Contra Crown

Twelve

Fire flares, lunging from the tip of my fingers and I watch the obedient flame flicker in the breeze. An involuntary grin spreads across my malnourished features that does not reach my eyes. A battalion of soldiers circle around me, their eyes wide with terror yet they are told to fight and it hurts me to inflict them but I know he's trying to use my sympathy against me and I don't succumb.

I once again assign fire to liberation to blacken the woods and everything that's roaming within, transforming them to charcoal at my command. For that brief moment in time that the flames leapt, devouring feverishly, I became tranquil. The blackened remains satisfies me only momentarily, then I crave it all the more.

They fire back at me, sweat trickling down their grueling faces, yet they're eager to doom the devil standing before them.

Fire surges to me from all directions, little did they know it'd only make me grin wider. I close my eyes, inhaling it all into my lungs and it slips through my system, fierce, deadly and alimentary. Their jaws drop and their eyes widen, looking at me in dismay just to have their own weapon shriek back at them, swallow them, make them part of it and they run in consternation, heading back to the gates.

Unlike a gate of wood that is common to the neighbourhood, this one is fashioned from black iron. I have seen pictures of such gates in story books, artistic and pretty. This one looks like it's maker had had an imagination lobotomy. The steel gate stands taller than the trees, protected and beautifully deadly, loaded with an amount of electricity enough to light up the whole kingdom. They realize it's too late, that the fire is already eating up their flesh and they start rolling on the ground, trying to put off their fire.

Their appalling cries pierce the air around me, bluntly firing at me, but this time nothing I can absorb, this time it scrambles to my heart, shredding my cage and the palace gates open but I'm wide awake now too.

I look behind me at the ghastly orange grin, tearing through the verdant woodland. The unfettered flames, devouring hungrily, licking and lapping at the coppice, twisting and swaying in a dance without rhythm. Tears sting my eyes for all the catastrophe my rage brought about and all I can see is the blackened bodies, charred bones, unsettled souls snatched before their time. And the smell of smoke hits me just right as it drifts into my nostrils as strongly as an incense stick, collapsing my mind with the reality of my deeds and I start sobbing before I know it, as water droplets dance between my fingers and I surge them to the ragging hungry flames.

The air gets crowded with screams of people, trees and flames and I scream back with them because my soul isn't burning any lesser than their bodies.

~

As I rouse from a heavy slumber, I am first aware of the coolness of the air and it's loamy fragrance. The ground is lumpy, just how a bed of earth and rocks would be. My clothes feel as damp as a flower in the dew of the dawn. I half wonder if I'm still in the episode as I sit up to take in the shafts of light that burst through the twigs.

"What did you see?" He asks as soon as he spots me sitting up.

I moan though I'm in no pain, it's just that my body feels so solid. "Nothing," I breathlessly say, shaking my head and a tear traveled down my face before I can even notice it.

I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around my shins; if I can just curl up into a ball, I won't have to face real life, I'd be protected from everything around me. But I'd still have to live with myself, with the wretched memories swirling around in my head. My eyes, already red and puffy from crying, squeeze shut to push more tears out. I let my head fall down to my knees, and I pull my legs closer to me.