Post by Cmdr. Maegil on Dec 21, 2007 22:24:08 GMT -5
Haruka was startled by the explosion. She rubbed her sleepy eyes from the afternoon nap and called her mother.
No answer, just some growing noise.
The little girl unlatched the cradle's side, lowered it and climbed down.
"Mama?", she cried louder, over the scary whooshing and crackling sound that came from the hallway... Getting no reply from her mother, Haruka opened the door and went to investigate what was happening.
Rivulets of white smoke came swooping in, blinding Haruka and making her cough and weep. "MAMA! MAMA!! MAAAMAAA!!!", she cried out between bouts of coughing, more scared by her always present mother not answering than of the smoke and heat.
The smoke billowed upwards, allowing Haruka to glimpse that it came from the kitchen. The child knew mama must be in the kitchen making food, but mama wasn't talking, so she braved into the heat to look for her progenitor, her protector.
With tearing eyes, she peeked in to see the eviscerated stove lying in the middle of the kitchen; beyond, the severed gas hose danced like a mad dragon, spewing flames in all directions and setting the furniture and curtains on fire. None of that mattered, however.
Haruka found her mother next to the door, sprawled face down... bright yellow flames danced on her hair.
That finally made Haruka shriek as only little girls can, and shrieking and coughing she ran to her mother to smother the flames.
Her skin started to smoke, her own hair sparkled, fluttered in the intense heat's thermal currents, curled and turned to acrid smoke that choked and burned her further, but Haruka ploughed on into hell. Unfeelingly, she singed her little hands brushing her mother's hair to put the fire out, not even noticing the hose's flames that licked her twice, but resumed her shrieking to superlative levels as she noticed the cooked scalp sliding under her fingers.
In paradoxisms of desperation, Haruka grabbed her mother's arm and tried to pull her out of the inferno all by herself. Though valiant, it was also useless. Keiko's dress caught on flames. Panicking, the child tugged as hard as she could, losing her grip and falling back.
Haruka tried to catch her mother's leg nearer to the door, but the growing blaze defeated her. She couldn't even open her eyes where she stood on her knees, and was forced back.
Blindly, the charred and nearly bald child coughed her way back to the nursery, found her doll Mako and broke down in tears and sobbing cut by bouts of wheezing, painful cough... Haruka embraced Mako, and crawled under the cradle - the last ditch of safety, for all the child knew.
Mama was hurt and in flames and Haruka was hurting and clammy and cold, and her head was getting fuzzy...
Curling into foetal position around the rag doll, the little girl went into shock, and quietly drowned with the plasma that oozed inside her burnt lungs.
Neither mother or daughter suffered any more on that life.
No answer, just some growing noise.
The little girl unlatched the cradle's side, lowered it and climbed down.
"Mama?", she cried louder, over the scary whooshing and crackling sound that came from the hallway... Getting no reply from her mother, Haruka opened the door and went to investigate what was happening.
Rivulets of white smoke came swooping in, blinding Haruka and making her cough and weep. "MAMA! MAMA!! MAAAMAAA!!!", she cried out between bouts of coughing, more scared by her always present mother not answering than of the smoke and heat.
The smoke billowed upwards, allowing Haruka to glimpse that it came from the kitchen. The child knew mama must be in the kitchen making food, but mama wasn't talking, so she braved into the heat to look for her progenitor, her protector.
With tearing eyes, she peeked in to see the eviscerated stove lying in the middle of the kitchen; beyond, the severed gas hose danced like a mad dragon, spewing flames in all directions and setting the furniture and curtains on fire. None of that mattered, however.
Haruka found her mother next to the door, sprawled face down... bright yellow flames danced on her hair.
That finally made Haruka shriek as only little girls can, and shrieking and coughing she ran to her mother to smother the flames.
Her skin started to smoke, her own hair sparkled, fluttered in the intense heat's thermal currents, curled and turned to acrid smoke that choked and burned her further, but Haruka ploughed on into hell. Unfeelingly, she singed her little hands brushing her mother's hair to put the fire out, not even noticing the hose's flames that licked her twice, but resumed her shrieking to superlative levels as she noticed the cooked scalp sliding under her fingers.
In paradoxisms of desperation, Haruka grabbed her mother's arm and tried to pull her out of the inferno all by herself. Though valiant, it was also useless. Keiko's dress caught on flames. Panicking, the child tugged as hard as she could, losing her grip and falling back.
Haruka tried to catch her mother's leg nearer to the door, but the growing blaze defeated her. She couldn't even open her eyes where she stood on her knees, and was forced back.
Blindly, the charred and nearly bald child coughed her way back to the nursery, found her doll Mako and broke down in tears and sobbing cut by bouts of wheezing, painful cough... Haruka embraced Mako, and crawled under the cradle - the last ditch of safety, for all the child knew.
Mama was hurt and in flames and Haruka was hurting and clammy and cold, and her head was getting fuzzy...
Curling into foetal position around the rag doll, the little girl went into shock, and quietly drowned with the plasma that oozed inside her burnt lungs.
Neither mother or daughter suffered any more on that life.