Firestorm
At first there was a sound like a roaring wind in her dreams.
Then a tearing noise filled the air, the crackle of dry brush inflamed, and the smell of smoke swept over Tally, bringing her suddenly and completely awake.
Billowing clouds of smoke surrounded her, blotting out the sky. A ragged wall of flame moved through the flowers, giving off a wave of blistering heat. She grabbed her knapsack and stumbled down the hill away from the fire.
Tally had no idea in which direction the river lay. Nothing was visible through the dense clouds. Her lungs fought for air in the foul brown smoke.
Then she spotted a few rays from the setting sun breaching the billows, and she oriented herself. The river was back toward the flame, on the other side of the hill.
Tally retraced her path to the top of the hill and peered down through the smoke. The fire was growing stronger. Fingers of it shot up the hill, leaping from one beautiful flower to another, leaving them scorched and black. Tally caught the glimmer of the river through the smoke, but the heat pushed her back.
She stumbled down the other side again, coughing and spitting, one thought in her mind: Was her hoverboard already engulfed in flames?
Tally had to get to the river. The water was the only place safe from the rampaging fire. If she couldn't go over the hill, maybe she could go around.
She descended the slope at full tilt. There were a few spots burning on this side, but nothing like the galloping flame behind her. She reached level ground and made her way around the base of the hill, crouching low to the ground to duck under the smoke.
Halfway around, she reached a blackened patch where the fire had already passed. The brittle stems of flowers crunched under her shoes, and the heat coming off the scorched earth stung her eyes.
Her footsteps ignited with flame as she ran through the blackened flowers, like stabbing a poker into a slumbering fire. She felt her eyes drying, her face blistering.
Moments later, Tally spotted the river. The fire stretched in an unbroken wall across the opposite shore, a roaring wind pressing at its back and sending embers flying across to alight on the near side. A rolling billow of smoke surged toward her, choking and blinding her until it passed.
When her eyes could open again, Tally spotted the shiny solar surface of her hoverboard. She ran toward it, ignoring the burning flowers in her path.
The board seemed untouched by the flame, protected by good luck and the layer of dew it collected every nightfall.
She quickly folded the board and stepped onto it, not waiting for the yellow light to turn green. The heat had mostly dried it already, and it rose into the air at her command. Tally took the board over the river, just above the water, and skimmed her way upstream, looking for a break in the wall of fire to her left.
Her grippy shoes were ruined, their soles cracked like sunbaked mud, so she flew slowly, scooping up handfuls of water to soothe her burning face and arms.
A noise thundered to life on Tally's left, unmistakable even above the roar of the fire. She and the board were caught in a sudden wind, shoved back toward the other shore. Tally leaned hard against it and stuck a foot into the water to slow the board. She clung tightly with both hands, desperately fighting being thrown into the river.
The smoke suddenly cleared, and a familiar shape loomed out of the darkness. It was the flying machine, its thundering beat now obvious above the raging fire. Sparks jumped across the river as the machine's windstorm stirred the fire to a new intensity.