Chapter 2: The Fire

A Chapter by Mathew Nicolson

The next day, Rebecca was still wearing the locket. She hadn’t taken it off since she’d found it, not even to sleep.

And last night she’d had a nightmare. Such a terrible nightmare, she woke up screaming. She couldn’t remember much about it, except that she kept running from something, then falling, forever into darkness. As she fell a face had laughed at her. Then, millions of swords stabbed at her as she fell. Just before she woke up she saw her bloody remains hit the bottom.

It must have just been coincidence.

School was normal. She got yelled at in maths for spinning the 360 degrees compass on the tip of her pencil, almost threw up after lunch, and hanged around with her friend Carrie.

After lunch, they had History. The room smelled of rotten eggs, as usual (Rebecca suspected previous students had found good hiding places), but Mr Morton wasn’t there. He was always there before them; he ate lunch in his room because he didn’t trust the dinner staff.

“Maybe he’s finally lost it,” Carrie said to Rebecca. “Or he’s in the wrong classroom… again,” referring to the time he sat in the computing room for twenty minutes before realising he had the wrong room.

After ten minutes, a passing janitor noticed they had no teacher, and told the office.

“What’s taking so long?” somebody asked over the chatter.

“Something’s wrong,” Rebecca could sense it.

Another ten minutes went by, and nothing happened. But then the Tannoy went off.

“This is a message of vital importance so listen,” the secretary said in a shaky voice. “All pupils and teachers must report to the central concourse to be counted. There shall be no exceptions!”

“That sounds bad…” Carrie said quietly. “I don’t-”

The fire alarm began blaring.

“Smoke! I smell smoke!” A voice shouted.

Everyone pushed and shoved to get out the fire exit, regardless of the secretary’s instructions. Rebecca, just as she was about to step outside, cried outside, cried out in pain. The locket had become red hot. She screamed in agony and tried to rip it off her neck, but the chain was too strong. It had become tight around he neck so she couldn’t pull it off either.

She screamed and screamed, falling to the ground, losing herself. It was more painful than anything she had ever felt before. She was drifting away… away from the world… away from reality…

Rebecca woke up outside the school, lying on the grass. Smoke filled the air as the fire raged inside the school. She looked up and saw Billy, who must have dragged her out.

“Carrie, she’s awake!” he shouted.

Carrie was looking out for a fire engine. She came rushing back.

“Are you okay?” she exclaimed.

“I think so, but my chest, it hurts,” she managed to say. It was so painful.

Carrie pulled off the locket for her-

RUN

-and gasped in shock. She had a scar from the locket, and the skin looked slightly burnt.

“That… could be worse,” Billy decided. “But I think you should get that checked. What caused it?”

“I think… my locket…” she gasped.

“But how?” Carrie asked, while Billy dialled an ambulance on his mobile.

But Rebecca wasn’t listening. As the Science block collapsed (she couldn’t bear to think about anyone inside), she saw a dark figure walking out of the rubble and flames, unharmed.

GET AWAY!!

Her hand clenched around the locket. She put it on around her neck without thinking, like instinct. She could hear it ticking again, a bit faster. It seemed in tune with her heart.

“What are you doing?” Carrie cried.

Rebecca ignored her. The dark figure was moving towards them. Carrie saw it too, and stopped talking.

Rebecca knew, somehow in a way she didn’t understand, that it was going to kill her. Yes, she felt a strange closeness to it, like a distant family member she had once loved, but now could barely remember.

The fear of knowing death was so close overwhelmed her. She began to notice things - tiny details about life that she had never bothered about before. The details that was impossible to describe, the beauty that couldn’t be matched by anything.

Rebecca stood rooted to the spot, unable to move. Carrie and Billy began to get scared too, but not in the same way. Not even close.

The sirens of many fire engines grew louder, and they became visible, driving past them. Rebecca broke her gaze at the figure and looked back at the burning school. She turned to the figure again but it was gone. She was safe.

The ambulance arrived, and it turned out a lot of people had been seriously hurt. Rebecca kept quiet about her scar from the locket, despite what Billy advised.

The men searching the remains of the school had found the body of a 7-year-old boy, and one of the kitchen staff. Rebecca had rushed straight home; she didn’t want to get involved.

A new school would be built, and until then they would attend a nearby one. That was it. The end. But she still had the locket.

Rebecca laid in bed that night, unable to sleep. She sensed Billy was also awake in the next room, but that could just be her imagination. The locket sat on her bedside table. She picked it up, and held it in her arm, as if it gave her comfort, even though she knew how deadly it was. Why hadn’t she got rid of it? But how would she get rid of it? She couldn’t leave it somewhere, or someone else would find it. Somehow, she’d have to destroy it. But how?

The next day, they found out the fire had started in the History department, just 2 floors above where Rebecca had been. She was thankful they’d had their classes on the bottom floor, or she might not still be alive. They hadn’t found the source of the fire.

“How is it?” Billy asked her soon after waking up (it was past one o’clock), meaning the burn.

“Still sore… Don’t say anything,” she answered, irritably. It was giving her more pain than she’d admit.

She couldn’t get the locket out of her mind. It was always there, as if it was eating away at her soul. She would have to get rid of it. But first, she wanted to find out more about the fire.

That night, Rebecca snuck out of her house �" an easy task, since her bedroom was right next to the front door and her Mum always went to bed so early. The school wasn’t far away, only a ten-minute walk.

The ruins were cordoned off. Only half the school had collapsed, which would make rebuilding it easier.

The locket was still around her neck. Part of her wanted to rip it off and stomp it into the ground. Part of her never wanted to part with it again.

Most of the ruins had collapsed, so she didn’t see much danger in just walking among them. It was at the height of summer, so she had plenty of light to see. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but it was there… somewhere…

She couldn’t go much further into the ruins; it looked too dangerous. But she felt happier now she was there. Until…

She pulled the locket off her neck, with a horrid realisation it was getting hotter. Was it going to burn her again? But, no… it was only slightly warm. Like holding a cup of tea that had been left in the cold for five minutes.

Something clanged on the other side of the rubble.

TIME TO LEAVE

The sense of security she’d have when she arrived suddenly left her. She needed to escape. Now.

Rebecca put the locket in her pocket, and made a run for it. The moon went behind a cloud, and any light there may have been seemed to be fading. She knew the clang may have just been a stray cat, but she felt scared nonetheless.

She ran out of the school gates, and onto the street that would lead home. However, there were faint footsteps behind her �" she’d been followed.

A man, no older than 17, with long black hair and eyes that couldn’t have seen sleep for a long time, was walking slowly towards her. She didn’t recognise him, but it was too dark to tell. Terrified, she continued to walk as if she hadn’t noticed him, but it was obvious she had. She decided to speak to him.

“Hello?” Rebecca called across to him.

He stopped, and spoke, in a slightly foreign sounding, soothing voice that seemed to be stripped of all enthusiasm.

“You have something I… require.”

He could only mean the locket. She looked at him across the street, lit only by streetlight, which as she looked revealed something far more terrifying than the man; a black figure, that she thought she recognised until she realised he was wearing armour, and holding a sword.

RUN!! RUN!!!!! RUN!!!!!!!!!

The locket seemed to be on fire, it had become so hot, and she thought it would burn a hole in her jeans. The man in armour who resembled a Knight, walked towards her. The other man had disappeared.

RUN!!!

She listened, and ran. She didn’t stop until she was safe at home, in her bedroom. She bolted the door, and moved the wardrobe against it. For the next hour she didn’t take her eye off the window, with only the locket’s ticks for company. But nothing came. Once again, she was safe. When she realised that, she removed the barricades and went to sleep. That man, whoever he was, had wanted the locket. Either she was going mad, or she had to get rid of the locket as fast as possible.

It could very well be both.

The next day, a Saturday, Rebecca and Carrie went for a slow walk in a field with some stray sheep wandering about. They were discussing the locket, though Rebecca hadn’t told her about the last night’s events.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I need to get rid of it, there’s no other option. But, I can’t just leave it somewhere for someone to find.”

They reached a bridge.

“Throw it in,” Carrie answered.

“Throw it in?” Rebecca repeated slowly, as if she hadn’t understood. Carrie looked at her, and she realised she was staring into space.

“That’s a good idea.”

IT’S A BAD IDEA

Rebecca undid the golden chain, and held the locket over the water. But… She couldn’t let go. It felt like she’d taken a part of herself off with the locket.

“Let go!” Carrie cried, almost sternly, but fearful.

DON’T

Rebecca stood, trembling slightly, not moving, as if paralysed. She made a couple of attempts to drop it, but it was so hard. Why should she? It wasn’t that harmful… everything else was just coincidence…

No. The locket had caused the burn and scar; that man had obviously asked for the locket, and that dark figure �" the Knight, that’s been stalking her since she found the locket. And when you consider how suspicious Sam’s death was... It couldn’t be coincidence.

Splash.

Carrie had grabbed it from her and thrown it in. Rebecca screamed, and fell backwards as though she’d been punched. Carrie caught her.

“Rebecca!”

“I’m ok, I… fell,”

She looked around. The locket was gone!

Meanwhile, Billy and Paul, who had taken to hanging around with each other, were taking one last look at Sam’s house before the new owners moved in.

“I lived here my whole life…” Paul reminisced, to nobody in particular.

“What will you do now?” Billy asked. “Continue living with Ann?”

“Until I can get a house, yeah,” he sighed. “But Mum’s not been the same since she met… him.”

They wandered into Sam’s room. Paul was close to tears.

“Hey, didn’t you say you’d do something with the bedside cabinet?” Billy asked.

“That’s half the reason I came. The cabinet itself will stay, but I’ll need to take the contents out,” Paul said as he bent down and opened the door to the cabinet. Inside were just some papers, and a book Sam obviously hadn’t finished reading. Paul was taken aback.

“That’s it!? That’s all he had kept there?” He cried. “I thought it would be something… I dunno, exciting? He always went on about it…”

He stormed out of the room, and continued to until he left the house. Billy picked up one of the papers, which turned out to be an infinitely interesting tax form.

He sighed, and followed Paul, who was busy making his way over a bridge near the house. If he had looked over the bridge, he’d have noticed a gold locket flowing along with it.

The river ended in a small pond, where a fisherman was attempting to catch his next meal. He found the locket, and took it to his house wondering how much it would be worth, and if it was real gold. On the way �" due to badly designed roads �" he collided with a car and was killed instantly. The locket flew out of his hands onto the pavement. Minutes later, a passing woman in a bright pink dress and a contrasting yet equally ugly bright yellow hat, picked it up.

“Isn’t that pretty?”

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