Forged with Flames Read Free Page A

I got them both on their feet and into their sandals, but it was so dark that we were bumping into everything around us when we tried to move.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ I gasped, telling myself to be calm. ‘But we’ve got to get out of here, now!’
    Adrenalin took over. I snapped the leads on Tammy andDusky and pulled us all together, pushing and herding everyone out of the house. It didn’t occur to me to take anything else.
    Mum bustled us out of the house and up to the neighbour’s house two doors from us. I was scared, but not completely. Mum was there and I trusted her to know what to do, as you do when you’re a child.
    Gusts of acrid smoke hit me as I opened the front door. The wind was savage, buffeting us roughly as we made our way across the lawn and onto the street. The first flashes of fire reached us; spot fires breaking out everywhere. Eucalypts crackled and exploded. The darkness was alive with streaks of orange. Gaseous plumes writhed above us.
    My mind raced. We should go with Alan and Carol and their two children, rather than attempt it alone. I tugged the children and dogs along the street, searching through the smoky haze for signs of their driveway. I could see silhouettes of people moving in front of the house. Something boomed in the distance as we ran.
    â€˜Yes, come with us,’ Carol yelled over the wind.
    We all scrambled into their big old sedan: Carol and Alan in the front seat; the girls, the dogs and me, and their daughter, Janet, in the back seat. Then, we realised that their youngest, Darren, wasn’t with us. Or anywhere outside the car. We all leapt out, panicked now, shouting his name into the wind and darkness. We could barely see beyond a few metres. Carol’s face was stricken. We weren’t going anywhere now—we couldn’t go without Darren. It was too late to leave. We had to urgently shelter the other three children.
    The wind had become incredibly fierce. It was terrifying, way beyond any wind I’d ever encountered. You knew it was menacing, that something terrible was happening. Embers hammered us with the force of cyclonic winds.
    What occurred next seemed to take moments.
    Burning branches started to crack and crash to the ground around us as we ran down to Carol and Alan’s swimming pool and leapt in. Strips of flaming bark flew past our ears. The air thickened with the vapours of burning eucalypts. We gasped as smoke seared our throats and scorched our eyes.
    â€˜We’ve got to get out!’ Carol suddenly yelled. ‘The branches are going to hit us or they’ll go through the sides of the pool. Alan’s gone to hose down the house. We’ve got to get wet all over and get out!’
    I dunked the girls’ heads under the water and felt a pang as I caught sight of the confusion and alarm on Rachel’s face. Carol ran to the house and reappeared with two blankets. We soaked them and draped them over the children. What presence of mind Carol had, but I was paralysed with fear. We sheltered between the pool and some rocks bordering it. It looked safe. Carol crouched next to Janet in the corner of the rocks, covering them both in one blanket. Darren was still missing. My girls were next to me and I was on the outside. I leant my body over them with my head down, shielding them. They were underneath a wet blanket. I wasn’t.
    I was dumb with terror. My whole body ran hot and cold with panic. It was impossible to live through what we were seeing, I thought. This is it, we will all die tonight. I felt this in a shocking, but strangely accepting, way.
    We huddled together, hoping for a miracle.
    Suddenly, we were overtaken by a deafening, roaring din. Shatteringly loud, like the force of a thousand jet engines bearing down on us. The wind was ferocious, but this was far, far beyond the sound of any wind.
    Immediately, my body was wracked by the worst pain imaginable.
    Someone started screaming. Somewhere