1 Fire Walker

It was a normal, happy day at Jupiter's Mountains Community school. Ms. Franck, our social studies teacher, was teaching the class about Latin America, around the end of her lesson, assigning partners for our projects.

I had a pretty normal life here so far, and it was a great couple of years. I had made close friends here, and we had just started middle school life as sixth graders. It was about a month away until we went on our camping trip, which was in mid-October. I didn't know what would happen then, but I do know I'm enormously tired. I turn around drowsily to look through the left class window. Cars were bustling to get to work this morning, with blurs of grey, black, silver, and red along with some neon colors here and there of cars and land vehicles crossing the road. You could see the flower shop barely a few blocks away through the right window. The one thing that separated them both was a sleek pinewood bookshelf that was a mess of exercise balls and books that we were going to read as homework in the distant future. It's pretty cool to have lockers now that we were in middle school. Both sixth-grade classes were assigned to the top floor of the school. When we heard at the end of the fifth-grade year everyone went bonkers.

"And Jessie and Josh will work on the Caribbean Islands." Ms. Franck said in a bored voice as if she really wanted to go to lunch now. I was starving. After lunch, we only had three more classes for the day, but I was too lazy to look at the schedule by the secondary chalkboard to the right of me. Toban looked like he was drawing anime characters in his wide-ruled notebook out of boredom.

Something broke my thought instinctively. I don't know what, but it did. All of the sudden the fire alarm, which looked bright red in the middle of the white checkered ceiling, started to flare an annoying amount of noise. One moment I'm sitting in class, bored halfway to insanity, when all of a sudden, the fire alarms went off, and the sprinkler system on the ceiling began spraying us with a hurricane of tap water. Everyone around me looked panicked. Toban was sitting right next to my right, and he looked clueless as well. While it was normal to have random fire drills and even the sprinklers, no one had smelled smoke, and my classroom door was almost always open. I didn't remember anything about a drill happening today, and Ms. Frank would have said something about it during our morning verse today.

"Jessie, what's going on?" Josh asked me, his Latin American geography book held over his head. The black-white speckled notebook was working for him like a poor umbrella, the water trickling off his elbows like a tiny waterfall.

"You think I know?" I responded, trying to see out the door. I was getting worried. If the fire wasn't inside, it had to be outside, and that's where my little brother was at the moment.. Fear started to pulse through me like a swarm of yellowjackets bustling to their hive in the rain.

"Ok everyone, calm down! The fire alarms are probably on the fritz again." Called Ms. Kreives, who had entered the room to grab her students. Her icy calm face was on at the moment, her teacher-y robes getting darker in the illusionary rainstorm happening right above their heads.

"I'm going to go check it out," I told Josh.

"Be careful, and..." he said, expecting me to finish. He looked at me hesitantly, tightening up his shoulders, putting the hood part of his hoodie over his head. He looked at me as if I shouldn't go out there.

"Don't get caught," I finished, "B.R.B," I said as I sank back into the crowd, sneaking towards the door. When I got there, I made sure Ms. Kreives wasn't looking, then raced out. I ran as silent as I could toward the blue painted stairs. The hallway was filled with cheerful light from the windows to the right of me, which seemed inappropriate for what was happening right now. The entire stairwell was a dark-ish cerulean that I didn't know how to explain. I was on the first landing when I saw him, right out in the hallway, about to walk through the dark oak door.

Now, I don't know if you're going to believe me or not, but what I saw was real. A guy was standing in the middle of the hallway, and he was not a staff member. He was on fire. Literally. The guys standing in front of me was covered head-to-toe in bright orange and gold flames. He was just standing in the middle of the first flight of stairs on the way up. He just looked at me, well, kinda. His face was kind of like Slender-Man's. He had no eyes nor a mouth. He just stood there, his head tilted slightly to the left, seeming as if he were staring at me. I saw the floor was charred black with scorch marks that looked like slow, creepy footsteps. They looked slow. Which sparked a little bit of hope in me. I just stood there like an idiot for a second before I bolted back up the stairs in fear. I didn't hear footsteps luckily, I thought so I guessed he hadn't followed me, which was releaving. When I got back In the classroom, I went straight to my desk, acting as if I went to the bathroom. Both of the teachers frowned at me, narrowing their glassy stares directly at my eyes. I sat down in my chair, looking down as if I felt bad, and that was when Josh asked me what happened.

"I saw a man that was literally on fire in the stairwell," I whispered, keeping my eyes on Ms Franck while she was in the middle of a speech about following the four pillars of the school. "It looked like he was coated in flames, Josh."

"We have to tell Ms. Kreives," he said. I don't think I've ever seen him this worried before, terror sparking in his eyes like a rabbit that was being chased.

"What if she doesn't believe us?" I asked, putting my hand on his shoulder as a comforting gesture.

"We have to try," he said back, turning and heading for Ms. Kreives. I followed him. When we reached Ms. Kreives, I repeated what I had told Toban. Her eyes went round with terror somewhat cryptically as if there was more meaning to her expression. Ms. Kreives face looked thoughtful for a moment, as if she actually believed them, then she said,

"If what you say is true, then you are in danger, Jessie and Josh."

"Wait, what do you mean 'in danger'?" I asked, getting worried.

"He is here to take people like you back to his master. Grab Brianan, Will, Dykota, and Maple and go out the back door," she told us. "I'm afraid I cannot explain much more than that."

"Ok?" I had said it more like a question than an agreement. I felt Josh's expression creep onto me like a centipede. What were they going to do then? Come back to school? Just then as she was thinking, the front door burst open, and the flaming guy was standing there. He looked murderous, although he had a featureless face. His humanoid hands were holding the door open, letting the wooden door slowly burn into blackness.

"Run." Ms. Kreives whispered to us. She whirled around only to glare at the fire-man and bare her teeth in a scowl at him. (Was it a male? I wasn't sure)."I see you have come for some of my students," she raised her voice at the in-flamed man. "Well, you have to get through me first, Fire Walker."

I was terrified when this "Fire Walker" started walking towards the door. But right before he stuck his hand through, an invisible wall of plaster appeared, and no matter how hard he pushed, nothing was working. He couldn't get through. Wait, what had created the plaster? I started to think, but this wasn't the time. The world might end, right here and right now.

"I think we should grab the others now," I said, my eyes glued to the Fire Walker.

"Yeah." agreed Josh. He tugged on my arm grimly, nearly leaving punctures of fingernail marks on my lower arm. We started running as fast as we could. I felt like I was forgetting something that Ms. Krieves had just told us to do...

"Wait," I said right before we reached the door, "We have to grab them first." Josh nodded, knowing that I meant Maple, Dykota, Brianan, and Will, and ran in Will's direction. I ran for Brianan. When I reached her, I grabbed her arm and said,

"Come on, we have to go."

"Uhh, you're seeing that right?" she asked pointing at the Fire Walker. Her grey-blue eyes were wide with terror as if she saw everyone in the classroom were decapitated for no reason at all once so ever (oh god, sorry for that image).

"Yeah." I replied quietly. Why did this whole mess have to have happened NOW? Why couldn't this be later? Or NEVER, for that matter.

"Damn scary though, I mean it is a GUY ON FIRE!" I hear Josh say.

I then shouted,

"Where's Dustyn and Maple?" The Fire Walker turned it's head towards them. A lot of the students were hiding in various parts of the room. Lots of them were hiding under desks and corners like nervous mongooses. Ms. Krieves shot a ball of white fire at it, knocking it towards the ground. She shot a 'Hurry up!' look towards them, then focused on the duel she was having.

"I don't know, try the other side of the room!" He called back. He was walking in our direction. I think he was gonna grab Brianan. I pushed through the crowd gathering near the door, but no one got close to the Fire Walker. I reached the other side of the room, and sure enough, Dykota was crouching in a corner spot of the room where no one could see him unless they got close.

"Um, Jessie, tell me I'm hallucinating." He said as he looked up at me with innocent eyes.

"I wish," I responded, holding out my hand for him to grab. "But we have to get out of here. Now."

He grabbed my hand and I helped him get up. He got really close to me as if he was expecting me to use me as a shield.

"Now, let's find Josh and the others and get out of here." We pushed through the crowd and found Maple. I had an ounce more worry for Maple more than the others, for some reason that I couldn't untangle. She was hiding behind copper rods, clutching them scornfully as if she were going to use them to attack the Fire Walker.

"Have you seen Josh and Will?" I asked her, grabbing her hand.

"I think they're over there," said Maple, pointing towards the back. Her espresso brown eyes stared right at me, her tortoiseshell glasses lens catching the light from the windows (and the flaming creature, of course.

"OK, come on." I pulled her towards the back. When we got there, the others were waiting for us.

"You guys ready?" asked Will. And I nodded, Dykota held up a nervous thumb. Brianan smiled and Josh had a determined look on his face. Maple's fingers were playing with the small eraser in her hand but nodded as if she was trying to not look scared. Just then we heard a lot of kids scream and saw a flash of bright flames.

"Well, time to go! Before we're on fire ourselves," Dykota said urgently. "Dammit, this is scary!" He added in a low voice. Maple held my hand softly as if I were comforting her.

"Agreed," I said. Then Will pulled the door open and we rushed out. I turned around at the last second, and what I saw still horrifies me to this day. Ms. Kreives was standing holding a ball of blue fire in her hands. But that wasn't the problem. Many of my classmates were lying on the ground, their bodies scorched.

"Let's get out of here, quick." Maple said as my chest pounded with fear.

Then the door closed.