Chapter 3 | The Fire
What matters most
is how well you walk
through the fire
- Charles Bukowski
Listen to "Things We Lost in the Fire" by Bastille for this chapter
~¤§¤~
"Why show me, out of all of us this vision?"
My voice is shaky, not calm like I'm trying to make it. My hands clutch the crystal tightly on the desk, trying to stop and calm myself down. Reasons why that would happen circle and circle through my mind, giving me a headache.
This is probably how Leila felt when she saw it for the first time, that sickening yet fearful feeling. It's a feeling we all know well, that we've experienced time and time again, but or some reason, today, out of all the days makes it horrible.
"You're the only one that would know what to do. It is about you." She replies after a few minutes, looking up at me. Her eyes, they are purple, not the blue that I am used to.
She's mad, or terribly afraid, I can't tell which is the case. It feels weird, seeing my little sister like this, she's calmer than I am, at least on the outside, most little kids would be freaking out still after seeing something like this in a vision.
"Do you have any idea when this will happen?"
She shakes her head 'no', her small hands curling into tight fists, mirroring mine. That was probably what she was trying to figure out the most, how to prevent this fire from happening. We have no idea what sort of destruction will occur with this fire, or how large it actually is. But the fact that I'm there, in that vision, scares me the most.
What do I have to do with this fire? Do I cause it? Do I stop it? Does something happen to me in it?
Leila says something to me, though I don't hear it. I'm practically zoned out in my thoughts, I don't even realize when I'm back at the window that I was originally sitting at this evening, where Leila met up with me to show me this vision.
"Alice! Alice! Wake Up!" A girl's voice, yells in my ears. I never realized that I fell asleep until I am woken up to a startled Aurora, who is shaking me awake. It clicks in my head that her voice is the one I heard, and it wasn't in my dream at all. Sitting up, I realize that we are the last ones in the room, and orange light can be seen from down the hall.
It can't possibly be happening now, could it? But the hallway looks exactly how I saw it in the vision.
"What's going on? Did something happen?" I say to her, trying to play off the fact that I have an idea of what is happening to us right now. She's shaking and breathless, making me wonder how long the fire has actually been going on.
"We need to leave right now." She replies while quickly grabbing my hand. I have no choice but to follow as she pulls me out of the room and down the stairs, running in the process. When we make it down the stairs there is a beam that has fallen down, but there is a small hole.
We try and run back up the stairs but the fire has reached the top blocking us from going back the way we came. The fire reaches me and burns me, the burn hurting more than I originally thought it would, and I look at Aurora as I clutch my arm out of instinct. She is glowing, a combination of light almost - both white yet yellow.
"Aurora, you're glowing, why?"
"Ignibus uti Alicia salvare ipsis."
Even though I haven't studied a lot of the ancient tongue, I can guess what she is saying. Aurora falls down, dead and I feel like my heart was torn in two. I break down crying, yelling at whatever God may exist why they would take my older sister from me. A light glows from my hands and I have them placed on Aurora's stomach, and I feel warm like I am now apart of the fire.
Before I stand, I take Aurora's necklace and put it in my pocket, say a silent goodbye before I quickly go through the hole that was blocking our path, since only I could have made it through. Down the stairs, the house is in ruins, parts of wood have fallen and flames are growing and growing by the minute. The flames, at least some of them, when they touch me, they disappear, as if I have absorbed them. Others, turn dark red and hurt like I'm burning from the inside.
"Blood fire. That's what this is." I realize, everything now making sense. Blood Fire is not natural in this side of the country, in Miststone, it's more native to the fire continent, Ignition. Someone had to have brought it here for a reason, and part of me thinks that it is Dorian who brought it here.
"Mom!!!!" a young male voice yells like he was crying and I quickly run to where the voice was coming from. There I see Leon and Leila, trying to pull out mom free from debris that has fallen on top of her. Leila looks at me, her eyes still purple. It's obvious that even though she knew that this was coming as I did, it is still hard for her to accept this. She makes eye contact with me and I hear her voice in my head
Please hurry mi fuego azul, take your little brother and sister and run. Get out of this house quickly, and be careful mis amores. I will always be with you.
I quickly grab Leila and Leon's hands and pull them away from mother. It hard for me to do this and try not to cry, as Leon is crying and yelling at me to let them go back - to save her. As much as my impulse wants me to run back, I know it's futile. She let us go so that we can be saved.
We can't waste our mother's sacrifice like this. Further, ahead I see my twin brother, Alex, running towards us. Leila trips from a beam of wood that has fallen, and I quickly pick her up, running to Alex. There is a sinking feeling in my stomach and I glance to the ceiling, seeing a beam that is about to fall on top of all of us.
"Take them to safety now. We have to go, the house is falling apart."
I quickly hand Leila to Alex and he grabs Leon's hand as I push them out of the way. Right as the wooden beam falls, I am pulled to the ground by the force. It lands directly on my left hand, crushing it beneath the weight and I squint my eyes and bite my lip trying not to scream in pain so that the others don't worry.
As much as I try to lift the beam with my right arm, it won't budge and the effort hurts. Looking around, I see other beams fall around me making like a wooden, burning jail. The flames once again reach me and I can't help but scream out in pain because of the blood fire that once again burns my skin.
"Please, I still have so much to do with my life. I have to live for mi hermana y mi madre."
The last thing I see is the flames getting closer to me as I black out.
