This is my first 451 story so please be nice
They used the glare off the television seeping through the windows on the generic houses to light their way. It wasn't real light, no. Real light bent and changed and warmed, this light was cold, and fake, only a constant, mind-numbing, flicker. The man looked down at his innocent niece. Her eyes full of wonder, trying to absorb everything she was seeing. A plastic bag draped from her arm, filled to the brim with fortune cookies.
"What are we doing Uncle?" the 5-year-old asked. The man gave the child a big knowing grin.
"We're making deliveries," you could just hear the smile in his voice.
"Ohhhhhhhh," she looked down at the bag, "Well...what are these things?"
"Relics," he stated simply, "Open one,"
The young girl hesitantly stuck her hand in the plastic bag,
"Go on," the man encouraged.
She grasped her stubby fingers on a wrapper and carefully began to tear. Once she had the cookie in her hand, she looked to her uncle questioningly.
"Break it," he instructed her, and she did. A look of surprise and amazement crossed her face when a tiny scroll popped out.
Everything you do and everything you will do affects hundreds of people some way. Watch your decisions.
"What does that mean?" she asked while she was eating the cookie.
"These things make people think. They tell you to be nicer or some parable on the dangers of wasting your life in front of a flickering screen. Somehow, some way, some people change their lives over these things, these things hold a fortune."
The two put a fortune cookie on every doorstop they could. They only got caught once.
"What are you doing?" A woman asked. She had been walking out of her house when she noticed the man drop something on her step.
"I could ask you the same thing," the uncle said.
The woman explained how she left her house every night, just to walk. She told him about her urge to go to the country side, everything. Her name was Char.
Years later Clarisse McClellan would skip home, with news from a longtime family friend.
"She wants what?!?!?!?" Clarisse looked up at her family,
"She wants books. She somehow knows we have a stash, she read one and now she's hooked."
"She understands the risk?"
"Yes,"
The uncle looked at the faces of his niece, his sister, his brother-in-law,
"Why not," he said finally, "We don't use them anymore anyway; I for one haven't read a book in years,"
"I guess," Clarisse's mother said hesitantly, "but what if she gets caught?"
"It's her call,"
Char received a fortune cookie that night:
Faber knows the way
One night, Clarisse decided to make "deliveries".
A fireman chief saw a small package on his doorstop. A Fortune Cookie.
Look Up
He did. And what did he see? Nothing. No stars, no moon, nothing, it was all gone; Beatty shoved the tiny paper into his pocket, and went to work.
"Where have you been?" The girl's mother asked her, Clarisse slipped of her camouflage shoulder bag.
"Making deliveries, mom" she answered coolly.
"We need to leave, now!" The mother grabbed the girl by the wrist and dragged her to the living room. Clarisse's bags were already packed, and her uncle and father were sitting on the couch.
"Char's dead," The uncle said, "Her house was burned by your little friend," he looked up from his shoes to the eyes of his niece welling up with tears, "We need to go,"
They put their bags in the car,
"She's dead," the Uncle said, His sister was crying next to him, Clarisse was still in the house, it had been a lot to take in, "The car is ready,"
"Poor Clarisse," the mother sobbed.
Mildred looked out the window to her home, her grey face not even caring what she saw, she was to far away to hear them, but she knew how to lip read, and what she saw was, "she's dead…car…Poor Clarisse,"
I have to remember to tell my husband, she thought.
"Where are we going?" Clarisse asked as they were driving away.
"To the country," her uncle answered her, "I know some people; they'll let us in. You still remember the book of Jude, right?"
"But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend," Clarisse recited in a heart beat.
"I know Revelation, and your parents are first and second Kings. Ever wonder why we don't read anymore?"
Montage was deranged, he gripped his flamethrower.
"But now, why should we die, because this intense fire will consume us! If we keep hearing the voice of the LORD our God we will die" Beatty muttered under his breath, his hands found their way into hiss pocket and he felt the slip of paper.
He looked up
He saw a single star above him, but this star was brighter then any star he had ever seen, it seemed to give him a message: Go for it
The Uncle had a small TV with him, he showed his family what was on it, and they all watched the news, they had left the car behind, and started walking, following a train track.
When they reached safety, they sat and watched the city, It only took a night for it to happen, the bomb to be dropped, and they fell to the floor and hugged the ground, hen it was over the uncle stood up,
"Sister, is their a verse that covers this,"
"Aye," the mother stood up as well and faced her family, "2 Kings 1:12-
'Eli replied to them, "If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your 50 soldiers!"'"
The father rose, "And Fire from God came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers,"
"I know one from the same chapter," the uncle said, "verse 14,"
"Yes," the mother said, "'Indeed, fire came down from the sky and consumed the two captains who came before me…'"
"Do, you know who those two Captains are?" the uncle asked his niece.
"No, uncle,"
"The old leaders, and the citizens that followed them happily, up until their own demise,"
Clarisse nodded in agreement. She took a fortune cookie from the bag she had brought with her
What's done is done
Thanks for reading so far, please review, that would make me super duper happy