I've never done anything like this before, so please, bear with me.
Mrs. Dincht flipped the fish over on its other side. She wasn't hungry, but had to keep her mind off everything else she could be thinking about. She stared at the fish lying in the greasy skillet and tried to memorize the way it looked; every scale, every fin.
She was subconciously worrying over her only son.
Suddenly, as loud as bullets, there were knocks on her front door. She smiled; another distraction. She waited as a soldier walked in. He stank of sweaty armor and beads of sweat danced across his forehead.
"Hello, Mrs. Dincht," he smiled, looking very uncomfortable. "Something smells good in here."
Mrs. Dincht smiled back her homely smile.
"I would like to talk to you about something. Would you like to sit down?"
The widowed mother agreed, and worry filled her heart yet again. She scolded herself in her mind. She hated how her paranoia took over all of the time.
She nodded and led the soldier into the next room.
She took a deep breath through her nose and smiled. The room smelled like potpourri. Zell loved how the room smelled.
Then she laughed to herself. She thought about how he once asked her to make the room smell like hot dogs.
She sat down at the table across from the soldier.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
The man sighed. "You know I hate to be the one to tell you this."
Her heart nearly stopped. Her stomach throbbed. She couldn't speak.
The soldier was shifting his weight around uncomfortably. He didn't know how to say it.
That's not what it's about, Mrs. Dincht thought to herself, it's not about him. It has to be about something else.
The soldier sighed. "As you already know, your son went off to.. defeat the sorceress.."
No. This is a joke, she pleaded, This isn't real.
She begged herself that in one minute, he was going to jump up and say just kidding, and her happy-go-lucky son would come dancing into the house with open arms.
He shook his head. "Zell didn't make it."
The feeling Mrs. Dincht had felt right at that moment was a feeling most people wish to never have. It was completely horrible. Like her heart was stopping and taking the rest of her body down with it. She didn't know how to explain the terror and sadness that overflowed her body at that second.
She couldn't even cry; everything inside of her was dried up.
The soldier uncomfortably stood up. "I'll leave you to yourself now," he said. Then he walked out of the room and out of the house.
Mrs. Dincht was all alone. All alone.
Her only son was gone. Blown to smithereens by the sorceress.
The sorceress.
She pushed everything off of the table. Candles and glass decorations shattered against the hardwood floor. Anger took over, but went away within the next minute. She decided she would do her best to get over it. She would be strong for him.
She stood up from the chair. She felt as if she gained a hundred pounds within the last ten minutes.
She forced herself out of the room and up the steps to Zell's.
Then came the tears. They poured out of her eyes like a dripping faucet as she looked around at all his belongings. His boogie-board. His punching bag. Just some of his favorite things.
She dropped down to the floor on her knees and buried her face in her hands.
This wasn't reality.
This was a horrible horrible nightmare, that she would never wake up from.
She didn't make a move, or even twitch, as the smoke alarm started going off downstairs.
She didn't move when the smoke started coming up the stairs. She breathed in the smoke. It smelled like burning fish. She leaned over to a wastebasket and retched.
She started feeling the warmth of the fire coming up from downstairs. She hoped no one would come try and get her to leave. She inhaled more smoke, trying to get it to get inside her body and destroy everything.
Pretty soon that was all she could see was smoke.
Why wasn't anyone coming to help her?
She shook her head to herself. She had no one left. Of course no one would help her.
She tried to breathe in but she couldn't. She wasn't getting air, only smoke.
Fire surrounded her.
She smiled.
Soon she would be up above the clouds, yelling at her son for causing trouble. She decided she would cook him lots of hot dogs to come home to every evening.
She would tell him how proud of him she always was.
She came back to reality and saw Zell's belongings burn to coals.
She laid down across the boiling hot floor and closed her eyes.
She never opened them again.