Fire was always a good thing for people, in the old days it protected them from wild animals and brought light when the sun was absent from the sky. It was a change in ancient times when you could cook your food on a fire, and also be used for warmth. But in the early 2000’s fire was used not only for cooking or protection but for enjoyment. Not everything is just good but people thought the fire was like that for a long time, but all you have to do is be careful, but that wasn’t the case. It’s 2009 and bonfires and camping was a popular thing. Parents would allow their kids to stand near fires with no caution, and the kids near it would hurt if they touched it, but they were not fully aware of the danger it brought it not been cautious.
It fell in 2011, a boy in a red shirt and his family had a bonfire for the first time. The boy in the red shirts parents was not aware of the dangers it could bring. They were not aware of the large trees around their “fireplace” and how close they actually were. Leaves were all over the ground, brown, orange, and red. Their backyard was a giant piece of land covered in leaves but the land was enormous, it was large enough though for a family with kids to enjoy. The father of the boy in the red shirt got leaves together, about a fourth of the back yard together in a pile. The boy’s father dumps a gallon of kerosene on top of the leaves from his giant kerosene tank and throws it to the side, “thunk” the sound of the tank hits the ground. The boy asked, “Isn’t that dangerous to put that much kerosene on top of the leaves?” His father said, “no, I want to get this flame as large as possible, then we can worry about it later”. The boy in the red shirt was worried about what would happen, he saw on TV what would happen if the fire gets too big and gets out of control. The boy in the red watches as his dad strikes a match, “Stttccchh”. His father backs away and throws the match, for the first minute of the fire seemed calm and safe but after that minute, the flame grew higher than the trees, ashes were flying everywhere, and the leaves that weren’t picked up from the yard caught on fire from the ashes. His father said it still wasn’t big enough, even though the flame was enormous, about 40 feet of 1000 degree waves. Another minute passed and all around you could see things burning from the flame, it started to spread from the fire pit towards the house. His father quickly ran and moved the remaining leaves that led to the house with his rake “Shhh, Shhh” and attempted to stomp out the line of leaves that were burning. The boy in the red shirt thought that his father was trying to put out the fire but he quickly realized his father wanted to keep it going, to make it larger. The little boy’s sister came outside and she said she left her dolly near the fire pit. The little boy looked and he saw it about 4 feet away from where the fire had reached. But another problem had emerged, the flame has gotten so large that the trees surrounding the flame, caught fire, branches were burning and started to fall, but the fire kept rising and rising in width and length. The boy wasn’t paying attention when his little sister moved and started to run in hopes to retrieve her doll from the burning storm. The boy warned her to stop going towards danger, but she still kept running. She got so close to the fire, and managed to grab her doll, but a sound of fright and had heard by the boy and not by his sister. The burning branch above her was breaking, the branch wasn’t small, it was significantly larger than the boy’s father. The boy runs towards his sister before a tragedy occurs, with a swift move he moves his sister from under the burning branch. As the branch cracks, it tumbles with full flame and the boy realizes that he and his sister are going to be crushed by the massive size of the branch. As his little sister attempts to run she trips over a tree root and twists her ankle to where it hurts too much for her to run or even walk. The boy has only 3 options, be crushed with his sister under the burning branch, run away and leave his sister, or attempt to catch the burning branch in his arms to protect his sister. He decides in a mere second as the branch is falling, He is so frightened of what could happen, but this was his best chance to protect his little sister. She cries out for help and the boy watches as the branch falls, “Boooosshh” … The cries are no more of the boy’s sister, she opens her eyes and witnesses her brother trying to lift the heavy burning branch, and the boy now cries out of pain from the fire of the branch burning his inner arms. He moves the branch with all his might, and drops the branch on the ground, the boy mimics the branch like a shadow. Falls down unconsciously, and doesn’t wake up for hours until he arrives at the hospital. The news he gets at the hospital isn’t as bad as he thought it would be, “The scars you will receive will stay on your inner arms for a long time.” But the boy was okay with that, as long as his sister was okay, he could rest easy until he is awoken.
    Months pass with the boy’s burns healing extremely slow, and his new skin being extremely red. His family believes that his skin is scarred for life, and can never heal again. The doctors ask the boy’s parents how did this burns occur, and the boy explains to the doctor, in front of both his parents. The boy’s mother was furious with her husband, and how ignorant, unintelligent, and idiotic he was being with the decision to have that enormous fire and hurt both of their kids because of it. She wanted a divorce and wanted to take her children away from this man, she knew if she stayed with him and left her kids with him they would end up dead when they were young. The mother and her 2 kids left and moved to a new location and started a new life, and years passed.
Today the boy wasn’t a boy anymore he was almost 16 and getting ready to grow up. He remembered his tragic past, full of flames and pain. He looked at his arms where the burn was, it wasn’t red anymore, it changed his skin to a white and brown mixture tone. His little sister doesn’t remember the incident, she was only so young His mom keeps reminding him to put medicine on it when it turns red. Red because his body flames full of what he used to feel and turns what he felt years ago into now with no burn, no pain, just a mark to remind him every day.