Creative Writing Assessment

Before (During the fire)

The fire was everywhere, cracking and consuming the doors of every house and traveling up the side of every fence and wall like a hungry amber animal looking for its next meal. Little girls cry out for their mothers, and little boys try to stay brave through the constricting fear that holds their breath. The villagers who had fled their houses in a panic were now screaming for their loved ones, but the flames ran rampage over the grass and into the mahogany wood and stone houses of the village. The amount of terror in the air was contagious and overwhelming, pooling inside everyone and flying airborne like an enraged eagle.

Under the evergreen shrubs behind the houses in one of the many moss gardens, the fire raged on through the village towards this fruitless hiding place where people had clustered in a pact of safety. The rose coloured flames baring pointed teeth as it crawled unhurriedly over the houses and mortals. The smell of smoke and flesh enough to make a grown man shrink in trepidation and fear; with full knowledge that what he smelt was death.

The heat looked and felt as if it were climbing, reaching for the sky with tendrils of flame and vengeance, blood red and canary-gold scorched the stars and moon. People looked on in horror at what was happening to their home, they were witnessing the fall of their life, the collapse of everything they knew, disbelief was what shone in many eyes. The trees didn’t make a sound besides the silent wail of the wind through their leaves, pine and pickle green waving as if to say goodbye. A million black and white rivers flowed from the sky, cracking the emptiness into pieces. Shadow and graphite now covered the cobalt expanse as if to cover the gods’ eyes from what was happening to their people. Clouds of iron rolled with thunder and lightning like most storms do when a dark day comes. Snapping flames came closer, bitting the people with its calefaction, cries of anguish fell short on the ears of the nearby villages.

People tried to run over the burning grass in a desperate attempt to survive but instead stumbled along with burns and sangria cuts on now limp legs. Women and men jumped over the fallen house beams and lamented brethren, the burning bodies that have already been lost, the fire was everywhere, dressing the people in hot robes of azure and sandstone. Shoes and clothing caught fire with vigor and apple red stripes, the smell of burnt woven wool ran rancid in the noses of the frightened many. They all shared the same fate as the rest of the dead, death by fire and blood. No one dared looked up at the smoldering village, all had their heads bowed in acceptance of the death they knew they would receive. Despite the rising temperature, the chill that fell over every man, women, and child was a foreboding dread that froze their sweat to their backs.

Silver eyes are what the few who looked up saw, instead of more cindered bodies and destruction they saw the silver eyes of a wolf. Flowing white robes of the young female acolytes, purple bruises on arms and legs shown and bare from where the fabric had gone up in flames. What a relief the few had felt when they saw those silver eyes, but kindness and mercy were not what they saw in those eyes. Simmering fire is what they saw there, like Chantico herself, Goddess of Fire come down in the form of this little wolf girl to collect the dead. And all the people could do was stare in terror as the fire crept closer and hotter as she watched from afar.

After

This village had been one of esteem when it was first built, the highest of what was called proud, full of cherry reds and sacred dandelion yellow, but now it was all in cinders and ash and dull colours. The only survivors were the little girls and young boys, no Priests or teachers or graduated healers, no one useful had been able to walk out of the crimson flames. Houses had been laid to rest with tired sighs and the village had seemed to exhale and fall into a sleep of fitful dreams. Many houses had burnt to crisps of charred wood and only the memory of the dead to remember what they had looked like before.

People who came to scavenge of what was left of the village saw nothing but the ash of hickory, smells of burnt wood left in the shrubs that covered hidden dolls of young girls. Everything that once indicated life had burnt and left the world as many had known it. Fallen posts, and crumbling walls of umber, no longer used as protection from the cold. Cindering planks of wood still holding the vague shape of what was once a house of respect, many bright colours still existed in the village but were dulled in different piles of rubble. This was a cold and empty place of silent remembrance.

The people who had screamed, running from fires now lay in ashes covered in the greenest of clovers clumped together as they carried on their journeys to the other side. Houses sit deflated as if someone had popped them long ago and only now they had been found with grass and shrubs growing from underneath their limbs. The grass where the children used to play was once bright colours of green, purple and russet, but was now a dull brown as it grew back ever slowly. The fire had raged on through the village, leaving nothing unturned and nothing untouched by its fingers.

Smells of rot and decay had ceased to waft through the air, had stopped its descent into the ground, as it had been some time that no one had come. Ash was no longer a taste on the wind, you would have to bend at the knee and smell the ash washed into the stone to remember that this place was once alive and had been taken from this world. Little flowers dotted the new grass with colour and flavour, the heather and lilac contrasting with the cerulean sky up above. Huts and houses had been overcome by many of the pear and shamrock trees that grew so fast, and garden tools and treasure have been long since buried in emerald and sage. Mother nature had somehow given the village a grave, one of chartreuse and olive and lavender, she had been kind when the fire had not.