The scream tore through the village.
High. Sharp. Human.
It didn't echo, it cuts.
Nicholas flinched as the sound struck him, his body reacting before his mind could understand it. The fire still fell from the sky, controlled and merciless, igniting rooftops, splitting homes apart in bursts of heat and light.
But that scream, was becoming closer.
"Help me!"
Nicholas turned.
A woman stumbled out of a burning house, her clothes already catching fire. She fell to her knees, hands scraping against the dirt as flames crawled up her arms like living things.
"Please...!"
Her voice broke.
No one moved.
Not because they didn't care.
Because they didn't understand how.
"Move!" his father shouted, grabbing a man beside him and shoving him forward. "Don't stand there, just do something!"
The man hesitated only a second before rushing toward the woman, pulling off his outer cloth, and beating at the flames.
Others followed.
Too slow.
The fire didn't fight back.
It consumed.
Nicholas felt his chest tighten as more screams rose, but different voices now, overlapping, colliding, turning the quiet village into something unrecognizable.
"Over here!"
"It's spreading!"
"My child...where is my child?!"
The world fractured into noise.
Nicholas stepped backward again, his foot catching against uneven ground. He nearly fell, catching himself at the last second.
"Run, Nicholas!"
His mother's voice.
Close.
Urgent.
He turned toward her.
She stood near the doorway of their home, fear breaking through the control she had held only moments ago.
"Come here!" she called.
Another scream cut through the air.
Nicholas froze.
His head turned instinctively toward the sound.
A child.
Trapped beneath a collapsed beam, half inside a burning structure. Flames licked along the wood, creeping closer, faster now.
"Someone help him!" a voice cried.
But again...
No one reached him.
Nicholas's breath hitched.
He looked at his mother.
Then at the child.
Then back to the sky.
Everything felt too fast.
Too loud.
"Nic!"
His father's voice this time.
Closer than before.
Stronger.
"Move!"
Nicholas couldn't.
The fire shifted again.
Not randomly.
Not spreading blindly.
It adjusted.
Another streak of burning light descended, striking the ground near the trapped child.
The flames surged.
"No!" Nicholas shouted, the word ripping from him before he could stop it.
His body moved.
He didn't think.
He ran.
"NIC!" his mother screamed.
The heat hit him immediately, stronger the closer he got. It pressed against his skin, stung his eyes, filled his lungs with something dry and choking.
But he kept going.
The child was crying now, weaker, panicked.
"It hurts...please...!"
"I'm here!" Nicholas shouted back.
He dropped to his knees beside the fallen beam, grabbing at it instinctively.
It burned.
He cried out, jerking his hands back.
Too hot.
Too heavy.
He clenched his teeth, forcing himself to grab it again, ignoring the pain this time.
"Hold on," he said, his voice shaking. "I'll get you out."
The child looked at him, eyes wide with fear.
"You can't," he whispered.
Nicholas shook his head. "I can."
He pulled.
Nothing.
The beam didn't move.
"Again," he muttered, repositioning his grip.
He pulled harder.
Pain shot through his hands, up his arms, into his chest.
Still...
Nothing.
The fire crept closer.
"Nicholas!"
His father again.
Closer now.
Running toward him.
"You have to leave him!" his father shouted.
Nicholas didn't look back.
"No!"
"You'll die!"
"I won't!"
The child coughed, his body trembling beneath the weight.
"Please…"
Nicholas's grip tightened.
"I said hold on!"
He pulled again.
For a moment...it shifted.
Just slightly.
Hope surged.
"I almost..."
The sky moved.
Nicholas's head snapped upward.
Another line of fire formed above.
Closer this time.
Lower.
His breath caught.
"No…"
It descended.
Fast.
Too fast.
"NICHOLAS, MOVE!"
He didn't.
He couldn't.
The fire was coming for them.
And in that single, frozen moment—
The village screamed as one.
Otukpo had found its voice.
Nicholas felt the heat surge as the descending fire closed the distance. His hands trembled against the beam, pain screaming through his body, but he did not let go. Behind him, his father's voice broke into desperation. The child's cries weakened. Time collapsed into a single choice. Stay...and burn. Or leave...and live. Nicholas gritted his teeth, eyes locked on the falling fire, and whispered through shaking breath, "I won't run."
The fire struck before the choice could be completed. Heat exploded outward, swallowing air, sound, and thought. Nicholas's grip faltered as the world turned blinding white. Somewhere, the child screamed, then vanished beneath the roar. His father lunged forward, shouting his name, but the flames rose between them like a wall that would not break. And in that unbearable instant, as everything was consumed, Nicholas understood something he could never unlearn, with the fact that some fires do not give you time to choose.