One Visitor

Chapter Two:

Crackling

He took a sip from his coffee, enjoying the warmth that bathed him in the log cabin.
The vacation had been going well, none of the skiing resorts had closed from some unexpected blizzard or crisis, and he and his family had been having fun over the week. Now, he rested in his chair, watching and feeling the fire’s warmth embrace him in his robe, after mostly being in below freezing temperatures. The fire seemed to be growing larger, crackling even louder as he watched it.

He blinked. The walls around the fire had suddenly lit, it spreading rapidly. His mouth dropped open and surprise, and he hurried to get up from his chair, but couldn’t. As hard as he tried, it was if something was holding him in. Over half the inside of the cabin had caught on fire now, and it seemed that some of it had reached the floor, now crawling towards him. He screamed for help, but it was hard to even hear himself now from how loudly the fire crackled. He let out a final chilling scream as the fire reached the chair to climb it, and he clenched his eyes shut to wait for the end.

He jerked against the strap of the seat, opening his eyes. He looked around, wiping
his eyes as sweat ran into them. He wasn’t sure if it was from the terrible dream he had just had, or the immense heat he felt…. immense heat. He looked behind him and saw the source of crackling in his dream, crawling towards him in reality as well. He hurried to unbuckle the strap of his seat, starting to cough. It finally unlatched, but as he took another breath, he had to cough again, only now realizing it was because of the smoke. He went to his side to try and get out the window, seeing it was dark outside it. As he pounded on it, he slowly started to realize that his effort was futile, for the window was made to be even stronger than bulletproof, to fly through space.

He stopped pounding on the window, coughing again. “No… Help…” he tried to yell in a strained voice, looking out the window with his fist on it. The heat of the fire let him know it was getting much closer, his back starting to burn. He saw a small, purple looking flash out the window
as he began to give up. He finally let himself slide down the wall, balling up with his eyes closed to await the inevitable...