Young Venn

Venn pushed his way through the crowd on his way to the burning house. The people around him whispered and talked quietly. He recognized the occasional word, French was not so different from Italian. He could hear the wailing of a young girl.

He finally reached the front of the crowd. A little girl was fighting to free herself from the arms of a crying woman, presumably the girl's mother. The girl screamed, "FONCÉ EST TOUJOURS LÀ!"

Venn may not have understood, but the tone of her voice, the struggling, and the crying woman were enough hints. Someone was still inside. Based on the fact he hadn't heard anything sounding like it could mean father, it was probably a child.

Without pausing to think, Venn sprinted toward the house. He ignored the people shouting at him. He knew he couldn't go through the front door, so he ran around the side. There was a window close to the ground that seemed to be free of flames.

Venn grabbed a rock and hurled it at the window. It shattered, leaving jagged chunks around the edge. He carefully started climbing through, earning several very deep cuts on his arms.

Venn found himself standing in the basement. There wasn't much smoke here, but he could hear the fire roaring above him. The wood creaked and groaned ominously as he ran for the stairs. The heat grew with every step. He burst out the door at the top of the stairs directly into the kitchen.

He guessed this was where the fire had originated. The walls were covered in flames, the stove burned, and all of the counters were ablaze. He didn't spare the time to look closer, running between patches of fire through the rest of the house.

By the time Venn reached the second story, he was coughing into his shirt and the smoke was making him dizzy. His eyes burned and he had a few burn marks on his legs. He'd needed to swat out more than a few flames in his clothes.

He finally found the boy in a bedroom. There were no flames here yet, but the ceiling groaned and made several cracking sounds. Venn stumbled into the room, hacking painfully. The boy looked up through blonde locks, his blue eyes puffy with tears and full of terror. The child couldn't have been any older than Venn himself.

The boy said something to Venn that he didn't understand. Venn knew that the boy probably didn't speak Italian, so he did his best to gesture as he spoke calmly. "You'll be alright. The stairs are safe. There's a broken window downstairs."

The boy looked terrified, taking in Venn's sharp teeth, black eyes, and burned face. He must think Venn was going to kill him.

A chunk of the ceiling fell near Venn. Venn threw aside all caution and dashed to the boy. Ignoring the scream, Venn hauled the boy up. "CORRERE!" He shoved the boy toward the door. "PARTIRE!"

A loud crack sounded above them, making Venn look up. A large chunk of wood collided with his right side. Pain exploded through him as he hit the floor. He howled and shoved the wood away only to have another chunk land on his leg. The boy was gone.

Venn struggled to get up despite the blinding pain in his side. His shirt was on fire. He dragged himself over to the bedroom window, the smoke growing thicker. His breathing came in ragged gasps. He used the windowsill to pull himself up and pushed on the glass. It didn't move.

He coughed and gave the window another shove with all of his remaining strength. It swung out and he tumbled down into the bushes below.

The bushes broke his fall, but he still landed hard. The combined exhaustion of the past several days, almost dying, and coughing from smoke caught up to him.

His breathing still rasped and the occasional cough, with a tiny bit of blood likely from his side, still shook his chest. The light headed feeling faded as he slowly dropped into sleep to the sounds of a collapsing house.