Hey just a short piece I wrote, any criticism welcome and hope you enjoy.
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He found her in flat 17. Its door lay open and her soft, pattering weep could be heard escaping a room from within. He entered. The room had been on fire once. Carbon spewed up the walls and no carpet left, only burnt wood. Black soot everywhere, lying thick like butter on every surface and edge. The window had been removed and despite being several floors up no wind blew through the hole in the wall.
He peeked around the door frame into what was once a bedroom and looked at her. She was petite yet still gaunt, haunted. Tears streamed down each cheek. She wore her dirty blonde hair shoulder-length and only had on a small black or blackened blouse and ripped trousers. She wore no shoes or socks and her feet too were blackened with soot and debris. She was so ghostly that he almost had to step out again but his nerve held.
He ventured in and walked until he was just a couple feet from where she lay against the far wall. She still had not seemed to notice his presence and now feeling quite foolish, he tried stepping back a few steps. He could make out mascara weaving down her face and then disappearing under her trembling chin.
“What’s wrong” he whispered just louder than her sobs.
She made no indication she had heard him. But as he opened his mouth to repeat the question, she lifted a delicate, black finger and pointed to the wall behind him. He turned to look but could see nothing. There was just shadow, but from there he faintly began to make out the shape of a large box, a wardrobe. Or that’s what it looked like.
He walked to it and sure enough it was a charred wardrobe. He was amazed it had survived the fire. It too was covered in soot but the structure was remarkably undamaged.
He touched the handle and she let out another whimper, her hand now outstretched and grasping at an invisible something in front of her. She began to grow louder. He tried to turn the handle and she screamed. It was so stiff that it did not appear to open. He heaved and tugged and she continued balling and wailing. Then with one last monumental pull, it was flung open. He was thrown backwards and landed on his hands facing the wardrobe.
There was nothing in that wardrobe anymore. An outline where the wood had been protected by young, tender flesh was all that remained. A silhouette of a child, hiding from the flames, crouched and curled in the bottom. The back board tainted by the healthy beige wood.
“My baby!” she screamed.
He turned to look at her but she was gone, leaving him alone with the outline of the dead child.
