Hidden Run (Introduction)

The scraping of my shoe heel against the pavement was a new and, at first, uncomfortable sound to me. My entire life had previously been spent in rundown shack of a house with family members who could barely manage enough money to spend some time at the arcade let alone buy food or whatever else we desperately needed. Even after I left, the only place I could live was a small, thin house in the middle of the pine barrens. You know the kind, the ones that are always two stories, painted red or some other weird color, and are almost always abandoned or haunted or some other reason that led to them being vacant. Yeah, I lived in one of those for about three or so years while working on my schooling and earning a license.

Neither of which turned out for the better, though. Regardless, one day while I was being subjected to another boring and meaningless day of plain old high school, I noticed that a large, black cloud rose up from within the trees due west from me. But, as per usual, I just zoned out while the didactic lecture about organs or something continued on. My eyes and mind were so heavy that my head dropped suddenly onto the table and I fell asleep in an instant.

Once the final bell rang, I jumped up and ran out into the front yard, knocking over a few students who cursed and called me names everyone else used against me. Feeling the breeze and seeing the rainy clouds genuinely brought a smile on my face. What made that day even better, before it obviously went to worse, was the appearance of my good friend Jack. Despite me being seventeen and Jack being eighteen, you honestly could tell what polar opposites we were. I looked like some kind of short haired rocker while Jack looked helluva lot more mature than me, with a junior year goatee and beard to boot.

" Sup' man." he muttered out " Hey, uh, do you happen to live around the ,um, barrens ?". My body shuttered as the smoke hit my mind like a stray bullet. The only thoughts in my head were shouts of " Damnit" and " How did it get scorched ?". A chill went through my spine as I finally let out a hesitant " Yeah". Instantaneously, his face went from a warming grin to a melancholic frown. "Well, there's been a forest fire and...they said that a small house was burned down.".

A quick and painful stinging sensation came to my eyes as tears forced themselves out of their ducts. I urged myself to keep calm, but that didn't work out. Instead, all I wanted to do was punch something and scream like some upset child, which I kinda was at that moment. Without even thinking I rushed over to my home as Jack steadily followed. The sight of the towering blaze was viewable all the way from entrance as it encumpassed the entire wood.

Trees, animals, all incinerated into nothing more than embers and ash. The two of us simply sat and looked onward as the firefighters hurriedly emptied their water supply on the still growing inferno. It had become such a disaster that nearly everything was nothing more than a gray residue that reeked of smoke and burnt wood within only half an hour. Jack gave me a comforting grin and giggle as he knelt down in front of my statue-esque body. " I've just come up with the perfect idea." his stoner voice rang out.

That...is how I not only ended up here, but also participated in the greatest yet worst time of my lifetime.