Flames

[SevenWritez]

EDIT: The story is easier to read with italics and the change in font (only for the letter scene), so I apologize if the dialogue scenes become a bit confusing. I'm too lazy to toy with the tool bar in this posting window. However, it should still be follow...followable.


This is a short story I wrote for Creative Writing a week or so back. We were told to take a quote, base a storyline off of it, and then see what happened. This is what I conjured up. I don't find it too blaringly original, but I along with the others in my class who read it enjoyed it, so I thought what-the-hell, I'll post it. Hope you enjoy it. Also, the first two pages (not sure how this transfers over, but I wrote everything in single-spaced size-ten font, so...), are a bit garrulous, so I apologize for that. The story jump starts after that, and it is there that I think readers will enjoy it.

Anyhow, that's all, here it is. Hope you enjoy.

Flames - "Dreams that do come true can be as unsettling as those that don't." - Brett Butler, Knee Deep In Paradise


The thing you need to understand is that I’m a nice guy. I help people. Yeah. See, there was a long speech here before, but it’s been replaced by the blunt and beautiful prose of my own simple words. Does that make sense? Golly, I hope so—I really do. This guy here didn’t understand me, even though I tried and tried and tried to help him. But yeah, I gave him many things. I gave him friendship, I gave him courage, I gave him…ah, some other things, too. He was lost, and all he needed was a map. And me? Again, I’m a nice guy—I gave him that map. And, well…
The night sky glazed over in red hues, the flames from the fire misting the world around it in shimmering images cast behind sheets of rising smoke, waxing the skin of anyone who stepped too close in tendrils of sweat. A fire like this had never been seen before; a fire like this had never been felt before, at least, none of the first timers thought. And they were right. Fires shouldn’t make you scream and wince back when you were yards away; heat shouldn’t reach that far. This one’s did. There was something alien, something unorthodox, something that provoked you to come closer (if you watched the flames steadily enough, you would have sworn you saw a hand forming from the smoke, beckoning you closer…closer…just a little closer), but all the while warning you, pleading with you to stay away. There were two forces in that fire, fighting for control in that deteriorating building. A laugh—loud enough to be considered a sonic boom—cackled out from deep inside the building’s frame, and everyone at the scene who heard it recognized it as Ronny’s laugh, but deeper, darker, manic. That laugh had changed. It was different, and, like the fire it had bellowed out of, it was something alien, something unorthodox, something none of them had ever heard or ever imagined hearing before. The firemen stared in awe—any time they came within forty yards of the building the edges of their uniforms curled up and back in black crisps, their skin boiling to a Fahrenheit and their primal instincts sending their legs into a quick thrust backwards. No one could get close, and no one dared try to. Ronny was in that fire, and Ronny was still alive. All they could do was watch.
…Well, let’s just say I gave him a few other things, as well.


The reflection in the mirror held no resemblance to the boy who would have looked in it just two hours before. Under his left eye a mesh of purple-blue skin had began to phase in nastily, tinting the lower portion of his eye to a dark bruise, standing out like a naked man at a funeral on his pale skin. The pale-faced acne-ridden boy was still there though, curly red hair patched in with dark smears of brown, some of it dirt, some of it dog-shit, a mix-up of opposing colors now a clumpy shag on his head.
A stray tear rolled down the side of his face, and he swiped away at it absently, a red streak of what was there earlier now just a still waterfall frozen in place beneath both eyes. He turned on the faucet, watched the water run down into the sink, and waited for the gray whisks of steam to creep up like groping fingers before he finally cupped a puddle above his folded palms.
His lips pulled back and let out a hiss through gritted teeth, willing himself to countdown from ten as Satan’s piss swashed around in his hands, numbing the nerves in his palms and eventually sending a dull throb to his to his wrists and upper forearms.
He looked in the mirror again—still pale, still acne-galored, two red blotches under his eyes; and of course, the blossoming bruise. He counted down from five.
On four he leaned forward, head hung over and looking directly into his cupped palms. On three his lips parted and almost let out a sigh, but all that came was a silence. On two…
“**** it,” he muttered.
He brought his hands up and brought his head down, his face being swallowed in the steamed water. He roared through gritted teeth into his palms, but the cupped hands muted him to a low grumble.
Four seconds later he pulled his hands away, the slosh of water falling to the sink with a sharp, wet smack. He looked into the mirror now. His face was otherwise the same, but the white-skinned acne-ridden reflection was now red-faced acne-ridden. The color was only an unconsciously forgotten side-effect; what he had wanted was that quick moment of pain, that burning ecstasy that first kissed your skin, and then bit down hard. It all came and went in the spur of a few moments. It was what he had wanted to help relieve the tension of things that had happened earlier today. And now it was over, and that was fine.
He turned off the faucet and left the bathroom, walking down the narrow corridor to his own room on the back right side of the wall. He walked in, sat down on his bed, crawled under thin black sheets, and silently allowed himself to cry. His eye still throbbed, but the pain was nothing like it had been when he first received the blow. He had been walking home late, staying after school to finish up a test not completed due to lack of time (for Ronny, most uncompleted projects were more or less blamed on a lack of time), when three jocks he had gone to junior year school with passed him by on the street. It was 4:45 then, and it was evident that they were drunk. Or stoned. Either way, he knew what was going to happen before it happened—their contemptuous smiles and taunting glares showed as much.
He cried beneath his blanket sheets, silent sobs that could not be heard, the only note to his inner turmoil being the tears rolling down his cheeks (the red waterfalls were no longer still), and the heaves his chest took with each inner choke. He sat silent, pondering, thinking, contemplating on the moments of his life and what they signified, what they would lead him to. He had done this many times before, but never once after being hurt, being completely mauled—he was lucky to have gotten out with only a bloodied arm, nose, and (bruised), eye. But still, he had been here before.
Today’s actions had only beckoned that far away depression even further home. Ronny closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.-

There is a man laughing—not a boy’s laugh, but a man’s. It is too deep to belong to an innocent. Ronny is running down a long strip of road. He does not know where he is; all he sees is the road, for to the left, and to the right, there is nothing but blinding darkness. It is from that darkness that he can hear the maniacal laughter. He begins to sprint, and as he does, he does not notice the flames that begin to emerge around him, the stones and pebbles that begin to dance about him. He does not notice any of it. He only knows that he is running down a road, and that wherever it leads, it won’t escape that laughter—that deathly, maniacal laughter. It is after him. It is chasing him. When he wakes up, he won’t remember anything.

 

[SevenWritez]

-


He had fallen asleep, but a distant throb beating between his temples called him awake. He woke up feeling disoriented, confused by the hammer-like drum in his forehead, eyes nearly shut as the room phased in from a blur into actual shapes and objects. His hands rubbed the side of his cheek and immediately the faint stinging from the Satan’s Piss action earlier brought him closer to a state of being awake.
The drumming in his head was light, but still there. He moaned lightly, rubbing his temples. Where was that—he saw something on his bed curtain.
There, lying placid and silent like an omen above his chest, the only things separating them the thin black sheet, was a clean cut sheet of notebook paper. Something was scribbled on it.
He was awake now.
Ronny sat up, grabbed the paper, and looked at it. It was written in his own handwriting. He didn’t remember writing anything.
It read:
Good morning, Ronny. Seems to me like you’ve found yourself in quite a jam. Though the room was cold, Ronny felt beads of sweat begin to form on the rim of his forehead. When had he written this? And why would he be addressing himself? Ronny sat up from the bed, the sting on his face and the low throb under his eye completely forgotten. When he bounced from the bed, something else bounced out from under the sheets and tacked on the wooden floor below. Ronny looked down and froze—there was a black pencil. No etched white at the tip, no pink-tipped eraser, no, just the rectangular shape with the triangular finish, cold, deathly black. His eyes were shaking in their sockets. Back to the paper. The letter.
Yep. I have to say, you’re the quite the little piss-ass whiny-boy. And man oh man, why were you running? Running? Ronny thought; he had no recollection of the dream. What? Well, no matter, I s’pose. Ronny, all you need is a friend. Yeah, you just need a pal like me.
That distant throbbing was no longer distant—he couldn’t just feel something beating on the inside of his skull. He could hear it. Ronny managed to see the clock on his dresser just before black wings folded in front of his vision. 6:32. Both of his parents would be home at 7:00. He was still alone. He was still home alone.
Oh, Ronny. The beating in his head become stronger, harder, fierce. Something was talking. Ronny, you just need a friend. On the floor, the coal-black pencil began to jig and jerk, vibrating as if caught in an earthquake. Ronny fell to his knees; the pain was condensing all around him, the voice was getting louder, the drums, Dear God the drums.
Ronny, you and I, we’ll make quite a team. So long as you cooperate. Can you do that? Can you say yes sir?
His lower lip began to tremble, and there was no emotional strain backing this urge up. No, this was complete, unadulterated pain. His head felt as if four anvils from all sides of the compass were now crushing in on him, slowly but surely. And there was the laughter. The sick, manic-like laughter. Blood began to rush from his ears. The pencil was convulsing madly. It’s substance—for it was not wood, but something inexplicable—began to boil, melting into a black ooze on the floor, then fading…fading…smoke, dissipating into thin air. The heat it radiated was immense, and Ronny began to feel his skin burn.
Ronny…
He fell flat now, body curled up into a tight fetal position, blood pooling out his ears and hands clawing at his throat—though his vision was now just a blank mist of black, he knew from the lower pulling and tensing that his eyes had rolled back in their sockets. He was convulsing. The pencil next to him was, too, not completely faded away yet, but almost. His mind began to whirl, the room felt as if it were spinning. From the back of his conscience, like a faint light from a car down the road approaching closer…closer, ever so closer, he could hear the beginnings of a strong, uncontrollable laughter. A laughter of a man—of a thing—that knew exactly what it was doing, exactly what it planned to do, and knew exactly how to go about achieving its ends. Ronny blacked out then, silent and dead on the floor. It was 6:37. He was alone.

-
Once more he is lost in a dream, back on the road, back on the road sheeted in flames, illuminated by a red-orange hue that threatens to blind him if he so much as dares stare directly into any of the scattered fires. It is as if he is staring at a black sheet of nothing, and on that black sheet there are jagged red edges dancing about, burning, burning, shining. He realizes that his eyes are squinted shut. The bright flames make this so. He is still running, still printing; at the end of the road he sees three ominous figures. Seconds later, they come into focus—it is the three boys who have physically hurt him and reawakened his depressive state. Suddenly he feels a flush of anger, but it is an anger alien and unknown to him. But it is a good anger, a powerful anger; he wields it as a weapon. He accepts it. The maniacal laughter he had been running from now erupts through him, his lips pulled back and teeth clacking up and down in snarled uproar, laughing at these three men who now see him coming, who are now screaming and trying to outrun but can not escape. In a way, this is all a dream. In a way, this is not a dream at all. In fact, it may just be a ritual—the dream before may have just been a ritual. But it does not matter, for Ronny does not remember this either. He does not remember the ritual lulling him deeper into the spell.
He With No Name knows this. Take a boy, a young, adolescent boy, and wait till they teeter on the edge of insanity. When their barriers are down, you leap, kick down the door, and settle in. A couch here, an arm-wire there, a plasma T.V. just a feeew inches to the right. Ah. Perfect. Nice and cozy. You make the weak your home. He With No Name knows this.
Ronny does not remember any of this.

-

When he came to, the clock said 6:38. Only a minute had passed. He sent a conscience trail of thought to his hands to try and pull himself off the floor. His body did not respond.
What? Even silent, in its own conscience where words could not be heard but instead seen, instead felt, he began to panic. Why can’t I move? Why can’t I—oh God, why can’t I move? What happened, what—
“Shhh,” Ronny’s lips parted and said. He had not tried to speak. “Shhh, now you must be still.”
Ronny felt his hands press off the floor, he felt his body slant over as his legs shifted so that he could balance on one knee. He saw through the eyes that were his, the way the world blurred from hazy images into definite pictures. He felt his lips part into a grin. He felt all of this—but he had not willed any of it.
“Hello, Ronny.” Ronny tried to open his mouth to speak—he couldn’t.
What’re you—
“Shhh, Ronny. Haven’t I told you?” Ronny’s body gave a slight chuckle. “It is now time to be still. Let me work.”
What do you mean? What’s going on? This is a dream. This is just a dream, I swear to God this is just a dream.
The thing that controlled him made no objections. “Maybe it is,” he finally said. “Or maybe you’re just afraid to accept the supernatural. You’ve always loved the supernatural, haven’t you, Ronny? Astrology? Numerology? All that nice hocus pocus?”
Ronny’s body picked itself up, and—dear God—Ronny felt his arms, his legs. They had grown. His body was now a slim, compact, lithe definition of perfection, the lanky boy he had been just hours before now replaced by someone with the same face, the same eyes, but an entirely different physic. An entirely different driver.
“Well, that’s good Ronny. You’ve always loved the super natural.”
There was no more talking as he descended the stairs, left the room, entered out to the neighborhood sidewalk, began to pace his way to a destination Ronny thought he might know but chose to try and pretend not to. But he knew where his legs were walking. Dear God, he knew what was happening. His lips parted again.
“Yes, that’s very good; because the supernatural has always loved you.”

-

Their last names are not important, for they will be dead soon. Here is a quick sum-up anyways. The one who lead the attack on Ronny and delivered the first blow—his name is Alex. The other two, Wes and Michael, aren’t as important. They’ll be dead soon.
All three boys sat grinning stupidly at each other, their minds lost in a beautiful ecstasy of swirling thoughts and swirling images, things that were not there somehow creeping up into each of the boys field of vision; smoke that twisted and twirled and sometimes even looked your way and winked, colors on the dampened wood of the building sloshing about on the surface, slugging to and fro before stiffening to a dead silence. If you listened hard enough, you might have heard the wood shifting and creaking. If you weren’t stoned to all hell and listened hard enough, you would have realized that was gravel shifting under someone’s feet. And what you might have mistaken for the air singing…well, that was actually someone whistling. Alex, Wes, and Michael looked to each other, rationality clawing its way in desperately as they became alert to the fact that, yes, someone was approaching the abandoned farm where they sat together and lit the light (as the saying went), every weekday—and weekend—after school. Someone was whistling, and they sounded in good cheers.

-

 

[SevenWritez]

“Ronny, we’re here.”
Ronny, the real Ronny, the one trapped inside his own body and panicking, lost as to what was happening, lost in every sense of the word, stared at the abandoned building. He wanted to turn and run, turn and sprint away. He knew who was there, he could tell from the dull orange light he saw flashing through the cracks of the large front door slightly hung ajar, the slight chuckles and drunken—or stoned, maybe both—giggles that blurted out. He knew who the three boys were, and he knew they wouldn’t remember him. They had been under the influence of something, and Ronny had simply been in the way. But whatever was in him, whatever was driving him; oh dear God it wanted them. It wanted to hear them scream.
Ronny knew this, because, in a way, he had wanted to hear them scream as well. It was a dark, deeper subconscious emotion that had manifested into this thing. This thing had come from him, he knew it did.
Yes, that’s very good—those first lines sprang like an opening stanza to the second layer of his subconscious, the one hidden from whatever was dictating his actions now—because the supernatural has always loved you. He had to accept the truth.
Something darker than his own inner turmoil had captured him; however it had done it, however it had seeped itself into his body and taken hold of the levers, however it had controlled his lips and directed his gaze and moved his legs, he didn’t know. But he knew now he could not control it. He knew it would do exactly as it pleased.
As these thoughts passed his trail of second-layered thought, his legs shifted their way through the gravel towards the barn, where three boys sat unaware to their fate. On the face that once belonged to Ronny, a large grin broadened widely.

-

“Uh…” Wes muttered gracefully through glazed eyes and a slant pose. “Who’s that guy?” His words were slurred, trailed out and, if sober, would have held a contemptuous tone.
Michael and Alex crawled over, peeking through the door.
From about forty yards away (did it just get hotter in here? Alex swiped away a large slob of sweat snailing down the side of his face), they could see a young, built man approaching them. Had any of them been sober when they decided to throw him to the floor and have fun with his frail body, they would have recognized the red curly hair and the pale freckled face. But they didn’t—and even if they did, his compact yet solid-looking arms, broad shoulders, and straight jaw would have eluded them. He looked similar to that boy that they had tormented a few hours ago, but that really was all that could be said. Similar.
His head cocked up from beneath a hood. Through their distorted eyes, both from alcohol and the cocaine and marijuana which was oh so fun to possess, it looked as if the hood around him—the whole zip-up jacket even—was just a black, velvet skin, not so much a material but something looking hard and black, like coal. Had they not been high past heaven, they’d panic to see that no, what he was wearing was not by any means normal. But they only stared, all silent with mouths hung agape. The boy was only ten yards away now. He was staring at them. There was a smile on his face.
“Why hello.”
Alex, Wes, and Michael shared a gaze of consternation. Then, bravely, Wes: “The **** are you?”
The boy only smiled.

-

Don’t, Ronny was pleading now. It was all he could do—he was still lost, he had almost latched onto the true idea, but something bothered him. This person, this thing, couldn’t be him. There was no way this could happen. No way could it really be controlling him. If this was some horrible cell reaction in the brain, then the medical books would love him. But the supernatural have always loved you, Ronny. They’ve always loved you. There was no time to try and understand what had led to this point. Ronny had to stop this. He had to try. Please, don’t. Whatever you are, please, please stop, they’re not bad people, they’re just drunk, please, leave, just—
“Shut up,” he muttered solemnly. “Jesus Christ, you whine too much.”
And then, Ronny, still trapped behind his own eyes, saw his hands dangle out from the lower corners of his peripheral vision. His finger nails were gone; the fingers had curled out into black, curled talons. They were pitch black. His skin had become a glossy, coal-like pitch black.
What ARE you? Can someone scream in their own thoughts? If they can, Ronny just did—his lower left eye winced. What the **** ARE you, you fucking bastard? Let go of me! LET GO OF ME!
His right hand swapped across his chest and planted a sharpened index finger directly into the left forearm. Inside, Ronny began to scream. Outside, he continued to walk. Blood—oozing black, a mush of sludge—trailed down his arm; it crept down like a stream, and a small bead of the dark mud tipped off from his finger, dangled a bit, and then fell to the gravel floor. When it touched, a hissing steam swirled up from the rocks, and the pebbles and dried soil beneath its black carpet began to melt, crusting into black specs. After a few seconds, a small flame crept up from the wet ashes. Ronny walked. As he did, he talked.
“You’ve always been a nobody, right, Ronny boy?” There was a teasing malevolence in that voice. His words had taken on a deeper volume—Ronny’s voice did not sound like this. “Yeah, sure, of course you have. No friends, no real talents, just your typical low-life Irish boy.”
They were about thirty yards from the building now. Wes, Michael, and Alex stared dubiously.
“You’ve always wanted to be a somebody, always wanted to teach those guys a lesson! Am I right? Am I right? Yeah, I am. I’m always right. I can read you people like a book. I mean, shit, I handed out the apple of knowledge and all, yeah? I think if I can pull some strings like that surely I can pull some strings like this.”
Ronny understood what was happening now, but he didn’t want to believe it. Just the way you didn’t want to believe it when you heard the news of a friend or loved one suddenly dying, the news of losing your house or having all your amenities repossessed, you didn’t believe it; but you knew it was true. If Ronny had any control, if Ronny had not simply been a ghost in this moment, he would have screamed. But he couldn’t. He could only watch. He did not know how, he did not know when, but somewhere, somehow, in that time of his immediate depression and the time he went to sleep, the Devil had found him. Satan had pissed on him, and Satan had crawled into him. These thoughts flashed through both of their brainwaves, and Ronny felt himself smile deviously.
“I guess I don’t need to explain myself, then. That’s good—that’s always good. Now watch, Ronny. Things are about to get fun.”
A few seconds later they were standing in front of the doors, staring down the three teenage boys, unaware to what Satan had in store for them.
“Why hello.”
“The **** are you?”
Satan smiled through Ronny’s lips. And, he called to Ronny now, speaking to him silently.
Shhh, he said. Now you must be still. Be still and let me work.
His fingers began to twirl and twirl and twirl about. Ronny began to sense a change in the heat. And what he saw behind the three boys would have made him scream, had he been able to. But he could not move. Now he could only be still.

 

[SevenWritez]

The abandoned farmhouse building smelled of hay, sawdust, forgotten manure, and, thanks to a few boys who had come to sit in and relax, the faint whisk of nicotine. When Wes had first seen Ronny approaching the other two came to his side immediately. Alex had been smoking a cigarette. He had left it sitting on an old wooden stool used for who knew what back when the farm had an owner. Now, Ronny could see it, but the other three, looking at him, could not.
Satan’s hands were crossed behind his back, where they could not see the finger—the talon—twirling and twirling and twirling. The cigarette, on the table, was standing upright, spinning, twirling and twirling and twirling. Satan was keeping the boys occupied. Twirling and twirling and twirling.
“You look like some strong young pups. Mind if I test you guys out?”
“The ****?” That seemed to be the defining word for everything in Wes’ vocabulary. “I’ll kill you if you don’t get going you fuckin’ piece of shit tits.”
From the smoke that had been fluttering absently, Ronny could see as the cigarettes butt curled back, as if some invisible being were drawing on it now. The cigarette was twirling uncontrollably. From its end, from where the smoke was trailing out, the gray mist began to take on a form. Something was crawling out. Seconds later, Ronny realized what it was. A gray, transparent snake was making its undulant passage towards the boys. It had been made from the smoke. Dear God, that snake had been conjured from smoke.
Satan smiled. “Why, excuse me, but that is quite rude if I do say so myself. Just a friendly fight is all I ask. Fight Club, great movie…ah…what’s that one actors name in it? Ah…Pitt…Brandon Pitt…”
“Brad Pitt,” Alex chimed in.
“Ah! Why yes, him! Did you see that movie? Just a friendly little fight is all I ask. Come on,” he smiled, and behind his back the right talon pulled off the black gunk that should have been blood from his left, holding it in his hand like a grenade. “Put up your dukes.”
Before any of the three could answer, the black sludge was thrown through the air, catching Michael squarely on his right eye. On contact, a hissing steam roared out, tendrils of smoke jutting out from under his skin. Michael fell to the floor, screaming. Alex and Wes jumped back, screaming.
“What the ****,” Wes cried out. “The ****? Oh my fucking God, what the--”¬
The snake had become an anaconda, a large, diaphanous gray monster, breaking through the straws on the floor silently, a demon beckoned forth by the hands of another. Before Wes could say anything more, the creature arced up behind him. Its mouth opened wide, and inside there was no transparent figures, but a red-orange furnace baking within its mouth. The heat radiated was immediate. Wes died a man who saw his friend burning alive on the floor.
Alex saw the beast and began to scream, at the beast itself, and by the sudden engulfment of Wes’ body. No swallowing, now chewing, no coiling around the prey; a quick-second swallow. He turned to run; fell on his feet, then scrambled backwards, eyes bulging as the bliss drunk stupor he had been in now replaced by a panic-driven insanity. Satan/Ronny was laughing the whole time, hands held over his stomach and body lurched over as if this were the funniest damn thing in the world.
Ronny turned away and chose to watch Michael, now convulsing on the floor, legs kicking up and down and saliva frothing at the mouth as his free eye bulged maddeningly, the one covered by the black blood now rotted and melted to nothing more than puss. The black ooze (from his peripheral, Ronny saw the giant gray figure leap, and he heard a split-second squeal begin to escape Alex—but then it was silenced), began to boil viciously around the eye, and as if on cue, it began to bulge, harden…hatch. From the boiled sludge Ronny saw a small, insect’s leg kick up and jerk around, like a beetles leg when flipped on its back shell. This was followed by a soft popping sound as two more legs popped out, kicking madly for footing. Something resembling a crayfish or a crab crawled out from the black sludge, a pale-white manifestation that had fed from the man’s skin. It crawled out, screeching, a piercing noise that Ronny would have tried to seal himself from had he been able to make such a move.
A white crab like thing was what it was, legs skirting back and forth in a blur and two forward pincers that were the size of a sharks tooth clicking together as it screeched and screeched and screeched. The ooze dissipated into thin air, and the white crab like creature pulled itself out from the crevice that had once pocketed Michaels’ eye, trailing behind it a messy mixture of both puss and blood. Ronny felt a lurch in his stomach. Satan sent the lurch back down.
Isn’t this fun, Ronny? Isn’t this great?
Ronny couldn’t answer. Even though he was only a voice, he was muted to silence.
Around them both, flames began to flicker and sparkle. More and more of those white crab-like creatures crawled out from Michael’s body. The snake lost its diaphanous state and blurred into physical being, and it hissed madly as the army of crabs approached it, their screeching battle cries like thousands of nails being driven down on chalkboards. Satan smiled through Ronny’s lips the whole time—visual disturbances were what he loved.
Oh! Watch this, Ronny. This is nifty. I made it up myself.
Ronny tried to scream. The crabs began to pinch their way into the now flesh-and-skin anaconda that had effortlessly swallowed two men whole. It hissed and snapped at them, but they were overwhelming, converging in on it, their shark-talons stabbing and tearing, their screeching becoming an excited anthem as they began to crawl inside the wounds torn open. The snake’s skin began to shift in lumps and tugs, and Ronny knew they were eating it from the inside out. The snake’s mouth opened and bellowed out a roar that sounded like something a trombone might make if its volume were increased ten fold. Then it was still, and then it sat silent.
Satan snapped Ronny’s fingers. The crab-like creatures, the snake, and the barn itself, burst into a blinding sheet of flames.

-

 

[SevenWritez]

The night sky glazed over in red hues, the flames from the fire misting the world around it in shimmering images cast behind sheets of rising smoke, waxing the skin of anyone who stepped too close in tendrils of sweat. A fire like this had never been seen before; a fire like this had never been felt before, at least, none of the first timers thought. And they were right. Fires shouldn’t make you scream and wince back when you were yards away; heat shouldn’t reach that far. This one’s did. There was something alien, something unorthodox, something that provoked you to come closer (if you watched the flames steadily enough, you would have sworn you saw a hand forming from the smoke, beckoning you closer…closer…just a little closer), but all the while warning you, pleading with you to stay away. There were two forces in that fire, fighting for control in that deteriorating building. A laugh—loud enough to be considered a sonic boom—cackled out from deep inside the building’s frame, and everyone at the scene who heard it recognized it as Ronny’s laugh, but deeper, darker, manic. That laugh had changed. It was different, and, like the fire it had bellowed out of, it was something alien, something unorthodox, something none of them had ever heard or ever imagined hearing before. The firemen stared in awe—any time they came within forty yards of the building the edges of their uniforms curled up and back in black crisps, their skin boiling to a Fahrenheit and their primal instincts sending their legs into a quick thrust backwards. No one could get close, and no one dared try to. Ronny was in that fire, and Ronny was still alive. All they could do was watch.

-

Ronny had no way of stopping this, whatever this was. Satan was laughing the whole time. Flames were everywhere. Ronny’s layer of skin had burnt off, and he could see the muscles and red flesh of his insides. Satan was laughing still.
“Ronny!” he bellowed. They had gathered an audience, people had began to see smoke rising up from the old abandoned farm house (Ronny had not been aware, nor had the other three teenagers, that smoke had been seeping out of his body the whole time). “Ronny, do you see? This is what you wanted, isn’t it? This is what you—
--I didn’t want any of this! I didn’t—
--“Oh, but you DID, Ronny! You did! You wanted to teach all these people a lesson, and see Ronny? See? Hell is beautiful when you can control it!”
Satan laughed a maniacal laugh through the voice that had once been Ronny’s. It echoed out like a sonic boom.
It’s time for me to go now, Ronny! I have other people to toy with, other fires to start!
Before Ronny could object or say anything more, he felt a strong tug on his body as some other force tugged itself away from him, like a strong rope that had been around his whole body now finally being unstrung. As the freedom flowed in, so did the heat. He could not see anything—the world was white.
Goodbye, Ronny! Have fun!
First it was a sting. Then a tear. Then a vicious splash of that same water he had thrown onto his face hours earlier in the day. It was 7:30 now, and his parents were panicking, not knowing where he was. They had heard of the fire and rushed over, looking for answers. But no one could get close to the fire.
Ronny’s skin folded in on itself, the smell of sulfur fresh and disastrous throughout the air. Ronny began to scream, as loud as he ever had before, begging for this pain—his ears were bleeding, he felt the bones in his body soften—to end. Begging for someone to kill him. His body crumpled over, and the throbbing in his head returned, the stinging of the water returned, the empty hollowness he had felt while being pulled on a leash returned. Everything returned, and in the instant it did, the instant it all clicked back into place, Ronny gave one last scream. And then Ronny was dead.
-

The flames began to expand outward from the farm. The firemen began to scream to the onlookers to run, to get back. Some did. Others tried to take pictures or something idiotic enough of the sort, and when they did, they felt the burn. Then the sting. Then the vicious splash of a water boiled to the highest degree. The flames were consuming everything, and no one could put it out. You could not stop Satan on a happy day.
The people ran for their lives. The night sky glittered in red hues and orange glares. The screams that had first belonged to three young boys echoed out to hundreds of pedestrians living in the small town of Blank Sea. And throughout it all, if you listened hard enough, if you were running for your life but still ignored the screams, you would have sworn you heard somebody laughing.