East Wing, Part IV

Fire crackles and roars, a living creature spreading, growing, rising high to lick the smoke-filled sky. There is such thing as dragons, but the fantasy writers got it wrong; dragons don’t need to bother with bodies and wings and scales. They are fire, fire embodied, fire is enough of a body. Orange-red and powerful and hungry, so hungry. Starving.

Flames caress the thick concrete of East Wing. Flickering tendrils stroke the windows, drawing back, forward, closer, dancing gold along the glass. Somewhere, there’s the thump of an explosion. Fire crawls along the wires overhead. The lights flicker out and shadows writhe, taunting, beckoning. Not too long now. Stay where you are, you’ll be with us soon.

You’ll be ash.

Another explosion, much closer this time. The walls quake. I fall in a heap to the smoking floor, sweat running down my face as my eyes stream tears. Can’t breathe. My windpipe’s constricting, my chest swelling as my lungs demand oxygen, oxygen, oxygen with each beat of my greedy heart and when the concrete room swirls into darkness black as charcoal I swear I can hear the notes of a song somewhere in the chaos of my dying mind.

Take the oven, take the flame.
Feed the fire all the same.
Read your books but never learn.
Kill the future, let it burn.