AN: 1:00 AM Sat April 13th. 2019. Well, I couldn't help myself, and since BITN ch 13 is taking forever(should have guessed I'd hit a block when I got to 13) I decided that I might as well follow my muse back into the Nasuverse.


POV: ME

I woke up to the sound of screaming, and the all encompassing smell of smoke.

At first, I wondered. Where was I? what I was doing here? After all, this wasn't my bed. That wasn't my door. This wasn't my room. But, as the overpowering smell of smoke flooded my nostrils, and burned my throat, I was forced to push that thought to the side as I realized that all the signs pointed to a fire nearby.

As I blasted out from under the covers, throwing the blankets of as if they were burning me, the wall on the far side of the ignited so quickly one would think someone had previously coated it in oil.

Shocked by the flame, I froze for an instant, my mind freezing up. The sudden adrenaline rush that came after said moment of stillness snapped me out of it, and sent me into a mad rush to find an escape rout, which I found in the form of a large, closed window.

Shooting to the portal to the outside world, I attempted to open it, only to find the sill to be to hot to touch. Turning around to try and find something to pry it open with, I was horrified to find that the fire was spreading far to fast, as if everything was mad of paper, and had already covered over half of the room.

Without warning, the fire suddenly surged up, hitting the ceiling. The sudden surge of burning death sent a pulse of primal fear coursing through me unlike any I had experienced before, and before I had realized what I was happening, I found myself tumbling unto the ground outside in a hail of broken glass, unable to remember whether or not I had been blasted through it by an explosion or had jumped through the glass, as I was to preoccupied with the sudden bout of horrid sensations that greeted my newly liberated self.

My first, gasping breath of the outside air was a mouthful of smoke. Thick, black smoke that seemed to cling to the inside of my throat, and burned. Burned like rubbing citrus juices into torn skin, only a dozen times worse. Exhaling ended up feeling like a late-throat cold coughing fit, and brought tears to my eyes.

The sound that greeted my ears was a horrible combination of screams, moans and ghastly howls, that echoed inside my head as if it was some great cavern, and stabbed into my got like a dagger of ice, seeming to both sap the strength from my mind and drive it to my legs, sending me running shakily down the street.

I shot down the middle of the road at top, not paying any attention to the buildings on either side of my beyond that they were all on fire and the screaming and I needed to get away from the smoke. Glancing back behind me even as I choked on the noxious fumes, I saw what appeared to a tide of lava that had a slight blue/purple glow to it.

Redoubling my speed('why am I already exhausted? My legs shouldn't be burning like this yet.'), I took off down the street as quickly a my aching joints could carry me('Why does it feel like I'm running on nails?'), down several streets and around several corners, though always away from that horrible flow of . . .whatever.

I had just rounded another corner, when I was thrown ass over tea-kettle to the side as what appeared to be a meteor slammed into the asphalt and exploded. I like to think that my thought were abnormally organized as I got back up, seeing as I had landed on my head and immediately come to the conclusion that I was near a newborn volcano that was spewing out material, and took of running again, only to find that the fire was now ahead of me as well.

None the less I pressed on . . . only to realize that I should be taking shelter as a dozen more large, burning pieces of stone impacted the ground and houses around me.


I regained consciousness half buried in ash and broken pieces of wood and concrete, feeling as If someone had put me through a meat grinder, then put a jackhammer set to "liquefy" between my ears for good measure. I dragged myself halfway out using my arms, only for said appendages to give out on me, letting me head fall onto the ground painfully, my legs still in the densely packed powder. I breathed in through my mouth only for the air to again, mercilessly burn fiery trails down my throat.

Digging out what strength I had left, I managed to drag the rest of my body out of the grey ashes and still slightly burning wood chips, forcing of the chunks of artificial stone, and struggle back unto to my feet. Taking me first step, the soles of my shoe-less feet felt like walking on hot coals and a sea of broken glass all an once, the pain lancing all the way up my legs, and I nearly overbalanced to fall onto my face, only catching myself at the last moment, hands on my knees.

From this position, a wave of nausea, I found myself choking out . . . whatever the last thing I had eaten was, a fresh wave of bile surging up my throat every time I tried to inhale. By the time I dry heaved for the last time, I was so light headed I could barely keep my head on straight, let alone think with it. My retching fit finale done, I gasped in several choking breaths, which burned worse than anything I had ever felt.

By the time I could begin walking again, my head was so screwed up between the lightness and the pounding that the fact that I could register I needed to move was a miracle. My gait could barely be called a walk with how shaky it was, and I barely managed to navigate my between the massive pieces of cement scattered around the area.

I staggered around in circles for who knows how long, my mind a mess unable to think anything coherent enough to translate into words, simply looking for a safety that was not visible in any of the burning directions. Finally, my lizard brain decided that the direction from which to loudest moaning was coming was best, and I set off.

I walked shakily, ever step an effort, every motion all but a herculean trial, only made worse by what had to a solid foot of ash coating the ground(in the shallow places), clinging to my legs. The only conscious thought to pass through my mind a continuous, back to back stream of 'dear God help me' s. Every step sent a pulse of pain pummelling into my brain(on top of the pounding and the light headedness), my neck and skull felt like it was splitting apart with every sway of my body.

I stared shakily into the distance, my eyes watering from the smoke, my vision so blurry that I could barely make out the next burning building in the seemingly never ending row that I was walking down.

I was around the time that my tears finally managed to clear my vision enough for me to effectively see my surroundings that I finally saw my first other person in this hellscape.

With my blurry eyes, all I could make out was the rough outline of a person laying in the ash. The sight gave me pause, trying to register their existence as best my thrice damned head was able at the time. After a second or staring at the outline I heard moaning. "Help . . . me . . . " the figure, who sounded quite young, stretched out one hand in my direction, their whole blurred image shivering. Without thinking, I reached out an took their hand, the motion sending my own into spasms of pain, only for the offered appendage to crumble to ash between my fingers.

The person in the question drew their arm shakily to their face, their head pointed towards it in a way that lead my far-to-cloudy-vision to believe they were staring at it, before the entirety of their body likewise crumbled into ash and I was left to question weather or not they had ever even been there as I continued my walk.

Soon enough, it became apparent to my rapidly clearing eyes that my first encounter was hardly a hallucination(either that or this was all one big one). I began to find other people in the sea of ash and despair, people clawing through the ocean of grey dust to pull someone out, only for the liberated body to turn to powder in their grasp even as the person I had found earlier had. People who were desperately trying to enter burning houses to reach the ones still trapped inside. People simple stumbling through this hell the way I was, empty eyed.

I tried helping two more people after the first, only for them to crumble between my fingers the way the first had. After that I simply walked, trying to escape this pit of despair and suffering.

I don't know how long I shambled forward like that, exhaustion beating its way through every cell of my body, until the only reason I could still move was that I didn't have the presence of mind to realize I could stop, that I didn't have to keep my limbs moving(which by then felt like they were burning from inside out), that I didn't have to keep gasping wheezing breaths that felt like spikes in my throat and acid in my lungs. I couldn't stop. Not, at least, until I fell.

I suppose their was an awkward angle to the street under the ash, or maybe a stone, or other such obstruction, but the end result was the same. I fell onto my side, rolled unto my back, and I laid their, starring up, eyes half open, at the blue-black moon that seemed to radiate hopelessness like light, what remained of my energy seemingly being leached into the ground.

And I watched the moon. I watched it rain the lava I had seen flood the street earlier. I watched the sphere of horror occasionally pulse, like some perversion of a heart, spewing an abnormally large blast of liquid that seemed to sent up large gouts of smoke. I watched the fires spread. I watched the moon. That is . . . until my view was partially blocked blocked by a black silhouette.

It was clearly a person, hunched over, rooting through the rubble on the horizon. Their figure was the first motion I had seen in several minutes that wasn't the flickering of the flames or the shifting of the rubble. Slowly, the figure moved in my direction, overturning any pieces of wood and concrete large enough to cover a human body.

Feeling the urge to reach out to him, I slowly raised my arm in his direction, the simple motion sapping what remained of my strength. The raised limb fell to my side unseen by the digging man. The sound that it made as it struck the ash, however slight it was, made the figure turn to face me.

Freezing for a moment, the man seemed to just stair at me for a few seconds, before he ran to me, tripping and stumbling over the same pieced of concrete I had weaved around earlier in his rush to reach me.

Crouching down by my side, he slowly lifted me up of the ground and began to check over me, sobbing "Your alive, your alive" over and over again. Something seemed wrong about the motion, as if I was lighter than I should be, but my mind had been all but destroyed by the past events, and I thought nothing of it.

As the man held me, my vision began to fade, the last thing I saw being a golden glow lighting up the mans silhouette.


AN: 2:14 AM, April 15th, 2019. OK, that is two days two write, and one to proofread, so I'd say that's all right. I was planing to add a few post fire scenes, but decided to skip them entirely. So, until next time.