"Mum?" I called out as I stepped into my house, back in Lake Oldoy.
Why my hallucinations had taken me here, I didn't know.
The house was quiet, and I quickly figured out that it was devoid of human life. A glance at the trees in our back garden told me that it was autumn — orange-coloured leaves were barely hanging onto their branches.
"Mum?" I called out again; the kitchen was empty, and so were the dining room and the lounge.
Swallowing my uncertainty, I began stepping my way upstairs. Despite it being my own home, I was still scared of what I might've come across — what the hallucinations might've created for me.
I was halfway up the stairs when the doorbell rang, making me jump out of my skin and almost fall down the stairs. I rushed to the door, flinging it open; desperate to see someone that I knew.
"Ember, what are you doing here?" It was Wednesday, frowning with a puzzled look on her face.
"Wednesday!" I exclaimed, wrapping my arms around her in an embrace. "I missed you so much!"
She hugged me back, but I could hear the question in her voice, "You only saw me yesterday, you know?"
"Oh, yeah. Sure." I pulled back frowning, but continued, "I'm so glad I've met you. I need to tell you some stuff."
"Good news and bad news?" She raised an eyebrow at me as we walked into my house and sat on one of the sofas — she must've figured out that I hadn't actually seen her yesterday.
"Bad news is that this isn't real, I'm stuck in a hallucination. I'm actually in Montana with Theo, and we're being tortured by hunters."
"Right," Wednesday replied slowly, taking in the information, "The good news?"
"Erm, the good news is that..." I didn't actually have any good news, so I told her, "Theo and I finally made up."
"Hmm." She narrowed her eyes at me, "Let me read your palm."
I produced my palm to her, watching as she traced her fingers over the lines and indentations in my hand.
"I can See that..." She mused, still studying my palm, "You're in trouble, Ember... And things are about to get much worse."
"Much worse how?" I questioned — but Wednesday was already gone.
Standing, I watched as my home disintegrated around me; the walls blew out as if they'd exploded. Everything that I'd known as I'd grown up was gone; obliterated.
Then I was drifting through the wreckage, my body hovering above the destroyed remains of my home. The grey haze of it all was peaceful, and calm — despite everything being gone.
All of a sudden, I was at Lake Oldoy, kneeling on the lake shore. The lake was much, much darker than usual and something was off — but I couldn't quite work out what.
"This is what they do." I heard a voice, and it seemed to come from all directions and yet none at the same time.
"What? Who?" I whirled around quickly but soon halted as I heard the sickening crunch my feet made on the pebbled shore — that's not the sound of pebbles.
Glancing down, a ghastly horror overwhelmed me; I was standing on bones. Human bones. I lifted my right foot to see a gaping skull leering up at me from the ground.
"The hunters did this," the indistinguishable, unidentifiable voice resumed, "They did this to the innocents of your town — men, women and children; young and old; healthy and sick."
"Why?" I questioned, before clamping my mouth shut in order to refrain from throwing up whatever was in my shock-filled body.
"They will stop at nothing until they get what they want."
"What do they want?" Tears rolled down my face as I demanded answers.
"You, Ember Milburn. Or, more specifically," the voice specified, "Your fire."
I realised why the lake was so dark — it was full of dark, thick blood, and as I stared at it, it seemed to bubble and spill over the lake edges. I glanced at my hands to see them alight and dancing with flames. I had not summoned my fire, yet here it was.
Collapsing to my knees once more, I fell forward onto the bones. My fire licked at the ground below me, burning up all the skulls and bones, destroying everything; leaving nothing.
They want my fire, with the thought came stronger flames. I won't let them take it. I won't let them harm my Phoenix. Never.
My hands shook as the last of the bones cracked and crumbled into milky-grey ashes — leaving a river of blood flowing past my bare, dirty feet.
The rest of my clothes were gone as well, leaving me standing naked and exposed on the lake shore. I folded my arms tightly around my body, purely out of modesty, though it wasn't like anyone was around.
Then my feet were sinking into the river of blood, slowly swallowing me. It was hot and fresh and smelt rancid. The metallic taste of the stuff entered through my nose and lingered in the back of my throat.
Flailing around, I was trying desperately to grab onto something; yet nothing was around me apart from the thick, deep river of blood that I was being sucked into.
Before I knew it, I was up to my neck in the river, and yet my feet couldn't reach the bottom — if there even is one, that is. With my body coated in the blood of the innocent, tears began to roll down my face.
They didn't deserve this; I didn't deserve this — none of us deserves this.
I took one last deep breath as I became fully submerged in the river. It was clearer underwater than it was above, so I squinted into the murky red and swam forwards to what looked like a figure in the water— blood. In the blood.
How I'd managed to hold my breath for this long, I didn't know. But I kept my mouth tightly shut; I didn't exactly fancy drowning in blood.
Drawing nearer to the figure, I saw a bare chest and bare legs; the figure of a naked man. I froze momentarily but then continued swimming. If he was drowning, I wasn't going to leave him just because he was naked. I mean, I was naked, and I wouldn't've wanted to be left to die in this murky river of blood just because of my nudity.
It's Theo, I realised as I swam closer to him.
Looping my arm around his midsection, I pulled him up from the riverbed, kicking my feet off and propelling us towards the surface. I gasped as I emerged from the river of blood, rubbing my eyes clear of the gunk while keeping a hold of Theo.
Reaching the river bank, I wriggled myself up, before pulling Theo up the grassy slope. I wiped away the blood from Theo's eyes, nose and mouth, before leaning over him and giving him CPR.
Unafraid to break a few of his ribs, because I knew they'd heal, I pushed down strongly on his chest, over his heart. I didn't have to continue for long before he spluttered out a mouthful of blood and sat up.
"Hey, are you alright?" I asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.
His eyes skimmed over my naked body, and then over his own. "Why are we naked? And why are we covered in blood?"
"I don't know why we're naked." I shook my head and tried not to stare at Theo's nudity, wiping the blood from my face. "The river is full of blood."
Theo frowned, shaking his head at himself. "This probably isn't the right time, but I can't resist you being naked in front of me."
I glanced down below his waist, and even though he'd semi-covered himself up with his hand, I could see how bad he was struggling to contain himself.
"What are we even doing here?" I asked, trying to ignore how blatantly Theo wanted me right there, right then.
"What could we be doing here, might be a better question..." He trailed off, eyes flicking over my body — I hadn't even bothered covering myself up, though maybe I should've done.
"Theo, focus." I drew my knees up to my chin, sitting with my body covered up. "When did you last see me?"
I had to figure out if this version of Theo was merely part of my hallucination or real. If he was a hallucination, he was probably only there to distract or torment me — but if he was real, then maybe we could help each other out of this mess.
"We were at Coloma." He sat up, continuing to keep himself covered. "And we'd stayed the night there."
"Did we go all the way?" I raised an eyebrow.
"No." He shook his head. "You didn't want to, and we weren't... prepared anyway."
"So, you're real?" I checked, touching his arm.
"Yes. How do I know you're real though?" He countered.
"Ask me anything the real me would know." I shrugged but kept my arms firmly crossed.
"Why didn't we go all the way back in Lake Oldoy?" His eyes narrowed at me.
"Because I didn't want to complicate things further," I answered in a whisper because after that night, we didn't see each other for four, nearly five months. And maybe it would've been better if we did go all the way, maybe not — who knows?
"Thank God, it's you, Em." He leaned over to me and wrapped his arms around me.
I dropped my knees and hugged him back, not caring about my nakedness. After all, both of us were still covered in red, gunky blood.
"How can we be sharing a hallucination?" I questioned, pulling back from the embrace and wrapping myself up again.
"Come here." He placed his hand on the side of my head and tapped my left temple with his finger. "I've got them too."
He was talking about the little circular pads the hunters had used to electrocute me last time they had me — but now they seemed to be connecting our hallucinations.
Feeling the little pad, I frowned. "Why would they do this?"
"Why would they do any of this?" Theo answered with a question, shaking his head incredulously, a half-smile on his face.
I sighed heavily, giving up on covering myself up and lying on my back on the grassy slope. I glanced down at my body to see that all the blood was now gone — washed off. The same had happened to Theo as well.
"Well." He nodded slowly, struggling to keep his eyes on my face. "We're both lying naked on a grassy riverbank in the middle of a green forest... What are we doing, re-enacting Adam and Eve?"
Scoffing, I rolled my eyes. "I hope not."
"But surely, we won't have to contend with The Fall... I mean, we're hardly sinless, are we?" He smirked across at me.
"Are you implying we should sin in our joint hallucination of the Garden of Eden?" I raised an eyebrow at him; it hardly seemed like a good idea. "I don't know about you, but I'm not a big fan of snakes and can't say I fancy meeting the Devil disguised as one..."
Tilting my head and smiling, I leaned over to him and placed my hand on the side of his shoulder. He smiled back at me before his smile crumpled.
"Ember, what are you doing?" Theo frowned at me, as my palm unexpectedly began heating up against his shoulder.
"N-nothing," I stuttered, trying to pull my hand away but it seemed stuck to his skin.
Once again, my fire was coming unsummoned to me — what the hell is happening?
"Ember. You're burning me." Theo stated bluntly as my palm caught fire, the flames licking his skin oh-so beautifully — and oh-so deadly...
He stood, dragging me up with him as he tried to shake me loose, pulling at my hand so hard I thought my fingers were going to dislocate.
"I... I don't know what's happening..." Shutting my eyes tightly, I tried to calm the flames — but nothing was working.
The truth cannot be found without the trust, the truth cannot be found without the trust.
But I didn't trust what I was doing, and I couldn't find any truths in the hallucination.
Dread surged through my body as I realised what was going to happen to Theo if I couldn't stop the flames or get my hand away from him.
"In human form, a Phoenix can incinerate anyone/anything with a single touch," I remembered Theo saying as he read from Al's book on supernaturals back in Lake Oldoy. "Their ability is so strong they can reduce a whole man to ashes in seconds — this is called Spontaneous Combustion or Incineration Touch..."
My eyes widened as I watched the flames spread down his arm, catching fire easily — as if his skin was coated in flammable gas. The blood... What if?
"I guess this is the consequence of wanting to burn with you." He stopped struggling and pulled me closer to him — our naked bodies touching.
Firmly, he pressed his lips against mine in what would become his last conscious moment, it seemed.
"I don't regret it," he told me, and then repeated his words from our night together at Coloma; "I'd rather die a fiery death by your side than a lonely, watery death."
"I'd rather you didn't have to die at all," I whispered to him, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him tight against me again.
A glance to my right informed me that the river was no more — all that remained was a sandy ditch. I couldn't put out the fire that I started.
This may have been a hallucination, but I could tell Theo was actually in pain, which meant that I was actually burning him. He broke away from our embrace, my hand finally becoming unstuck. But it was too late; the damage was already done.
Theo stood with his eyes screwed shut and his mouth clamped closed as the flames engulfed his body — effortlessly eating away at his skin, layers of flesh peeling off his body. The smell was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before; it was making me gag and heave as I tried to stay focused on Theo. There may have been nothing else that I could do for him, but I certainly couldn't run off into the woods and hide as I lost yet another person who was close to me.
His body collapsed to the ground as his legs quickly burnt away, and I dropped down beside him. With one last effort, he opened his eyes and stared up at me. Then he whispered four words that broke my heart, "I don't... blame... you."
His beautiful hazel-blue eyes slid shut and his body lay still as the flames — as my flames continued to destroy the person that once was Theodore Jonathan Oakenbank-Aquila.
As deadly as the flames were, they were also beautiful; dancing carelessly over his skin, leaving nothing behind aside from a few ashes.
Tears wracked my body as I stared at another one of my victims. This time an accidental victim, but a victim all the same. I sobbed as I collapsed to the ground beside him, curling up in a foetal position next to where Theo was lying.
"This seems to be working better than expected." I heard a booming voice from above, and I glanced into the sky — expecting to see the outline of God, ready to punish me for sinning in his Garden of Eden. Though it wasn't the Original Sin, it was arguably worse.
"They're coming out of it," the voice spoke again, though it sounded more human than divine this time around — and seemed to be coming from beside me, as opposed to above me.
I guess it's not the voice of God then... I frowned, after momentarily having forgotten that this Garden of Eden was a mere hallucination.
But whether Theo's death before my eyes was part of the hallucination, I couldn't tell. It looked so real and it felt so real that I couldn't be sure of anything anymore.
"We'll let them come out of it," the voice said as if responding to some other unheard voice. They then snapped, "I know what I'm doing. Don't you dare question my authority."
It was then that I recognised the voice as I sat on the grassy riverbank next to Theo's ashes, tears dry on my face; it was Evan Woodman, the hunter, and we... or I was coming out of the hallucination.
I let my eyes slide shut as I lay beside Theo's ashes and whispered, "I'm sorry."
Reality isn't much better than the hallucination, I thought, as I found myself back in the dark room, chained to the chair and drenched in ice-cold water.
"Welcome back to reality, Ember," Evan greeted me, setting the bucket aside.
My head snapped to the side to see Theo slumped in his chair — he wasn't burnt up, but I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not.
"Theo!" I yelled across at him, "Theo, please wake up!"
He groaned as he straightened up, "I'm awake... I think."
"Thank God you're alright!" I sobbed, unsure of what I would've done if I'd killed him.
"I'm okay, Em. I promise." He looked me in the eye, nodding.
"Okay, okay." Evan clapped his hands together firmly. "That's enough of your little reunion."
"Do you have any idea what that hallucination was like for us?" I glared at him, eyes squinted, "Do you have any idea or inkling about how real that felt?"
I glanced down at my sore wrists to see that I'd strained so much against the iron chains that I'd actually burnt deep grooves into my skin. I pulled back from the chains, hoping my body would begin healing itself.
"No." His tone was bored, uninterested.
I felt a cold and sudden suck on my energy as if it was being pulled away from me. And I realised I'd felt it before — last time the hunters were keeping me there. It was stronger and more prevalent than before, but it was still the same thing, the same feeling. I'd felt it before the second hallucination, but this time I could comprehend it better.
"What..." I gulped for air like a fish out of water, "What is that?"
Evan squatted down in front of me, examining a large knife in his hands. "You're going to have to be a little more specific than that if you want to keep your tongue inside your mouth."
I swallowed; he wouldn't — would he?
"You wouldn't cut her tongue out..." Theo groaned exhaustedly. "You need us to be able to talk, don't you?"
Evan shrugged nonchalantly, "I only need one of you to be able to talk. And I'd bet that you, Theo, know a lot more than Ember here does..."
"Evan!" Another hunter hissed from the shadows of the room, before hurrying over. "We need her alive."
I narrowed my eyes at the shadowy figure. "What do you even what with me anyway? I know nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing."
"What we want from you, Ember." Evan drew closer. "You can't willingly give to us... But we sure as hell can extract it from you."
My fire. That's the only thing they'd want to extract from me.
"What is that?" Theo echoed my question as the both of us felt our energy being drained from us.
"We've got a medium in the corner." Evan merely shrugged a shoulder, like it was no big deal, "She's channelling your energy from you. It's a lot cheaper than electrocuting you, and just as effective, by the looks of things."
As if on cue, I felt a stronger pull of my life force being drawn out of me, leaving me gasping for air and straining against my chains once again. Like electrocution, it was exhausting; unlike electrocution, I was able to recover more and it was cheaper for the hunters: a win-win situation, really.
Evan left for a while after that, and the room emptied of hunters. The medium left as well; mine and Theo's energy and strength started slowly returning to us.
"You okay?" His voice came out hoarse and croaky.
"Just about." I sighed, looking around us in the dark room, "How are we gonna get outta here?"
"I don't know if we will..." Theo trailed off, sounding miserable and hopeless.
"Why d'you say it like that?" Frowning across at him, I stopped searching for our way out — there has to be one, doesn't there?
"Haven't you noticed how they've not interrogated us?"
"They've still tortured us. I mean, I don't know about you, but I didn't exactly find the whole hallucination shit fun."
"But they don't seem to want anything from us," he insisted, "Something's screwed up with that."
"Something's screwed up with the hunters. Period. That's it. End of story." I responded, getting slightly annoyed with how useless he was being. My voice dropped to a mutter, "But they do want something. It's just from me that they want it from."
"I guess I could send some sort of message to Abi..." Theo mused aloud. "And maybe one to Thea as well."
"Won't Storm just intercept it?" I raised an eyebrow across at him.
"I still can't believe she betrayed us..." He shook his head and his head slumped onto his chest.
Biting my lip, I thought maybe if he had listened when I told him I suspected her, then we wouldn't be here right now... I hate to say I told you so, Theo, but. I told you so.
"Are you sending Abi and Thea a message then?" My voice sounded irritated as I snapped at him.
"Yes, hence the silence." His eyes were screwed shut in concentration.
I huffed and went back to staring around at the empty room. There seemed to be no way out of the mess we'd gotten ourselves into.
If only we hadn't stayed at Coloma last night... The thought entered my mind and left just as wearily; I realised that if we didn't stay there, Storm had still betrayed us all, and it only would've been a matter of time before the hunters captured us.
"You realise that this might not have happened if you believed me when I first told you I didn't trust Storm, right?"
"Let's not fight," he responded through gritted teeth, "We've got enough shit going on without arguing with each other, okay?"
"Yeah, okay," I snapped, "But I told you so."
"I get it, Ember." He sighed. "I should've listened to you and trusted your gut feeling. I guess I was just blinded by the fact I didn't want anyone else that I trusted to betray me."
"To be fair," I shrugged, "By then, there probably wouldn't've been much we could've done. I doubt Jason would've believed you anyway, and then the entire pack would've been against you."
"At least the pack will believe me now." Theo scoffed, shaking his head sadly.
"Ryan might not even be dead, you know?" Throwing out the statement, I leave it at that before we fell into silence.
A few minutes of nothing passed, prior to me deciding to at least try and get out.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not staying here to die." I strained against my chains, trying to break them by summoning my fire.
Fire burns iron, right?
As I felt my fingertips heating up, I grasped onto the chains, gritting my teeth as they seared into my palms.
"Ember, what are you doing?" Theo asked, sounding both confused and surprised.
"I'm getting out of here, dipshit." Ignoring the aching pain that the iron caused throughout my body, I gripped ever tighter to the chains.
"Stop, don't you realise that this is exactly what they want?" He insisted, "They're trying to capture your fire, and you're basically handing it over willingly."
"They can't take this from me." I hissed at him, my eyes burning brightly as I clenched my teeth, pushing through the pain; "Besides, it's too late now."
"Ember, don't," he whispered forcefully, "Please... There's gotta be another way out of here — a better way out."
Tears trickled out of my closed eyes as I felt the chains finally give way and drip out of my hands, the metal now a hot liquid that pooled on the floor. The rest of the chains fell off my body, collapsing to the ground.
I stood, my palms still burning and my nose bleeding slightly from concentration.
Much to my surprise, I heard Theo sniff. I whirled around to see his eyes slightly glassy.
"Congratulations, you've just given them exactly what they want." He swallowed, sniffing again and looking away from me.
"What do you m —?" I started but was cut off as the door swung open.
Evan Woodman was standing at the doorway, a grin on his face as hunters swarmed around him and into the room. My body was frozen, but it wasn't like I was getting out of this one.
"Shit," Theo muttered under his breath behind me.
The hunters circled around me as I stood with my palms burning fiercely — armed with guns and crossbows — before they paused and glanced towards Evan.
"Fun time's over, I'm afraid, Ember." Chris's dad shrugged a shoulder at me, his gaze turning to a cold glare and instructing the circle of hunters around me, "Take her alive."
And then they closed in on me.