Day 738

There's nothing quite like the sight of a warm fire, the feel of its heat against your skin in the chilly spring air and the scent of the burning pine trees that the older generation seem so fond of using for kindling. That is, when you've planned the fire beforehand, not when you're thrown awake by a wall of flames several feet from home and rushing towards you fast.

The sky was a mesh of black smoke and flickering embers tossed up by the harsh winds that seemed determined to bring the flames right to your front door. During those brief moments of fear-turned-rational-thought you realised there was no sound. The fire stood at almost twelve feet tall, engulfing everything in its path without so much as a whisper.

Something about it seemed off enough that you stepped closer to the open flames, perhaps believing it was all a dream or perhaps half mad from the heat already. Your hand reached out to touch the flickering warmth and didn't feel any pain. Your eyes felt dry but didn't cause you any discomfort. Your skin blackened and cracked and you continued to walk forward.

Ahead of you were what could only be described as human torches, their bodies acting ad fuel and transport for the fire as they ran around, skipped and danced to some music you could only barely hear. They too made no sound, what little of their expressions you could see through the flames that were rapidly engulfing your body showed nothing short of pure joy.

One spied you and beckoned the others to head over to you. They in turn beckoned others and soon burning people were walking to you from every possible direction. Even the shapes you had thought to be conifer trees slowly ambled towards you, their impossibly long limbs swinging gracefully the air, leaving huge arcs of embers in their wake.

Your limbs moved to run away from them all, diving head first into a pile of ash and twisted metal that had maybe once been a car or a shed. The vibration of their footsteps came closer and closer, stepping right over you and trampling you further down into the ground, compacting the ash and soil tightly around until all that was left peeking above was the heel of our right foot.

The next thing you knew was that you were being dug out by someone in fireman's suit. Their skin had the same crackled, pus filled texture that yours did but neither of you were on fire, in fact the fire was gone. It left behind a landscape full of warped buildings and impossible creatures who'd been waiting in the trees for the right amount of warmth for too long.

Now, as you were gently led towards the ruins of the town church you began to understand what would happen. Everyone was queueing up to get inside, to be anointed for their new life. Where the baptismal pool had once been was now a deep gouge in the landscape, filled to the brim with thick bubbling lava. The line of survivors gradually moved into and under it. Nobody surfaced on the other side.