Burning Cabin
By Shawn Dykes
A small figure pranced through the woods, taking in the cheerful sight of the trees at dawn, the purples and blues and yellows and oranges in the sky creating a beautiful masterpiece.
She paused, looking at the wooden cabin that had seemingly formed in front of her, though, that wasn’t the case and she had just not been paying attention. Digging around in her pockets, she giggles before pulling out a coin and flipping it.
Landing in the palm of her hand, it flashes orange before dissolving into a small orb of red, dispersing into a light that shoots off through the cracks in the door as she dissolves into a pillar of flame.
—
The fire crackled around me, its warmth encompassing me like a hug. A very violent, tight, burney hug, but a hug, nonetheless. My main concern was getting out, of course, but I was also confused. There wasn’t a single thing able to cause a fire in this house; I made sure of that when I booked the cabin, so how did this happen?
I pushed past a smoldering pallet that had fallen from the roof, thankfully only lit on one side for now as I clambered over it, trying to get towards the exit. There was no wiring in this house, so that ruled out an electrical fire. I hadn’t brought a lighter of any sort, and I didn’t light a fire outside to cook anything, which only kept causing more and more questions. Did a controlled burn go wrong? Was there a lightning strike?
The thoughts continued to race through my mind as I stumbled over a collapsed beam, the door now in my sights. Wait, no, wrong door. That leads to the… closet? I think a closet. Wait a second, a closet! It might have something that can help me. The smoke had mostly risen to the upstairs, so I had some time before I would have extreme difficulties breathing. I pushed open the door and took a look around. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Which was weird, I thought I had tossed my coat in here.
Deciding to keep the door open, I stumbled back to the room I was in before, coughing as I looked around at my soundings. I was in the… dining room, I guess, considering the small table and two chairs. Those would be useful if there were any windows down here, but there aren’t, making them worthless unless the main door was barricaded.
Looking over at it from the opposite side of the house across patches of fire and collapsed building, I could swear I saw something looking at me for a second, a wide grin and smoldering eyes before it vanished. Probably just my imagination. Hopefully, at least. Now is not the time to have an existential crisis over whether teleporting fire beings exist. I really hope they don’t. That’d be really bad, especially if they held grudges towards survivors. Assuming I survived, I guess.
More rubble collapsed inwards on the already decently sized pile. I coughed some more at the dust it kicked up, and decided to say “Screw it” out loud to myself in the empty cabin, and took steps back to as close to the wall as I dared, taking a deep breath, exhaling, before sprinting towards the lowest point on the pile. And I land right on it, tripping over a bit of lumber as I let out a scream of pain from the heat, scrambling away and patting out the scorch marks on my shirt. Kicking away the bit of wood over into the distant wall, I hurried back to try again.
And I got lucky, clearing it by an inch as I fell on the other side, coughing for a bit before pushing myself up, stumbling towards the door before busting it open, breathing in fresh air as I walk away from the cabin, before noticing I don’t feel any pain. Or heat. And, looking back towards the cabin, there was no fire. Looking down at my shirt, the scorch marks remained, however.
Weird.
