Iridescence

Chapter Fourteen (Faith)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

FAITH

I hate flashbacks. I like to pretend the past never happened, but sometimes my subconscious likes to mess with me and I end up back there. I usually manage to wake myself up and move on pretty quickly, but that night, that wasn't the case.

I could smell smoke. I jumped out of bed and ran to my parents' bedroom. I heard someone laughing a few feet away from me, but no one was there. I flung open their bedroom door and jumped onto their bed between them.

"Mommy! Daddy!" I shouted. "Wake up! Wake up!"

My mother opened her eyes. "What's wrong, honey?" She asked me.

I pointed to the door. My mom saw the smoke then. "Henry... Henry, wake up!" She said urgently. There were flames everywhere now. The fire had grown out of control unnaturally fast.

My father let out an incoherent groan. "Henry, the house is on fire!" My mother told him.

That woke him up. "Get Faith out of here," he said. "I'll get Deacon."

Deacon was my father's younger brother. He was living with us while he went to college. Mom started dragging me toward the front door. That was when the roof collapsed.

My dad was trapped beneath the debris. His head was bleeding and his body was crushed. "Henry!" My mom screamed. She stared at him in shock.

"Mommy, we have to get out," I said.

My mother refused to move. That was the day her mind shattered for the first time. I was four years old, my father was dead, and my mother was frozen in place. As my mother's nightgown caught on fire, I realized I wasn't burning despite being surrounded by flames. I grabbed my mother and dragged her out of what remained of the house.

I was able to walk straight through the flames without even feeling them. If anything, they made me feel stronger. As long as I held onto my mother, the fire didn't touch her either. Even her nightgown stopped burning.

My father died that day. Uncle Deacon did, too, or so we assumed. We never found his body. His room was completely destroyed. The firemen said he must have burned to death.

I wanted to wake up, but instead, I suddenly found myself in a new location. I was surprised when I spotted Artemis. She looked a little bit younger, yet mostly looked the same. I had a feeling this wasn't the present time.

"Where is Tana?" She asked urgently.

The man she'd spoken to was strangely familiar. He radiated with fire and sunlight, and I could tell he was a deity. "I lost her," he said numbly. "Chaos attacked, she tried to protect me from harm, and the next thing I knew, I was here."

"You lost track of your daughter?" Artemis snapped. I could tell she cared about Tana very much just by how upset she was. "Where did you get ambushed, Helios?"

Helios, I thought. The name stirred something strange inside of me. I knew him. I was sure of it, but I was also sure we'd never met before.

"We were in her mother's domain. Ember did not survive," Helios replied. His grief was clear.

"Tana may still be alive," Artemis said with determination. "I'm going after her."

"Artemis, it's too dangerous."

"You don't have the right to tell me what to do, Helios. Go see my brother. He will patch up your injuries while I go rescue your daughter."

Helios looked absolutely defeated. Part of me wanted to stay with him, but I followed Artemis instead. Soon, she reached a place that was filled with fire. She clutched a necklace in her hand. It began to glow, and the flames suddenly allowed her to pass through them.