Chapter 9: Fire

It’s been two weeks since the World Law took effect, where time stood still. Now, it presses on with a veracity that’s impossible to hold. To break.

I’ve been riding the wave of exhaustion for hours. Reading dull books, counting sheep backwards from one hundred, or whatever it is. All attempts to lull myself to sleep fail. Miserably.

Instead, flashes of the Uprising intrude. Colin’s hazel eyes looking through me, seeing me. The butterflies flutter from my stomach to my head until I’m dizzy. I want to dream of him, because that’s the only world we can exist.

Then, a more sinister memory inches in. I can almost see it through my window: a beam of light shooting high into the sky, penetrating the surface above and below. I look out my window, blink twice, questioning reality. The Ranges lie still.

Closing my eyes, I try to summon the whispers. I squeeze my eyes tightly and attempt to recreate the same emotions, to unlock whatever lies beneath.

They cried, calling for help. I want to respond — I want to save them.

I search for that same darkness, tumbling down and down at full speed. The void is endless, a vortex that never starts nor stops. As inertia builds, my heart races with dangerous intensity until I collapse onto a barrier, moving full tilt.

Darkness is everywhere, a subtle dampness in the air. I’m back again, hand pressed to my chest, the whispers closer than ever. Visions of my mother flood in, her presence rising like a storm. I feel her, I smell her.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Jo,” she mumbles, like she’s under water. Drowning.

“Mom! How do I get to you??” I cry uncontrollably. Her figure emerges in the distance, I run. Whispers come from every direction, saying everything and nothing. They crescendo until I can do nothing but scream with them.

My tears pour, joining the unrelenting flood.

“Mom, is that you??”

I stretch my arm, sprinting, but I don’t move. The darkness stretches outside any sort of reality, I may never reach light again.

She fades, slipping out of reach.

“Save us!” the whispers cry, rising above mine.

“No, NO! Mom!” I choke, I can’t breathe. Can’t think.

Words echo out of sync; I can’t make them out.

“Find your—” I hear. Looking, searching,“What? Find who?”

Hot pain like fire erupts. I grab my head, squeezing, heaving under echoes until they take me for good.

Then—

A beam erupts, tearing the darkness into pieces. Blue flame floods my bloodstream.

Silence stretches. Long and far. All that echoes are the beats of my broken heart.

Then, clarity overtakes me, like a rainbow after a storm. I rise and absorb it like a ray of light, chin up. The glowing blue returns, feeding my blood.

Then, I see…

The blue flames ravaging the darkness to bits, lighting the world ablaze to start new.

The darkness is real, it exists beyond this place. It’s every time I close my eyes, it’s every minute my people suffer. And it’s ready to burn.

And the fire well,

I’m the fucking fire.

~

I wake, the same gray skies.

There’s a certain quiet in Drinn, a silence that speaks its own language. Whether it’s shaped by the vast landscape that towers over the town, reducing us to a spec in the grand scheme of things, there’s always life held within the wind. Metaphysical, as if inhabited by the unseen presence of The Ranges, flowing through me. Calling me.

Maybe it’s time I hear.