Chapter Fourteen

The boy and I both looked up through the smog at a dark figure at the top of the stairs to see who cried out.

He instantly recognized them and choked out, “Jessica…” through the thick smoke. Then, as I watched, my nightmares began to play as the girl ran to reach the boy. But the flames had other ideas as it leaped up and hit her in the face and clawed at her feet.

As she neared, the fire howled and roared, reaching new heights and throwing heat at her. But she refused to stop, and the building started rumbling and things began to crash around her.

Determined, she still went on, and as she past me, I saw tears glinting in her eyes. She loves him. I realized with a shock.

She was closing the gap between them but she was still far. The boy was shouting things at her and struggling at his binds, but she ignored him as cautiously crept forward through the wall of fire.

The rumbling grew stronger; breaking through the fire’s noise and rubble fell off the ceiling; clouding everything and making the flames grow.

The girl looked up at the boy and their eyes met for half a second, then the boy looked over her shoulder and his eyes widened in fear.

She turned around to meet the huge metal monster face to face. Its arm was torn off and its cold metal eyes glowed a horrible ruby red.

I saw the cold shudder run through her body as she glanced for an exit- but there was none available. She spun around towards the boy once more and tried to run to him.

But she was stopped as the ground shook and debris fell from the roof. The floorboards started caving in beneath the girl- pulling her feet into the dark pit under her.

She flailed her arms wildly and grasped onto a broken pipe, trying desperately to hold on. In front of her, the boy was yelling over her shoulder and struggling with the ropes.

She craned her neck to look behind her and- just as I had seen in my dreams before- the metal man raised a wooden beam.

Noisy chaos burst in my ears as I watched the beam come down in slow motion, and seeing what really happened as the bar came down and crushed into the side of her body- knocking her out. The girl’s lifeless body tumbled down into the dark hole as the boy screamed above the noise.

The metal robot turned around with one last look at the boy and walked calmly down the stairs just as the raging fire exploded, even louder and hotter than before.

But behind the noise of the flames I heard nothing. I looked through the fire and towards the boy… but he was gone, the ropes that held him were cut and singed and their captor had disappeared.

Sorry everyone, this chapter is a little short but I’ve been a little busy and haven’t been able to write as much… But anyways! What happened to the boy? How did he disappear? You’ll have to find out next time!

Read on: Chapter Fifteen