frozen

The smoke crawled up his nostrils. Raw, red. He was coughing. His eyes stung. The glow was red, permanent. Even the shadows were flickering red. The windows were glistened by the melting oxygen in the air. The afternoon glimmered a glowering red. Still, they played on. On, and on.

The shadows cheered them on. Their rajah had told them that their time had come. Their leader had told them that soon they would win. And soon, they would be all over the place. They could hardly control their excitement.

It was so hot that any earthly creature, yet the two men that were playing the game on the board seemed to be beyond that. The two men that were playing seemed to be unaware. It was all in the air. The thunder had died down. Now, there was just a hissing fire. Scenes of heaven. Scenes of the afterlife. Scenes of the end of times. Maybe that is what it was. Maybe there was nothing more to it. Just that. They did not know. They could merely guess. Smack. Smack. The pieces playing a sonata, a symphony of destruction. And as they moved, tiny battles were won or lost in the war that was being waged in the various parts of the world. Sometimes thunder would rein supreme, at other places, there would be lightning, sometimes there would be rain, sometimes fire would rage throughout. Very rarely was there peace. But there were spots. Few, and becoming fewer. Spots where there was some semblance of normality. But normal was subjective. Who knew what it was anymore? It did not feel normal. Nothing felt normal. And here we were.

All together again. All being brought together. The men played on. Qe5. bf6. Rxg7+. Check. Checkmate. Another game would begin. A gambit. Something inexplicable happening in some corner of the planet. Something so weird and unexplainable that they did not know what to do about it. No one did. But no one knew much of anything these days. There was not much one was capable of doing. It was all in the air. And the air was burning. Being seared. Is this what hell must feel like? The feeling of burning, skin melting, smoke slowly drifting into your nostrils, destroying you from the inside. Choking, gasping, swallowing. Painful. Inching into every pore, every orifice. Burning, melting, unforgiving red pain.

A shrill scream shattered the silence. It was not the men, and yet, somehow it was both. And something else. That something else seemed to be the shadow rajah, as the shadows began to writhe in pain. All being burned. They had been untouched, they were untouched by the fire, and yet somehow they were being burned. Not by it. Not because of it. Somehow it was destroying them. Tearing them up. Something was. The scream was long. Unending. Just as suddenly as it had erupted, it stopped. The men stopped playing. The world held its breath. It seemed as if time were frozen.