Gremlins From Hell

You awoke to the smell of burning. Ugh. Early morning and it felt like hell was making an appearance. Slowly, the smoke was getting unbearable. When you opened your eyes, the fire encircled your bedroom, its flames towering high above the ceiling.

“Not again”, you mumble. Then you climb out of bed into your fire suit and magma boots. You aim your Kelvin gun at the base of the flames, methodically dousing them. You extinguish the bedroom first, then work room by room to secure the house.

This is the third time this month the Torchies have started fires in your house. The little gremlins used to stay in the furnace where they were born, but now that your grandma stopped feeding them, they're out, roaming the house, licking wood, chewing doorframes, starting fires.

It was too much. Arson from Torchies was to be expected. We had methods for handling it. But once the gremlins were loosed we were simply overrun. They ate most of the lumber, even a child or two. It had been an uneasy peace but it had held—no more. This was gremlin country now.