Rubble. Burning flames consuming the heat of the air. A sickening, mind-melting smell of cinder killing my nostrils and lungs. Pain.
Did you know that pain hurts? Yes, it does; big surprise, I know. But you know what hurts more than pain itself? Knowing you’re the only one in the world left to feel it.
I opened my eyes. They burned, hardly able to open from the flames consuming the world around me. I couldn’t see anything except of the darkness of the loss of time and space around me. I thought I was dead, or at least lying between life and death, awaiting the fall into the oblivion for all of eternity.
However, my brain, my instincts, my will to survive, told me otherwise. I suddenly got a burst of adrenaline and burst myself into action, launching forward.
All around me, a barrage of bright colors that pierced my eyes. The heat and smoke made it hard to breathe and see. Though I knew I was surrounded by fire, I didn’t panic; I stayed quite calm. Though, my muscles jerked at a fast speed while I looked around at my surroundings, knowing I was in mortal danger.
After I looked around and saw that anything that might have been useful to me had been turned to ashes already, I looked for a way to escape. I thought of the door and looked towards it, getting upset when I saw it was lit on fire, already halfway gone. I had to find an alternative route, but where? I thought for a second, pressured with a constraint of time to think quickly before I become a crispy, toasted body of flesh. Then I realized there was a window nearby. Looking towards the place where it was, I saw a clear path straight towards it.
Here’s my chance, I thought. I dashed over to the window, trying to get out of the building before the roof caved in on me and I got crushed. A couple meters away. Come on... I’m almost there...
Suddenly, a bookcase nearby fell right in front of me, blocking my previously clear path to freedom from this burning hell. No!
I tried looking around. There was no other path out that wouldn’t fatally burn me. I looked back at this flaming bookshelf and felt my stomach churn. I already knew what I had to do: I had to jump over this flaming pile of wood and books. This was life-threatening. I’m not going to be able to make it... I thought. But I had no other choices. I had to get over this.
I moved backwards, closing my eyes, expecting something to kill me right there. But death didn’t get right there. Not yet. I exhaled and sprinted over to the burning pile of wood and ashes. I thought that within those few meters of running, my lungs would just instantly give out and I would pass out onto the floor due to the lack of breathable air. But, it didn’t happen; I wasn’t sure if to be happy or upset, so I just moved on.
The window was right there! I quickly ran over to it and tried lifting the window. But the metal slightly melted from the heat, and it wouldn’t budge, at least not without a heavy machine’s amount of forceful effort.
I put my hooves under the window, forcing them upward. I put in effort, enough to flip a building, but it didn’t work. The window wasn’t moving in the slightest. I was almost enraged, knowing getting into a mad fit wouldn’t be a good idea for myself in a situation like this.
But my choices were quite limited, and I was running out of times and options. I sighed and looked behind me; the fire was caving in, seemingly running at me just to kill me.
I had to go now or be gone.
I turned back and walked away from the window a bit. I gulped, realizing any simple mistake would leave to an instant death. I quickly inhaled and galloped forward to the window. When I was less than a foot away, I leaped into the air and crashed through the glass.
There was shattered glass everywhere, all around me, and all in me, cutting my skin. From there, I was free falling; I felt like I was a planet, in motion around a universe of nothingness, like these shards of sharp glass were my moons, forever flying around my lifelessness.
But I knew the hard ground was waiting for me on the ground below, waiting for me to land on it just to make me feel more pain than I already have. In fact, it seems like everything on this forsaken planet is trying to kill me. Maybe it just seems so because nothing’s going for others, since there are none, or maybe it’s the fact that I am alone and everything wants me gone because I’m different than the ones gone.
Or maybe I’m just losing myself, letting my mind slip away from me, making me see everything as trying to kill me. I cannot tell, I do not know, and I never will, and I shall never question this.
Though I only fell a few meters, I felt like I was falling forever, like I was falling down a bottomless pit with no end, to find myself stuck there for all of eternity. I not sure if I would have liked that or not, but I didn’t fall forever.
I felt myself crash onto the ground, feeling unspecific bones in my body break. They hurt worse than you would expect, and the glass that was still falling didn’t help anything.
I saw that the flames were getting nearby. I forced myself off of the ground and quickly escaped, jogging away with a limp since it became obvious that one of my broken bones was my left hind leg. It hurt and burned internally, but I kept moving on, knowing pain is temporary but death is forever, especially in an environment like this.
After I moved over to a safe distance, I turned around slowly and stared at the flames consuming the tree.
These flames... they were beautiful in a wicked way. I knew that these were evil, that they consume life, but they were still beautiful in a way. The bright colors and beauty almost made this pain worth it.
Everything I had worked for for the past... who knows how long, all gone. I have to restart everything, but with the knowledge I already know.
Maybe this was a good thing; maybe this new start could mean something good.
...maybe.
