A really long way

2. When hell exploded in my face

Four years had passed since my parents were brutally slaughtered in their own house. Four years of running, hiding and doing anything to survive. Aileen took good care of me but even when she tried to work hard to feed me and dress me, it was very difficult, to do it at that time. We were immigrants in country that opened its arms to everyone, but some people already thought that they were native from that place, so little opportunity we had to had a decent life. Economic depression had hit the United States in a bad way and people didn't have a job even less the capability to hire others or help them.

1893 was the year of my 12 th year of life, it is really curious that I can't really remember my birthday, I only remember two things as clear as if they had happened last night. The first one is that the day of my birthday, Prince George (later George V) got married, the other... well the other moment of that year wasn't as joyful as a wedding. Because that day I lost the little family I still had, that day I convinced myself that I was a horrible demon, that maybe those men who killed my parents were looking for me and not them. Maybe... I should have died back then, or at least I thought that back then.

We used to live in a small town, Aileen decided to do that, I've always guessed that she liked it that way, that she didn't like cities, even less big cities. I never knew other thing, only once when I was 10 that we arrived to New York, The Statue had been amazing balm of safety and hope, then the City had been an explosion to my senses, yes... even then when the city wasn't what i is nowadays. But then Aileen decided to go on with the trip, continued till we found ourselves in a very small town, probably the name of it is just a memory now... my memory.

"Aileen... I don't like this place... I'd love to live in a place like the one with the Statue!" I had cried like the girl that I was, I pouted and frowned, I even had given Aileen the cold shoulder for a couple of hours.

"You'll see lass, you'll love this place, look at the space! We can plant like your mom used to do, Maybe to have a little bit of her here." After she said such words I couldn't help myself, I smiled at her and nodded at her brilliant idea, Aileen always knew how to make me feel better.

We worked very hard in making that small house of a single bedroom and a kitchenette something good enough to be called home. We lived there for two years, no one ever bothered us, Aileen told them that I was her daughter and that my father had died of pneumonia in the ship on our way to America. None of them doubted it, it was something normal, right? She started working as a nurse with the local medic, I started school with other kids, 15 kids in class, it was a good number. I loved my classes, Miss Erickson was the best teacher I ever had, and Marianne Simmons had been the best friend I had had till that moment. For two years we lived normal, human lives. For two years I forgot that hell can always get you and explode you in the face.

It was October when it happened, October 26th to be exact, I still have all of what happened that day as a tattoo in my mind. There had been a nice Dance in the Barn of Miss Erickson's family, she invited everyone including the kids of the school, including me. I had been feeling weird for days, but that day was the worst, I had felt a hole in my stomach as if I was filled... no, made of air, but at the same time my body had felt heavy as a rock. I was hot all the time and it wasn't that normal hence it was already Fall. And I had been pushing several jars of water, the ones I swear till the day, that I never touched. Although I felt like that, Aileen and Mari convinced me to go to the dance, so I went.

"Oh! Come to the dance! Please! I will feel so awkward to be there all by myself! Please!" Aileen told me looking at me with her shinny, innocent cornblue eyes, she held my hands and smiled in a begging way.

Aileen laughed and shook her head. "Go to that dance lass! You will have a good time and boys will see you!" then smiled at me in the motherly way that she had already adopted years before, whenever she looked at me.

I smiled at them both and huffed. "You both win, I will go..." I nodded at them and Mari hugged me tightly squeaking in the most acute tone she could. "Mari, let me go, suffocated I won't be able to dance." She laughed and nodded letting me go. I dressed up and we went together to the dance.

As it was a small town, we knew everyone, and protected everyone. So, when a group of men that we didn't know came into the party, No one trusted them. The Sheriff asked them to leave the barn, leave town. They agreed and left, however they didn't do it. They waited for innocent people to leave the dance to go to their homes. Marianne and I were going to my house a bit earlier than others, we were going to bake some cookies for a guy that she used to like. We got into the house and greeted Aileen, then went to the kitchenette and started preparing them.

Everything happened so fast...Still it is in slow motion in my mind when I close my eyes and think about it. The door opened with a hard slam, Mari and I saw the men and recognized them from the dance. Mari screamed loud and clear. I grabbed a pan from the stove (which was hot as hell, but I didn't notice it.) and threatened the men with it. "Leave or you'll regret it!" I told them with shaky voice. Aileen went to protect us, a man grabbed her by the arm, punched them and shoved her onto the bed and then moved closer to her. "Kill the kids... not my type." said the man and laughed loudly. Aileen wasn't moving.

Another man went after us, "Leave us alone!" I hit him hard with the pan on the face, a red burnt was formed on his face almost immediately, but they were stronger, bigger,... evil. The man with the mark of his face grabbed me and pushed me against the stove and my body started to burn up, but it didn't hurt. I rubbed my head and looked around, kind of dizzy I felt in that moment, but I saw the guy breaking Mari's neck. "NEEEEIIIIII!!!!!!" I yelled and then fire covered the whole room. The man looked at me in panic, but I didn't care, he had killed my best friend! I walked at him, then as if fire had been my arm grabbed the man by the neck and got into him through his mouth. Second later he was dead and like a piece of carbon on the floor. I ran to the room and the man had just killed Aileen, I yelled really loud and fire covered everything the man was dead in seconds also.

I didn't really understanding why he hadn't been afraid of me, until I saw myself on a mirror seconds before it shattered in pieces because of the heat inside the room. I was made of fire all of me was made of fire, hair, face, body... all of me was fire. I looked for aileen but was impossible to find her in that place, so I walked outside where it was raining already. My body hissed with the touch of water, but then I saw how my hands changed from fire now they were made of Water, as if my transparent skin was containing the water in my body's form. "What is happening to me?!" I heard the voice of the other men, voices from people coming from the barn.

"Oh.. no... please no..." I looked around and when people came closer blaming those guys, I really hoped they didn't see me like that, if they did... what would they have thought of me?! I hoped to leave, I prayed to heavens to let me escape. When I opened my eyes, I was floating, my body was transparent, even more than water, like thin air, like a weird gas. I screamed but even when they heard my scream, they couldn't see me. I kept getting higher and higher, I was scared and wanted to be on ground. Suddenly I just fell down, 15 feet on free fall, but I didn't die, my body got part of the ground and at the same time wasn't.

I got up and looked down, my body looked like a weird combination of elements. My hair and eyes were like fire, my body like air, the tip of my fingers and nails were soil or stone... I didn't know what was going on with me, so I ran as far as I could and got deep into a nearby forest. There I got into a cave and fell asleep among tears of liquid fire. I couldn't really control my powers and was scared to death. I thought I was a demon, like the men of Mull used to say. When I woke up I was scared and alone and human like again... with no clue of what would I do after that night.