Date: Friday, March 3, 2023

Competition: Australian Writer’s Center Furious Fiction

Max Words: 500

Criteria: Must include the concept of a CHAIR; the words ALBUM, BRIGHT, and CLICK; a character who has to make a CHOICE between two things.

The fire raged to cast a hazy, bright orange hue into the midnight sky above the river gorge. Nearby stands of pine trees were consumed by licking columns of flame, creating an inferno that filled the air with a thick layer of black smoke, causing Gisela's raw throat to burn.

“Stay here, Erika!” Gisela screamed, throwing herself out of the Jeep. On the passenger-side seat, Jinx, Erika’s Maine Coon, hissed from her cat carrier, while from behind, a neighbor’s car ladened with suitcases and garbage bags of worldly possessions raced by.

“Mom! You can’t go in there!” Erika cried, grasping at her from the back seat.

“I said, stay here!” Gisela growled, slamming the Jeep’s door to rush toward the garage. Gisela could see the skeletons of homes engulfed in a blazing holocaust only six lots down.

Bursting in, her kitchen was pitch black, and she stumbled to spill a stack of cleaned dishes, sending them crashing to the floor.

Rushing into her living room, Gisela frantically shoved rows of books from their shelving to grasp her grandmother’s album. It was a massive tome, bound in Moroccan leather and stitched with hemp cord, and weighed over fifty pounds. The woman had fled Konigsberg in January 1945, and its contents contained a century of family pictures and relics.

The heavy smoke suffocated and burned Gisela’s lungs. Gisela wheezed, struggling to breathe; she keeled in a deep cough, bracing her arm against the bookshelf. Recovering, she cradled the bulky album and lumbered to her bedroom. Throwing the album onto the bed, she rifled through her jewelry collection.

Glancing through the window, she saw the rooves of her neighbor’s on fire and the blustering, roiling wind kicking up a storm of debris and embers. Coughing, gasping for air, Gisela grunted and shoved her jewelry cabinet to the floor to tear open a dresser and rummage through its contents.

When her fingers felt the tiny shards, she grasped the necklace just a thunderous crash brought a flaming beam onto her bed. Fumes and hot ash burned Gisela’s eyes, and, shielding her head from the heat, she saw the ceiling was caving. Lunging for the book, she painfully recoiled; her fingertips burned as she reached for the album. Coughing into the crook of her elbow, Gisela turned and fled to exit her home through the front door.

Dashing to the Jeep, she swung the driver door open and dove inside.

“Here,” Gisela coughed, tossing the necklace at Erika.

“Mom?!” Erika asked, puzzled, examining the necklace. “Why?”

Clicking her seatbelt, she threw the vehicle into reverse and sped out of the driveway. Jostled, Jinx growled.

“She made it from amber found on the shores of the Baltic Sea after she left Konigsberg,” Gisela barked, throwing the Jeep into drive. Gritting her teeth, she spat, “She survived by fleeing the Russian army. I’ll be damned if it won’t survive this.”

And slamming her foot to the floor, the Jeep peeled away on the road.