Inferno Rising (IR #1)

3 | Lighting the Ashes

A week has passed since my first training session with Aszreal, two weeks since I arrived in Cyelos, and I’m undoubtedly stronger and healthier than I’ve ever been before. A week ago, I was dripping with sweat and I dropped a 150 pound bar on my chest because I didn’t have the muscles for it. Now, I can lift 170 while barely even breaking a sweat. I’ve eaten so much over the past few days that it caused me to puke, and I managed to gain twenty pounds from all the meats and grains I’ve consumed, and honestly, it feels amazing, like a weight being removed from my shoulders after carrying it for so long. You can’t see my ribs anymore, and all of my bruises from my time in Panaka have cleared. Although my chest has a huge, purple bruise on it from the other day, luckily it’s not sore to the touch or when I move at all. Aszreal says I’ve been making great progress, and I agree with her, because it even feels like I’m making progress.

Before, I was weak, small, and fragile, just like Aszreal said. I didn’t take offense back then because I understood why she was saying it. I was 100 pounds and small, so skinny to the point that you could see my ribs, and I wasn’t proud of it. I knew how unhealthy it was, how much it could actually affect my life if I didn’t pull myself together, but I wasn’t sure how to do that. After all those years of near starvation, thirst, and cold, I was too far gone and I couldn’t fix myself. But then I was banished. If it were two weeks ago, I would’ve been terrified, sobbing to my mom that I didn’t want to be exiled to Cyelos. Now I’m here. I met Aszreal and she gave me things I never had. She healed me, and I don’t even recognize myself because I’m… thriving. I’m strong, I’m in good shape, and I’m about to throw up my breakfast.

For the last week, Aszreal has been teaching me how to throw punches and work out and eat full meals, for that matter. Every day when we finish, she tells me that she’s proud and that I have great potential. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when she compliments me, more confident and determined to work harder. And that’s the exact reason why I’m getting stronger. Because I’m dedicated and confident. To be honest, I never knew it was possible to be so confident in myself. But now that it’s real, I don’t ever want to lose that confidence. Today, I think Aszreal is finally going to teach me how to activate my abilities. I wonder how happy that’s going to make me when I succeed. If I succeed, that is. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult of a task, especially since I have Aszreal as a mentor.

When the clock on the wall hit eight in the morning, Aszreal strolled out of her office, fixing her hair, putting one half up and the other half down. She was wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of black cargo pants, topped off with black leather boots and silver stud earrings in both of her ears that I genuinely never noticed before, but they were shiny, pretty. She smiled at me and headed into the kitchen where she grabbed a banana and discarded the yellow peel in the trash can.

“Would you like a banana?” She offered.

“No, thanks,” I responded, turning around over the back of the sofa to interact directly with her. “My stomach hurts at the moment.”

“Your stomach hurts?” She mumbled. “Did you have too much to eat for breakfast?”

I nodded and turned back around, kicking my legs up on the coffee table to watch the news playing on the TV, talking about a recent villain attack down in the city of Cyrenae, thirty miles northeast. Aszreal’s house is located in Velkan, so I’m not worried about it. “Way too much. Thanks for cooking, though.” This morning, she decided to make bacon, eggs, and hash browns. Believe me, she’s amazing at cooking. She adds the perfect ingredients and spices and she never burns it. I refuse to eat anything that’s burned, even if it barely has any burned pieces on it.

She came up from behind me and leaned against the back of the sofa to get a good look at the TV and the news about the villain it was displaying. She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. “You have got to be kidding me,” she groaned angrily.