We Let the World Burn

The world burned.

Flames reached, dancing, for the sky, gleefully engulfing the earth with a crackling cackle. It lit up the night sky like the sun. It lapped greedily at the breaking wood of the trees. It spat and poked its tongue.

This is another thing you have lost to me, it said. You will lose more.

Katja stood watching. Her small figure was hidden by darkness. She adjusted her gas mask. Katja could hear the engines coming now. The sirens were getting closer, fighting with the cackling fire. Each sound tried to consume the other. The screen Katja saw the world through was beginning to blacken, darkening at the edges, covering her world in a blanket of ash. She wiped it away with a clumsy, sweaty hand. The ash just streaked against the glass, but Katja could see well enough.

Katja looked down at the locket in her hand. A strangers’ smiling face, a child, stared back at her. There was a barely visible windmill in the corner, made distinctive by its broken rotor blades which were all bent at the wrong angles. She would have to find another way to get there. Her eyes lingered on the photo for a moment longer, watering from the sting of the atmosphere - the lense was cracked - until she finally looked away towards the approaching sirens.

The flashing lights were visible through the smog now.

Katja snapped the locket closed. She roped the silver chain around her neck, feeling the weight of the heart-shaped locket fall against her chest. It was cold against her warm skin.

The oxygen tank beside her squeaked on its wheels as she pulled it back into motion. She fell into a slow, purposeful walk, her steps crunching on the harsh earth.

Katja decided to backtrack into the city, despite the crush of traffic strangling her progress. She swallowed down bile as she made her way through the city. The squeak of her oxygen tank rattled behind her as she walked, sounding too loud as she passed silent strangers hidden behind their masks, heads down. They seemed to march past. Uncaring, unflinching. Their oxygen was strapped to their backs, or pushed on little noiseless trolleys. Some had the latest filters which hid most of their faces from view and left only a thin sliver through which they saw the world.

Katja’s mood soured further on the train to the edge of town, with everyone and their oxygen tanks packed in like sardines. She watched a small child holding its mother’s hand. The child stared blankly through its mask, swaying back and forth as the train continued. Like everyone else, the small child was wearing what appeared to be a thick raincoat. It might have been yellow at some point but was now smeared with grizzly greys and blacks to the extent that colour was a far-distant memory.

Katja looked away. She let her fingernails dig painfully into the palm of her hand, feeling her knuckles stretch her chafed skin, as she held ever tighter to the pole. Her mask felt too close. She fought the urge to rip it from her face, told herself that it was not suffocating her, that it was allowing her to breathe. Her chest tightened.

The doors opened and Katja let herself be jostled out onto the train platform. The platform was full of extra people, more people than Katja would have thought possible for this time of the night. Katja glanced, confused, at the noticeboard. The fire had spread, shutting down the entire west side of the city. Images of flickering orange and red were displayed on the screens. Large engines stood beside, crouched against the ferocity of the fire. The giant nozzles atop the engines sprayed gallons of precious water into the fire, trying desperately to contain and quell its fury and greed.

The workers were now scuttling eagerly back to their homes, flooding the train stations with their ill-fitting suits and stifling ties. Katja guessed that these people were glad for some extra time before the smothering heat of the day began and they had to go to sleep to hide from it. The thought came idly to her at first but as more people passed with their faces to their phones and their steps quick and eager, the thought sank its claws into her mind and gripped on with all its might. She shivered despite the heat.

Katja continued to be swept along by the tide of people rushing to get home until she was out of the suburbs. In mere hours she had started up the dark pathway to the small town to the west. She gave the fire a cursory glance as she continued on. The flames had raised high into the sky, rivalling the skyscrapers in the distance. It had formed a wall that was encroaching on the city limits like a tsunami. Reddened smoke filled the air with intoxicating fumes, dispersing through the atmosphere. From her new vantage point, she could not hear it. In its silence, the fire could almost be beautiful. It danced hauntingly through the night.

Katja turned away and continued on.

The blackened ground beneath her feet was still hot. The heat crept up through the soles of her shoes and seeped into her skin. The warmth of the air was growing hotter, making the air thick, making it stick in her throat, and crowding close to Katja's skin, leaving her breathless and soaked in sweat. It trickled down Katja's face. It pooled in her mask. Her oxygen tank squealed behind her as she went.

By the time the sun began to rise above the horizon, she could see the windmill in the distance. It was large, larger than the city's skyscrapers, and even with its bent blades it was still spinning. Katja could hear the turning blades before she reached its base. By the time she reached the base, she did not want to hear it any longer and she wanted to clamp her hands over her ears. The noise was thunderous and grating. The structure was blackened from smoke and ash.

Katja bent down to place the locket at the base of the windmill. She hoped that the townspeople would find it when they came to the surface again. She hesitated to leave a note.

Then Katja turned away.

"Wait!"

Katja paused. She had barely heard the call over the blades. Had she been waiting for it? She wasn’t sure.

"Where did you find this?"

Katja looked over her shoulder. There was a man there, smeared in dirt. He held the locket in his hand and the chain dipped down to his waist. He wasn't wearing a mask. He looked at her with a furrowed forehead, his eyes squinting against the sun. Katja did not answer.

"What are you doing out here?"

Katja shrugged.

The man paused. His face bore a pained expression, creased through his forehead and around his eyes, his lips held tightly in an uncertain line. He glanced down at the locket in his hands. His hair flopped into his face and he ran a dirty hand through it to keep it out of his eyes.

He looked back up at Katja and his eyes flicked over her. "Dear God, you can't be very old."

Katja just shook her head.

"Where are your parents? Where’s your family? Friends?"

Katja hesitated. Her only response was to shake her head again.

The man stared for a moment, comprehension slowly dawning on him. It crested his face like the morning sun now happily burning in the sky. He swore. He didn’t take his eyes off Katja as he did this, just let the curse word tumble from his mouth despondently. He looked away. He rubbed at the creases in his forehead, his eyes darkening in thought, but the creases stayed and no matter how hard he scrubbed they were etched into his face. He glanced again at the locket. The corners of his eyes creased further.

"Buddy died a little while ago," he murmured. Katja waited, fidgeting. The man went still. He seemed to have resolved something now. The man looked up to meet Katja's eyes. "We have room for one more."

Katja fidgeted again, her oxygen tank squeaking on its wheels.

"Come on, then."