’t know how long he holds me like this because time slows to an agonising pace.
“Mama,” I whimper, my eyes dropping shut.
I’m dying.
I’m gonna be with my Mama.
I don’t fight it. I don’t fight as death’s fingers slide over my skin and I’m lifted out of the water and placed onto my stomach, the soft grass cushioning me.
