Iron-Born: A Short Story

By J.L. Shojosh

Humans are mostly made of water. Tessa is mostly made of molten iron. The petite firefighter had always grown up fearful of her abilities, and went through life harboring this secret. Until her encounter with a strange man, Tessa wasn’t sure what kind of freak she was...Begrudgingly; she begins her quest for self discovery. Will Tessa ever know freedom, or will she know happiness instead, or are the two synonymous or inseparable?

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.L. Shojosh
• Release date: Oct 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005414320

J.L. Shojosh

I hope to show the universal humanity inherent in all of us. There's more that we as humans have in common with one another than the differences that sometimes pit us against each other. Through stories, I hope to highlight a few of those commonalities. Love conquers all.

Book preview

Iron-Born

A

Short Story

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By J.L. SHOJOSH

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Copyright © 2020 Joshua Nsangi. All rights reserved.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by R.B. Publishers, Smashwords Edition.

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1

Tessa! Leave it, we have to go! The voice was muffled. Tessa couldn’t hear Bruno, but little could’ve dissuaded her from her task, not even if she did hear him. The sky kept falling, peeling off in fast falling chunks. The room had long been ablaze, and the pair of yellow suited figures that had been engulfed by dark horrid smoke now bordered on infringement of protocol. Through his transparent visor, kneeling, and with half his mind already at the door, Bruno watched on as Tessa vanished from sight, into the burning inferno.

Let’s go, Bruno! Her speech was clearer than his. Dashing out of the smoke, Tessa had had to skip past several crackling fallen red beams, the roof having caved-in, as they’d barricaded her from Bruno and the door. Without her mask, the smoke was starting to get to her. Her reddened eyes gave the enfeebled puppy in her arms a resolute stare, as she quickly turned her back to Bruno. Tessa Baxter had kept her peculiar abilities under wraps from the rest of the crew… and so, for the first time in her firefighting career, beads of sweat trickled down from brow to chin. Knowing that the little creature for which she’d much risked could barely hold it in together any longer, the scrawny young woman had quickly knelt down. She tucked the puppy under belly. Her oxygen apparatus, though not quite perfectly suited to snouts, had been pressed to the little creature’s face. Quickly, Tessa tucked and rolled. Nonsensically, as it would seem to the petrified screaming outer world, she’d rolled past the burning stacks of fallen roof beams, like a bowling ball slamming up against a set of wooden pins. It all happened so fast.

Wha…? –you’re alright? Bruno would stumble down the front stairs of the double storied family home, as they both had a wave of personnel hit into them and drag them back down to safety. The evening lightshow from the fire trucks had brought in all forms of spectators, people who’d never particularly turned into that corner of the neighborhood. For once, the house aflame was a view which differed from the rows of monotonously uniformly built and painted houses.

Yea, yea…I’m fine. –No. Tessa insisted, as one paramedic had tried to take a look at her skin. I said I’m fine. She thrust her arm away from the beady eyed health worker.

Woah, Bruno had likewise asked to be unhanded, once he’d noticed Tessa quickly walking off and away from the fire truck and Captain Shepherd’s