The Photograph: Prologue

Night brought fire upon a small town in the countryside early in the spring in a modern day much like ours. The town was completely lit up as each flame spread destruction from rooftop to rooftop, and then all the way to the ground below. The trees were like torches and the air was sharp with the heat. Frantic crying for someone to help or for a loved-one who was trapped and most certainly doomed to death formed a sea of sound—droning and deafening, varying in pitch but blurred altogether and not a word could be made out from another’s lips at the mercy of the wailings.

Men, women, and children alike poured from all the building and flooded the streets running for shelter or for some cool air to relax their lungs. Confusion, panic, and flurry flashed from each distraught face and in every desperate eye. Falling debris overtook many a man and child and the whole town suffered loss more definite that material possessions that night.

The children of the orphanage were perhaps the most fortunate. Their location on the edge of town allowed for every child to escape safely into the surrounding pastures and hills to which everyone was trying to reach. And as they all watched the town fall apart, flames whipping the sky, and smoke choking the air, every child held a hand and shared a tear with another.

But eight of the children never stopped running. Not all of them knew each other, but none of them was about to turn back alone. And soon, the night overtook them all in exhaustion and the lied in a circle asleep until morning came.

Four of the children were from families in town, two from the streets, and two from the orphanage. There were three older boys and two older girls, two younger boys, and the last girl was only seven. This is a story about how they grew up together.