... Dancing - originally a poem, which is why it seems choppy. I tried my best to change that, but I prefer it in it's original choppiness.

The crackling fire causes shadows to dance as the flames lick the walls, leaving black scorch marks on the wallpaper that had once adorned the living room. You watch from a distance as the glowing fire consumes the wood beams that were once your home, your world. Every possession that the house enclosed now curling in the heat, turning to ash and crumbling apart in a cloud of black soot. It is mesmerizing as the fire carries on with it is dance of destruction, the colors warm, your heart cold steel as you watch your life being cremated before it had even a thought to die. The fire lights the neighborhood, like the sun has already risen to come and watch with a spiteful smile as everything turns to rubble.

You are far away, watching from a distance, but you can feel the heat of the fire surrounding you, pressing in on you like you are there with the flames, swaying and dancing along with them. Your mind can’t even comprehend what it must feel like up close to the flames if it is so unbearable where you stand, like a thick wool blanket wrapped tightly around you on a humid summer night, not unlike tonight. The air is hot and muggy because of the summer, the smoke, the dancing fire, and the body heat of the crowd watching in anticipation—for what, you don’t know. It is stuffy and hard to breathe; the smoke reaches you, choking you and filling your lungs with its poison.

Yet, the smoke brings with it something other than black soot and ash. The smell of pine cones and cinnamon drift through the air, spices you have not smelled since last winter when it was fit to have a fire, unlike in June. It is so thick, so pungent as you take a breath in, coughing once more as the ash pushes into your lungs. Why, if you are so far away, does the smell penetrate so deeply? You recognize more smells, not so welcomed as the spice. It is the smell of cotton and wool, of burnt books, and the sickly smell of charred flesh. A gag, your stomach emptied of its contents; it is the putrid smell of death.

The crackling fire blazes out of control, roaring in your ears. Soon, the sound is blocked out by sirens crisp and clear in the night, the fire trucks sending gravel in the air, horns blaring as they skid to a stop in front of your house. All the sounds seem too loud, even to you, though you are blocks away. Then another sound cuts through the smoky air. A girl’s shrieks echo through your head and you see her, in the house among the flames, her mouth hung open wide and eyes filled with terror as flames lick her skin. The heat around you intensifies and you clench you fists in unknown agony. The girl is enclosed in flames and the firemen watch helpless, for they know it is too late. Falling to her knees the girl’s eyes look up in pleading and you feel your own buckle. The smoke fills her lungs and you gag. Her eyes close slowly, the world around you disappearing into blackness and all falls silent as you land face forward among the smoldering beams of your house, oblivious to the flames dancing around your body.