Exasperated, I tore the pages out of my book and hurled them into the fire, watching them cripple from the flames as embers scattered around the floor. I didn’t care about history or learning about the war. Books are worthless to me. But as I was watching the flames with a smug grin, the fire screamed out an incoherent roar and it grew larger, cloudy grey smoke billowing out.
The rapid change disconcerted me as I watched, floored and startled. Suddenly a strange shape began to form in the ashes, whispering an inexplicable message. The curiosity was unbearable and I reached out to touch the fiery figure and all at once a traumatic pain was inflicted on me and I dropped to the floor in agony.
When I looked up, I was in a nightmarish scene. Trapped in a narrow corridor, chilled by incessant bawling and screaming. Dazed, I wondered if the fire had been a portal and tentatively walked forwards into a hospital ward. I was flooded by the stench of gangrene and the walls and floors were soaked in blood. Soldiers were limping on crutches, dragging their limbs behind them and shrieking in pain. A few were screaming as throbbing, gut-wrenching agony washed over them as their limbs were being amputated. Some were lying, sweating and sobbing as they rubbed hideous, fleshy wounds.
Everyone was suffering immensely, constantly filled with terror as wails of low flying jets whizzed by outside and deadly explosions took place. Many lay clutching their stomachs, covering their bleeding eye sockets and cradling their arms in slings as they gritted their teeth bravely. Dead bodies were littered in heaps, children were crying and bleeding, their faces charred and burned from the ongoing war. This was deaths home. I distinctly remembered this scene from the book I’d burnt in the fire. I was trapped inside the novel!
At once I realised I had to get out of here and the fire re-appeared in the distance! I rushed towards it in relief, ready to touch the ashes again and be transported home, when I felt two hands clamp over my shoulders and drag me to the operating table. “Wait, let me go!” I shouted in horror. The surgeon gave me a menacing smile and took out a needle, wiping away excess blood. My jaw dropped and I shook my head, “no, no! Don’t!”
The surgeon began to trace a blood stained message on my arm as I thrashed in pain, a look of despair on my face. When the surgeon finished, I looked down at my arm and I saw a sentence imprinted on my flesh. ‘You are trapped for all eternity.’ Suddenly the fire in front of me, my only portal back home, began to slowly disappear. The last thing I heard was an ear-splitting scream before everything went black.