The Fire and the Fog by David Alloggia Page B

climbing the stairs,
and he heard his mother crying out his fathers name in pain,
sobbing loudly as she did so.
    ‘Mother!’ he cried, and the door to his room
exploded inwards, splinters of wood from where a heavy boot had
kicked it in peppering the room. The door fell to the floor with a
crash, and small shards of wood peppered at Gel’s face, but his
eyes were fixed.
    In through the doorway stepped a large,
bearded man, who laughed as the fire from outside glittered madly
off his eyes. He was wearing a large, gold buttoned red coat, and
his large red beard seemed as wild and uncontrollable as the fire
from Gel’s dreams. He grinned as he saw Gel abed and walked towards
him, sword arm rising as he came. Each step he took, each time his
thick boots hit the wooden floor of Gel’s room, sounded like the
peal of a large clock, ringing out the seconds to Gel’s doom. The
man’s footsteps were the sound of death approaching; the grinning
man, with his fiery red beard, death himself.
    Still half lying under covers, Gel could only
get his right arm free as the man his bed and swung his sword. Gel
tried to protect himself, tried to deflect the sword, to do
anything, but there was nothing Gel could do as the man’s sword
swung down towards his head.
    The last thing Gel saw through his splayed
fingers was firelight glinting off the shining blade as it angled
towards his face. Then pain exploded his world, and darkness
followed it.
     
    ***
     
    Somehow, Gel woke again. He knew he was
awake, and not dead, because of the pain. In death, Ragn was
supposed to take you into his arms, and wash away all your sin,
your pain, and your fear. When you died, Ragn would take you in,
and take away all your pain, and leave you with nothing but
contentment and love.
    Gel felt nothing but pain and fear though, so
he knew he must still be alive.
    As he tried to open his eyes, Gel found his
right eye was stuck shut. His left eye opened, and surveyed his
room, which looked too normal; only the shattered remnants of the
door, lying half off its hinges, and his blood soaked bed sheets
gave away that the nightmare from earlier had been no nightmare at
all.
    His left hand, reaching up to find what was
wrong with his stuck eye, met only a mass of congealed blood, and
spread pain like wildfire across his face as he probed the
half-scabbed gouge. His fingers stuck slightly in the tacky,
molasses-like blood, and they came away red and wet.
    The slow realization of why his entire face
hurt barely registered as he moved to find out what was wrong with
his right hand. He absently wondered if his eye was still there
under the blood, if he’d ever be able to open it and see again. If
he’d ever really want to.
    At first he thought his right hand was gone;
he couldn’t move it all. But as he looked, he realized it had
somehow become wrapped tightly in his bright red sheets.
    Every move he made to unstick his hand hurt
like nothing else he had ever felt, hurt more than his burning
face, but he had to get free. He had to get out of his room, and to
his parents. They could help him; they would know what to do. If he
couldn’t get his hand free, he couldn’t get to them, and they
wouldn’t be able to make things right.
    He pulled and picked slowly at his bed sheets
for a time, wincing, and sometimes letting out small cries of
anguish as he slowly unpeeled the covers that were slick with blood
and stuck to his hand. Every fiber of sheet that he unstuck sent a
new wave of agony shooting up and down his arm. He had to unravel
it slowly, fold by aching fold, to keep from screaming or fainting
from the pain.
    He was doing it though. Fold by blood-slicked
fold came away from his hand; he was making progress. He felt he
was almost untangled from the mess of blankets when two small bits
of bloody flesh fell out from a fold, and rolled down the covers to
lie beside him, taunting his reeling mind.
    He stared at his severed fingertips, trying
to understand what was