Credits
Original: May be found here
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I stood still. The rain pattered onto the forest's last leaves. There wasn't much left after the inferno that has rampaged here.
The ash of the burnt trees blew into my face. I stood up to my ankles in mud, and gazed upon the fires slowly expiring, like a drawing being erased. From afar I heard the pandemonium of a battle that has never been one.
I looked on my bloody hands. I may be the last of my MTF. We were dispatched to contain some creature. It backfired. Turned out to be far stronger than expected. I would not die. Not now. I've come so far already. I beheld a bird sitting atop a tree the destruction spared.
Lightning struck. Thunder banged. The bird flew away. The far battle noise fell silent. Then there was this stupefying silence superimposing itself upon the black burnt terrain like a curtain. The fires have now finally extinguished. It was over. At least that's what I believed.
My legs gave way. Tired and bleeding I laid in mud. Now the thunderstorm came to a climax. Akin to the finale act of a concert consisting of roaring lutes, it blared as the conductor of an orchestra consisting of rain, wind, thunder, lightning, in duet with the cold, a composition of disgusting noise. A fire burnt again, and was like the audience following the spectacle in awe. A lightning bolt strikes a tree, causing wood chips to through-fly the night air cold like ice. Then it was over. This time for real. Solely rain and the fire's crackling like a silent applause.
A sound rudely tore me from my tangled thoughts. Now I felt it all again: My aching limbs, the biting cold that in spite of the cold apparently gained the upper hand in the air. I erected myself already, but my emasculated legs refused to carry their lord. The sound I heard came from a branch that has been trampled on. Something then burst from the bushes and hurtled towards me. It was that SCP-God-Knows-What, I didn't care.
Suddenly, my limbs obeyed me, virtually screaming for movement. I was immediately on my feet and ran like never before. Adrenaline surged through my veins to numb the pain standing in my way. Soon I could not think anymore, it all happened arbitrarily and in rash. I just wanted to run. Run. I tried to imagine to have not been born for something else. My lungs have been expanded from birth on to breath the forest's cold burnt air in this moment. My legs were created to save their lord's life. I was born for this. Run. Run.
I ran over burnt earth, liquefied mud, and through dirty puddles. I reached a field no grain could grow on. Barren ground, ruined by two elements so different from each other. My strength abruptly left me.
All of a sudden I collapsed and crouched in the muddy ground. I would die. Now. My pursuer jumped at me. I closed my eyes, preparing myself to be buried beneath a mass of tendons, muscles, fur, and teeth. But it did not happen.
When I opened my eyes, they saw him struck down by lightning and burning at the ground. He was dead.
And now I sit here. The bird sits next to me. Warmed by the heat of the fire. Fortified by the rain's clear water.
A fire in the rain.