In order to rise from the ashes, the phoenix first must burn.
Elliott Stark was not important. In a lineage of geniuses and billionaires, she was known only as the illegitimate daughter of the most successful Stark; no more than a footnote...
Oups ! Cette image n'est pas conforme à nos directives de contenu. Afin de continuer la publication, veuillez la retirer ou télécharger une autre image.
▇▇▇▇▇
unknown location. march 2010
Elliott's life went on in this way, for what felt like years.
Very quickly, she learned not to move. Not to think or feel or cry, and the burning would stop. The burning that she wasn't even entirely sure wasn't a hallucination.
She tallied the days on the wall with a small rock, fearful of losing her sanity as they did in all of the films she'd watched. She often wondered if she already had. The men — Bakaar's men — brought her a small tray of food and water once a day, aside for the occasional days when they forgot, or perhaps just didn't care enough to feed her. They never spoke to her, not once; she never spoke to them either.
As far as Elliott could tell, there was no camera in her room; her cell.
The girl spent the long hours examining her skin, trying to find burn marks, injection wounds, a sign of what had happened; anything, really. But no matter how many times the fire overtook her, she remained unharmed, not a single hair on her head singed. She tried to control it, whatever it was, but often found herself sitting in the dark, just... burning.
So, day after day, Elliott sat and hugged her knees, staring at the wall and trying not to think of her father or Pepper or anyone; trying not to feel anything. Because the moment she felt anything was when the burning started, the burning that she can't control, that doesn't hurt even though it should.
The burning she just wanted to stop.
After what she counted to be just over two weeks or so, Elliott cease her ritual of sitting in silence and began pacing about her quarters, just to move. She certainly didn't need to lose an energy, being malnourished enough already, but her limbs were stiff and sore.
And then, one glorious, gory day, the steel door opened, and she was dragged out, screaming. But she put half of her energy into trying to stop the burning that was spreading out from her chest, before they saw it. Or felt it.
Because she had this sinking pit, this voice in the back of her mind, telling her that they would kill her if they knew.
So she stopped screaming after a few seconds, afraid of garnering more attention to herself than absolutely necessary. After a minute of the rough walking, when the burning had spread all the way to her neckline and jeans, Elliott was thrust onto the cold ground, face first.
