Flame

“Flame” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Tilemahos Kostopoulos, Lighthouse, Cyprus.

Flame

Fire is a nice thing, but can be dangerous; I know that because I can wield fire. We have been at this war for years now. Our opponent, frost, is hard to win against. We have suffered many losses in this war which has been going on for ten years. BOOOOM! Another explosion from the training room. We were in a mournful state. We had just lost a really good fighter, Fangorn. Someone came running into the room. “Come quick, we need backup!” He said, gasping for breath. I ran and went to the battle field. Ice was coming towards us really quickly. I summoned all my fire into my hands. I blasted a ring of fire all around me. The ice melted and fire came back at once. I am a pretty good fighter too. I had lots of fire inside me, as our master had said at the training room 5 years ago. But then, the land froze up again. What’s happening? I thought, and then it hit me.

“They are coming below the ground!” I shouted. “What?” said my friend Jacob. “Come with me!” I blasted fire onto the ground, melting it in a moment. “Wow.” I said. I really amstrong. Then I called for my other friend, Sarah. “Sarah!” “Yes?” “Come with me into this hole, I’ve found where all the ice comes from!” “Really?” “Yes, come with me.” Me and my two friends went down into the hole and followed the tunnel until we turned a corner and heard voices. We’ve got them! We sneaked around the corner and got ready to blast fire but somebody turned and shouted. “Oh, we have spies!” “What shall we do with them” the other one then said.“You will do nothing without a fight,” I said and got ready for the fight, but he was too fast for me and created a wall of ice, isolating them inside a cocoon. I started blasting the wall with fire. The man was already putting another layer of ice to fix the shield. But we didn’t notice the other two people that already starting to mine from the sides to us, and suddenly they broke the rock and froze another part of the tunnel imprisoning us in a very cold place. I tried summoning fire to help us out. Nothing. “Our powers don’t work in the cold. I forgot that.” I said to my friends. “And anyway,” I called to the two people who dug away and froze us in a room of ice. “How did you dig that fast?”

We are not going to tell you how we did that!

And suddenly we all started blasting the ice wall with fire, and our powers were stronger because the ice had melted a bit and the cold wasn’t that strong anymore. The wall broke down and we ran for it blasting behind us fire to keep them at bay, I blasted fire in front of me to create a path for us to go through and then suddenly we were out into the sunlight and we stopped blasting fire and let them come out. They were out into our territory and the ice was gone. We actually set them free, but we had made sure that they would never dig holes again. Then the war started again and the three we had set free were fighting against us. Oh well, I thought. Somebody threw ice quickly and struck me in the heart. Owwwww, I cried out and the people around me started blasting fire at me to defreeze me again but when they had done so I still felt weak. They called the medics and they said that it would take a long time before I recovered fully but they treated me well so as that I would not die. My friends came along with our leader.

-What happened? Said Jacob. Somebody hit me in the heart with ice. Ah, said our leader. Well I have good news, our leader said; I have managed to make a peace treaty with ice. Really? Good. Yes, because a new enemy has arisen… “Who is it?” I asked, “darkness.”

To be continued…