A pair of eyes were magnified by a glass panel, wetted on the outside from the condensation in the heat box of drinks and snacks. He searched, for the remnant stock of the day, but there was not much choice. Luckily for him, hardly anyone would clear his favorite. Opening the sliding door, a blast of warm air rushed out from its prison, like the escaping heat from a sauna. The boy took two glass bottles of sweetened milk, clinking, by their necks, as he shut and dissipated the warm wave. In a tiny quarter, a size that was expected of a corner shop, it was perhaps once large, but given the quantity of stock, the aisles had become narrow. With an assortment of dry snacks and tins, and packaged foods that were mostly local, there were some imports, limited however, on the shelves above where there were more valuable goods. Pots and pans and whether they were stools, bowls and plates, there was an abundance of odd things difficult for one to keep track of and list. Above the worn tiles, a fan and a gas heater churned, drawn with a string that needed to be manually started and stopped. Battling the outer cold feeding in through the doorless entrance, the winds of warmth shared a front with a thin tarp that tried to keep the winter out. The outdoors were unmanned with fruit stalls empty with buckets and crates collecting volumes of ice water, overreaching its boundaries of the shop and onto the pavement. But since the beginning of wet autumn, it has been weeks since any fresh produce other than milk has filled the store which the boy may have single-handedly kept their business running. On that evening, he appeared as their lone customer, as usual, who went to the counter where an elderly couple kept watch over their stores. There was a man on a high stool, crossed were his legs, squinting down at a newspaper that he had been too busy to read during the day. He did not care so much for a single customer, unlike the old lady, likely his wife.
She saw their last client before their night’s end and gave him a smile. “Arminius, how d’you do?” Greeting with a strong country accent, the shopkeeper stepped onto a stool at the counter from where she could properly see her customer.
“Good, thanks.” Arminius placed his bottles on the counter for the lady to count.
But a hand stopped him and blocked his bottles from being pushed onto the counter. Surprised, he was already halfway from taking out his pouch and was counting his coins needed to pay, tossing about coppers and bronzes in search for two pieces of coin.
“Just take it, it don’t do us no difference for the matter.” The lady granted him the milk for free.
Pinching out his coins, the boy argued, with a mind set to pay nevertheless, “That wouldn’t be right.”
“Come now, it’s just the two—” Persistent in her insistence, the shopkeeper waged on when she was paused by the clinking of coins on her counter.
Two coppers were laid in front of her that were worth a whole two crowns. Arminius quickly swooped his bottles into his hands before the lady could return his payment and carried the milk in his arms, as if he was hugging them, dashing off silently unwanting to trouble or worry more the shopkeepers than he would have done so if he stayed any longer. Shocked, the couple seemed amused secondly, and chuckled as they shook their heads. Forced, again, to take his coins, she swept it into a register when the boy had disappeared behind the flick of the shop’s tarp. The string of the fan was given a firm tug by the man and the heater of the shop was switched off, allowing the breeze to break through the lines of warmth and flood the store with cold. Slowing to a stop, the gas stopped burning, and the luminance of the orange tint failed.
“Thank you!” Arminius yelled from afar to the couple who could still hear his steps resonate on the empty street.
Skipping onto a sidewalk, he jogged off in a hurry with a worry that the milk might go cold from the unnatural weather that had come to greet the turn into the eleventh month. From his brief beginning of a run, he panted, and his heart thumped, pumping his blood with fluidity that gave him strength to hasten. Open with a smile, his mouth was awide, soaking the cool air into his lungs that warmed and letted his breath turn white like a second scarf wrapping around his face. With each step, his earphones’ wires danced, and the fringes of his hair flung, flapping up and down. His nose soon reddened from a mixture of the heat and cold whilst his hands, though frozen stiff, were clutching, ever tighter, on his pair of bottles. It seemed that no matter for how long he ran, his stamina stayed unhurt and was infinitely recharging. At the thought of returning home to his fireplace in the lounge, he unknowingly sped his pace past his typical jog. As the only pedestrian on his path, he greatly enjoyed the freedom that leaving a late school detention could offer. Running by without moving obstacles, his shadow exchanged between lamps. Under the moonlight, he fleeted, beneath the sky which donned a purplish coat that remained empty and was near a reflection of the sea. When the sun had subducted under the horizon completely, there was not a strip of a fiery light seen. The houses covered half the world on his downhill decline, becoming less sloped as he whisked by the viewing points a many on his route. Mounted and waiting, the benches of the dead sat, watching the town below in the near that they were envious towards. Turning around the last curve that provided a straight road into town, the festive atmosphere grew livelier, celebrating their first night of winter with the breakthrough of an array of colored lights. But that was not his aim. Cornering down a residential street, there was once again a feeling of loneliness. Avoiding the holes but not the puddles he splashed in that he purposefully unavoided, Arminius leapt over tree roots and nimbly coursed down his way, gaining ground on his home. When he came about the width of a road crossing, unthinking, by nature, he took a long stride and widened his arms like wings. Launching with one foot onto the curb, the boy leapt and landed, softly without a skip in his beat, onto the opposite sidewalk. Onward, the milk was still warm. The playlist was on its twelfth song. Nothing struck him that was too unusual.
As he ran, he came to realize below that the shadows and shades around him began to sway. Like that of the lantern above his head, dangling by a chained wire, it had turned into a swing, creaking on its loop. Paused, Arminius slowed himself to a walk and tried to catch his breath when the adrenaline faded from his heart and sank him into tiredness. Finding it odd, holding his bottles in one arm, he removed his earphones and hung its wires around his neck when his legs began to shake. Not yet from fear of anything, but the ground shuddered much like a quake. What was even more peculiar was that there was a sudden boom of screams as he caught a whiff of exposed flames, that with his scent, he could tell was like the aftermath of an arsonist’s work. But it was more. Like a burning pyre. It polluted and strangled him. The smoke shrouded the canvas of heaven and the pounds of explosions had him flinch. It was impossible to ignore. Behind the walls that were shielding him from seeing what carnage laid behind them, Arminius trusted his curiosity and peeked around the corners of houses. However, he could only hear the panic and chaos instilled in the once jubilant townsfolk. Then suddenly over him were the forces of hell.
The roaring grumble of aerial engines and the whirls of propellers flew. The air raid sirens were too late to respond and granted their enemies the much appreciated element of surprise. Darker shadows whipped by on the ground and the blasts of fireballs illuminated the sky. Finally, the steel birds who had wreaked havoc upon his home were seen. They were in a grand fleet sailing in the realm between humans and gods, bombers escorted by fighters, numbering in the several hundreds which was remarkably uncountable. Looking up in horror, they bore the coats of arms of the Confederacy. Stood still, the colors of his eyes were replaced by a storm of embers rising from the distance. Then in his last, singular thought, he wondered why. Suddenly near, a series of detonations exploded to his left and right, behind and in front. An outburst of flames leapt like a crouching tiger that swarmed houses and streets. Tearing through roofs and bricks, walls and floors from their nails and grounds, a shockwave drove a volley of splinters which fared. Eradicating a house beside him, a blast of wind and fire tossed Arminius aside, launched several paces from the pavement out onto the road. Everything was black. He knew, being in the state of a dream, that he had been taken of his consciousness. His sights to his hearing all detected nothing. His existence was nothing.
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