Everything went dark.
I don't mean that I lost consciousness or passed out or anything
dramatic like that, though what happened still seemed pretty dramatic
to me. No, the walls went dark, black even, all features
disappearing into this strange gloom. Wallpaper: gone. Pictures
that hung on the walls: no longer visible. Even the light fightings
and furniture around the room disappeared until there was only the
seven of us, standing or seated in a bubble of light, the face of the
nomad looking down.
That's when we heard the fire. I say 'heard', but for a few moments
we couldn't hear anything else. A ferocious noise it was, loud and
crackling and angry: the sound of destruction consuming everything in
its' path. Mum reacted first, looking round desperately to find the
source of the blaze, sheer panic in her eyes.
“Has it started already?” she demanded, “I thought...”
Raven silenced her with a hand on her arm and a finger to his lips.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead, what
came out was a KOWW KOWW like noise that a crow might make.
That's when we heard the wind.
