Scorching Heat

I ran down the alley, keeping my steps light to reduce the noise my feet made on the cobblestones. As I tried to keep my breathing quiet and controlled I felt my ears swiveling, trying to catch the sounds of my pursuers who had been right behind me a moment ago.

“She went that way, into the alley.” I heard a voice yell and I dared a glance over my shoulder. Seeing nobody didn’t ease my feeling of urgency but they hadn’t caught me yet. As I faced forward again I saw an intersection, and quickly swerved left, continuing the path I had planned out away from the busy market square that I had narrowly escaped from. After another minute of quiet running, turning left and right seemingly at random through the narrow, dirty, back streets of Reedonik, I stopped to duck behind a trash can, listening as hard as I could. The faint sounds of yelling guards were still behind me but they were distant, and not growing closer, at least not yet. After slowing my breathing I took off the simple cloth mask I had been wearing, stowing it in my back pocket before turning back to the wall that I had been huddled up against. The building was a large wooden tavern by the name of The Rusty Flagon. It had been a well established place among the royalty and upper class of Sedonalvia, but that had been before the recent coup that had replaced the Conciliatory Monarchy with a harsh military backed dictatorship. Thankfully the abandoned building itself wasn’t what interested me. After carefully searching the lower few rows of logs that made up the base of the building, I found the knot I was looking for and pressed it firmly with the pointer finger on my free hand. As it sunk into the surrounding wood, there was a soft clicking noise and one of the larger stones in the ground near the foundation of the building quietly popped free allowing me to push it into a recess in the wall. Now there was an opening big enough for a person to slip inside, and clutching the loaf of bread I had stolen in the market tightly to my chest, and making sure my tail wasn’t going to be bent at a funny angle, I quickly descended into the hole. As I slid the stone overhead back into place I heard the voices of the guards finally drawing nearer but they were too late. As darkness surrounded me, I could just make out the sound of heavily armored footsteps running past my hiding spot, pausing only a moment when they reached the next intersection in the almost labyrinth-like pathways the narrow streets of the city created, before fading into the distance. I slowly counted to ten before moving, making sure that there were no more stragglers behind the group that had been chasing me. Finally I let out a sigh of relief and pressed my hand against the stones in front of me in the tiny hiding space until I found the one I was looking for.

“That was much too close.” I muttered to myself as my fingers caught on the edge of a stone, popping it out from the wall a bit like a lever or a handle. A section of the wall slid to the side with a low grinding noise revealing another tunnel leading downwards. Grabbing onto the ladder and nimbly moving the rest of my body into the new opening, I slid the rocks back together and descended. Finally I was safe. I stepped off the ladder into the dark underground room. There was absolutely no light to help me locate the box of matches and unlit candle sitting on the small table near the entrance, but I had done this so many times I probably could have done it one handed. I struck a match and lit the candle, looking around the small room as I set it back on the table. There wasn’t much in the bleak room besides a small pile of blankets and flat pillows I used as a bed and the table that stood under one of the two vents in the ceiling allowing air to circulate into the musty space, but it was better than sitting in a jail cell under the capitol, or whatever worse punishment this new regime could come up with. Before doing anything else, I took the few steps needed to cross the room and knelt down near a large crack in the wall, breaking off a small piece of my bread to place in front of the hole. After scooting back against the far wall to wait I began to munch on the rest of the loaf myself. Finally, after a couple of minutes, a small mousey nose emerged from the crevice in the wall. I watched, holding my breath, as the mouse I had nicknamed Mary scurried out of the gap just enough to start nibbling on the bread that had been left there. After a moment of eating, the tiny mouse seemed to notice me for the first time, just like it did every time I left something out for it. It didn’t immediately run away this time, but as I tentatively extended my hand, holding another small chunk of bread, it quickly snached the rest of the food in front of it and retreated into the hole. I sighed before popping the peace offering into my own mouth.

“Maybe next time then.” I said. I had been trying to befriend the tiny rodent who had moved into my hiding place for nearly a month now with little success, but at least now it seemed to realize I wasn’t going to kill it on sight. I closed my eyes, savoring the taste of the fresh bread. Compared to the stale or old food I usually dug out of trash bins or found on the streets, it was the most delicious thing in the world. After a few more minutes of eating, a sudden popping sound and a flash of light made me snap back to my surroundings. Sparks were flying off of my candle, and the flame usually small and flickering, was growing brighter and stronger. It only took seconds for it to envelop the entire candle. As I backed away from the unnaturally glowing light I realized with a stone in my stomach that the ladder, my only way out, was on the other side of the unexplainably expanding fire. The tabletop underneath the blaze had already caught fire and it was spreading fast. What had happened? Had the candle tipped over? Or perhaps there was something in the wick that had started the blaze. Now wasn’t the time to think about it, I had to move. Taking a deep breath to ready myself I ran, trying to push my way past the burning table before the flames became too intense. I grabbed onto the rungs and started climbing but to my own horror, I felt something wrap around my ankle before I could pull it onto a rung. The flames had caught me, and I felt like something in the fire was pulling me back down into the blaze. Strangely enough the flames didn’t seem to burn, but a numb, tingling sensation was climbing up my leg and the fact that I wasn’t being burned didn’t calm me down. As the pull into the flames became stronger and stronger, my grip began to slip, and finally I closed my eyes and let myself go. As I fell into the fire, I hoped the end would at least be painless.

As soon as I was completely submerged in the light, the flames disappeared with a loud crack, and the safe room was left in darkness again, completely empty besides a small pile of pillows and blankets, a short empty table, and a half eaten loaf of bread that had fallen to the ground.