'Today is another nightmare, no?'
'What? Are you still thinking it is not real? After all, how can your life change so drastically in just one day, right?'
'Hmm…still daydreaming? Don't tell me you are praying for it to be not real? Did you really forget that there is nothing up there or technically there is nothing up there for 'you' to listen to your prayers? We thought you knew that…'
'Ok time's up. You can't keep escaping it forever.
What was that? Are you screaming? Are you crying? But why can't we hear you…
Wake up Adele! Wake up! You are still here and this horrible day is not finished…yet"
Adele shivered involuntarily as he found himself back into reality but he could feel that there was something wrong with him.
In front of him, his uncle's house burned with no end to the disastrous flames, that seemed to be reaching for the sky. All of it happening before him. But for some reason he found his body stuck in this place. There should be a cacophony of noises around him from the crowd, but all he could hear right now was just white noise. Even Adele himself was not aware that he was going through panic attack.
'What is happening? …What is happening today?'
Abruptly, Adele broke into a run instantly. Maybe he thought he was running from frustrating taunting voices in his head or maybe he was running to see something that he dreaded for not to happen. It was like something broke in his head, impulse filling his body to act now.
Following his impulse, the sudden sprint of Adele towards the burning house caught the crowd by surprise. Several kind fellows reacted quickly and tried to hold him back, but due to suddenness of his unexpected action Adele managed to rush into the burning house amidst the horrofic cries of the crowd, that were mostly deaf to his own ears.
Fire..blistering heat waves…scorching air from everywhere rushed towards Adele as he entered the house headfirst. At this desperate moment with danger closing on him from all sides instantly, his self-preservation kicked in making him regain his 'momentarily lost sanity' significantly.
Staking his life at line, made Adele forget his despair as it was taken over by instinct to live. By this moment Adele was almost inside the burning living room when suddenly smoldering part of roof crumbled just before him. From the sudden new cavity formed after collapse, a small torrent of flames blew towards his face, making him loose his footing as he plummeted down narrowly escaping the burning furniture nearby.
'What the f*ck am I doing?'
Such a close shave woke Adele up as he realized what he was currently doing. What an extremely foolish action he ended up doing in fit of impulse, which he now immediately regretted.
Seriously, what the hell was he thinking? What if his uncle had already evacuated instead of being stuck inside the house? What if his uncle is waiting for him outside? Really, how could he be so foolish?
By laying there on the floor surrounded by the blazing inferno around him, with structure gradually coming down around him, Adele found time to introspect. He tried to put his finger on why he assumed the worst and most improbable situation without any second thought? Now, he ended up digging his own grave by sheer impulsive foolishness.
Adele once again gathered his wits, rousing himself to act again, but this time to do a rational action. As he made effort to crawl back with intention of escaping this burning house, suddenly a barely audible groan coming from the house rang into his ears.
"ugh…. Uh"
Adele found himself rooted to ground once again. He instinctively stopped moving and lay there silently while straining his ears to hear if it was real or had he begun to hear auditory hallucinations.
"Ugh… UgUgh… ArghArgh.."
There it was again, and it made it clear to him that he definitely was not hearing things. There really was somone stuck in house groaning with pain amdist all this cackling sound of flames eating up the house.
'Uncle? Could it be uncle?'
With a frightening thought, Adele immediately jumped up but was nearly choked by the poisonous smoke in the air. He hurriedly crouched back while holding back tears in his eyes from the smoke he had inhaled as he slowly began to crawl towards the source of the voice. Fortunately, he remembered quickly that crawling was best course of action in such situations.
It took him far longer than he expected to reach the bedroom while avoiding burning debris, from where the groaning sound was coming from. Though his familiarity with house helped him avoid serious burns but still on the way he managed to get himself scalded here and there.
As soon as he crawled into the bedroom, his eyes nearly popped out. Finding his horrofic thoughts come true felt almost like one's imaginary monster coming to life. To his panic, he found his second uncle Max Tyrone, lying on the side of his bed with a pool of blood spilled on the floor around him.
Alarm rang in the ears of Adele, as he nearly forgot everything and stood up to reach his side. All the while trepidation of inevitable truth settling in his heart,
'It's his… blood. It's his blood.'
Max was barely conscious by this time due to excessive loss of blood, but he subconsciously was still trying to keep himself alive as long as possible. Though Adele didn't notice before, but now as he looked at his hands, they were holding choke full of black shadows. Only now Adele observed that this room was still perfectly fine, untouched by the raging fire outside. He looked up and was surprised to find black shadows hanging on the boundary of the room that were actively keeping the fire outside.
Adele quickly realized that it was Max's doing. He was weaving shadows subconsciously to keep fire away from this room in the last bout of self-preservation.
"Uncle Max.. Uncle..."
Adele loudly shouted at his Uncle but still stopped himself from shaking him roughly to avoid aggravating his injuries. After a deliberate yet heartwenching search, he quickly found source of seeping blood as he found dozen of stabs on the back of Uncle Max's body and biggest of them was on his neck where a sharp knife was still lodged deep inside.
Adele blanched white, with his hands shaking as he moved to pull the dagger out but immediately stopped realizing it would make Max lose blood even faster. Sight of grievous wounds on his body made Adele's heart beat erraticaly, as he was not able to decide what he should do at this moment?
Adele's shoes and trousers were already wet by this time by Max's pooled blood but his mind was completely focused on trying to remember important first aid instructions in such emergencies. Finally he remembered something making him stand up,
"Yes.. Yes..a Cloth. I need to press cloth on the wound to stop the bleeding."
Half-panicked Adele was just about to rush nearby to grab some..any cloth in sight when suddenly a hand grabbed his foot making him flinch in fear. He looked down and found his uncle with wide awake eyes looking at him. He was not sure but he saw tinge of fear along with shock and pain in those eyes.
Adele forgot everything as he kneeled in front of Max and immediately grasped his hand in order to provide some comfort to him. He wanted to say many things, but all words choked in his throat unable to make out of his mouth. Only thing managed to escape his pressed lips were his subdued sobs as tears trickled out from his eyes despite him trying his best hold them back.
'Uncle wouldn't have liked to see me crying like this.'
Max, with a sudden bout of clarity in his eyes, opened his mouth to say something as he lifted his weak trembling hand to pat the head of Adele. But nothing came out of his mouth, except guttural sounds. Due to his sudden movement, fresh stream of blood began to spill out of his stab wound on his throat, scaring Adele even more who hurriedly panicked and told him to not to say anything.
Max now realising that there was dagger stabbed in his neck, suddenly become panicked as he tried to pull it out. Adele fortunately moved quickly and held his hand back as he pleaded him,
"No.. No..don't uncle. It will hurt you more. Don't pull it out. We should wait for…"
Adele's words died in his throat as Max suddenly closed his eyes and then gave a piercing stare to the Adele. He lifted his finger and began to write on the floor using his spilled blood as ink. First Adele was shocked but soon his face became pale as he read the words his uncle had managed to write.
'DAVID'
But Max didn't stop here and wanted to write more. But suddenly his body began to spasm due to straining of his body. He began to convulse violently while Adele tried to hold him when abruptly shadows all around the room snuffed out. There was half a second of pause, when storm of fire rushed in from all direction into the room like sharks coming after smelling prey's spilled blood.
'Bang!'
Adele immediately crouched down by holding his head, as cloud of fire broke in with a loud bang. Room was beginning to get swallowed by fire as flames rushed in with speed visible to naked eyes, taking over everything in its way. Adele knew that situation had become too dangerous suddenly but more than his safety, he felt concerned about Max as disappearing shadows meant he was no longer able to hold the fire back anymore.
"Uncle…"
Adele turned around and almost had a heart attack as found his Uncle no longer lying near him. He was instead few meters away and was still trying to crawl forward with his blood spilling everywhere as he kept dragging his body ahead. Adele hurriedly ran and tried to stop his uncle from further aggravating his wounds.
But Max no longer looked sane like before as his eyes were filled with ferociousness of wounded beast. Adele repeatedly pleaded and tried to make him stop, but Max entirely ignored him as he kept looking towards the nearby window. He crawled only a few steps more and then suddenly collapsed down as he had expended his remaining strength completely.
"Uncle are you alright? Are…"
Adele wiped his tears as he tried to push his Uncle's body up, when Max with final straining effort looked to him and with his last breath managed to gesture toward the window.
Maybe that last action took everything remaining in him as he finally lost his breath as last vestiges of life vaporised from his body leaving crying Adele behind, who finally was unable to hold back his tears anymore. He shook the body of Max few times but seeing no reaction he knew that Max was no longer in this world.
Adele cried loudly, but fire had no intention of giving him any time to grieve. It quickly overcame Adele to finally envelop the whole room into the fire, leaving Adele sitting powerlessly on the stone floor with fire raging all around him with no escape in sight.
Adele ultimately manged to gather his strength back to stand up, after laying his uncle down gently. He looked towards the window to which his uncle was pointing at.
Braving the smoke in his eyes, Adele walked few steps till he was able to look outside through the now burning window, and what he saw made his eye widen in shock. If not for his already numb heart due to Max's death, this shock could very well have caused an adverse effect on his sanity. But now he felt only deep chill in his heart that travelled throughout his body.
Outside window, on the other end of the nearby road an individual was standing while leaning on nearby building, with his hands in his pockets. David looked up and finally eyes of both Uncle and Nephew met and time seemed to stop at the moment. David silently smiled and waved his hand in greeting to his nephew.
Ultimately he mouthed few words, which upon lip reading finally sparked the unsetlling chill in Adele's heart into raging fire of horror and….unrestrained fear. David had said,
"Good bye, dear nephew."
….And fire sweeped in, overcoming everything in Adele'sight. Through that burning window just before everything became vision of red flames, he saw David casually clawing into air to open pathway to Dream Realm and stepping into it.