Author's Note- Why on Earth are most of these stories sad?
Smoke burns the child's nostrils. The young boy screams a painful cry as a burning segment of debris falls from the now charred wall. Blistering fire rains around the hapless infant as he wails.
"Mummy!" he cries. "Daddy!" he shudders. "Please!" he shrieks. "Please help me..." The heat of the fire scorches his bare skin. He wails. His skin is burning but there's nothing he can do. He's at the mercy of the fire now. There's no one here to save him-
"Do not be afraid, my child." Shivers of pain and fear wrack his frail and smoking young body. But there's something about the voice calling to him that makes him less scared, more...safe.
She crouches in the flaming debris, the fire dancing around her. She ducks her head under the frame of the bed that the child is hiding under. She gazes at the boy; into the wide, watery brown pools that are his eyes, there is pain. But the eyes...they're so full of innocence. So young.
She smiles gently. She's done this before, but never with a child. There's something so scarring about taking life away from such a young soul. But this is her duty.
"All is well, my child." A sorrowful frown marred her forehead. "Fret not, for you are safe now."
"W-who are you?" The young child wheezes out smoke. "Are y-you here to s-save me?" His lungs feel heavy and painful, with smoking hot ash, like he's drowning in boiling water, inhaling it by accident.
"I am a Valkyrie," She says. "I come to end people's suffering." Her voice was soothing, soft. At the sound of her voice, the boy felt like the fire was now a dull roar at the back of his mind. His pain filled eyes observed her unblemished skin with wonder.
"A-are you an angel?" He chokes on his words. The girl smiled gently back in response. She tilted her head in a half nod. She reaches round and elegantly plucks a feather from her soft wings. She holds it out for him to see. As he looks, he shudders and splutters. He feels like his lungs are trying to heave their way out of his body. "C-can you-" He gives a mighty cough. With each breath, the coughing gets worse and worse. The girl wants to reach out and touch the poor boy, but she knows that she cannot just yet. She waits, the seconds ticking on. She is wary that time is running short, and that her mission to claim the boy's life must be as swift as possible. However, she knows that sometimes taking a life cannot be rushed.
Valkyries are Odin's chosen of the fallen. When a worthy dying soul is touched by a Valkyrie's hand, the body they touch succumbs to its lifeless fate as the soul leaves. The Valkyrie then leads the honorable dead to the gates of Valhalla, where they will be greeted with merriment and joy for all of eternity. It sounds like a joyful affair. However for those who die young during war, their family around them, it is truly devastating. This poor, young boy was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She looks down upon him, her eyes filled with sorrow. His dark brown face is spotted with flecks of hot ash, his clothes charred and crumpled. The poor child was just an innocent, raised in Somalia at a time of a fearsome civil war. The girl had no doubt that this child's parents were fighters, and the reason their house caught alight was because their house was filled with weaponry; gunpowder, to be precise. The boy was not old enough to shoot a gun, he was just a young pre-schooler at best.
When his coughing ceases, he puffs out, "Can you m-m-make it s-st-stop?" He claws at his chest in desperation. She tilts her head.
"You would like me to take your pain away?" He tries to nod, but gasps in pain. "What is your name?"
"A-absimil." She smiles. Fitting, she thinks, his name means "fearless".
"Well, Absimil. You are brave and courageous." She offers her hand, knowing she is making the right choice to save his soul. "Please, take my hand." Sobbing, the child reaches out. As his hand grazes hers, his current rasping breath is cut short as his body slumps, now lifeless, to the floor. However, his soul rises from the body. Through the bed, he stands.
As he holds her hand, the soul feels no pain. He gazes around his smouldering home, now almost reduced to ashes. He is aware that he feels different, almost... dead. But he feels freer than he ever felt alive. The soul jumps with a start as the bed his body is under gives a groan as it collapses to the ground, crushing the fragile and lifeless corpse beneath it. His corpse. The soul is shocked and scared. But he is awoken from his fears as he feels a hand squeeze his.
"Come," says his guardian angel, her radiant smile reassuring. Something in his brain tells him that he will never see this place again. His parents... His brothers... He feels deep sorrow at this, but as he follows the girl, his guardian angel with wings as white as sea foam, he knows that he is safe.
The soul of the child leaves his young life, his lifeless body burning behind him. He knows he is dead. But he is safe now, safe from the war.
