Angelica Light's Perspective:
I rolled out of bed, filled to the brim with excitement. I was ecstatic to figure out whether or not I would become a contractor. I didn't desire to become a Wielder as Blaze did, but I aspired to gain a contract from our Goddess.
I ate my breakfast and brought my Grandmother hers.
"I'm going to leave this on your nightstand Grandma," I told her, in just above a whisper.
"Hmm? Oh, yes, of course, sweetie. Good luck at your ceremony. I'm praying to the Goddess!" my Grandmother smiled as she gently propped herself up in bed.
"Thank you, Grandma!" I beamed a smile back and shut her door.
I creaked open our wooden front door and took a deep breath. The smell of the tunnels seemed to calm me. I thought about the training I had endured with Blaze and Cato, as well as the fun I had. I prepared for this day.
I closed the door behind me and started on my walk to the town square. My house was located only about a five-minute walk away from the town square, but I was near the main tunnels connecting the Fire Tribe to the rest of Terra.
My Grandmother had lived in this house for almost her whole life, and she loved it dearly. Although I didn't enjoy the constant traffic in front of our house, my Grandmother adored it.
As I made my way towards the town square, I caught a glimpse of the tall, skinny, black-haired boy I treasured.
"Blaze!" I shouted.
His head whipped around, and he locked eyes with me. He waved a long arm above his head, and I started to make my way towards him.
I thought about the countless memories I had of Blaze and me together. A single question kept bubbling up to the surface whenever I thought of those memories.
'Could it be forever?'
Followed by:
'Does Blaze want it to be forever?'
I shook the questions out of my head as I approached my friend.
"Hey!" Blaze flashed a smile I had grown accustomed to seeing.
I smiled back and started heading in the direction of the ceremony hall.
"Shall we go?" I asked, glancing over my shoulder at Blaze.
"Absolutely," he answered.
~~~
The tunnels leading to the ceremony hall were cold, dank, and slightly sloped downhill. I could only dread the walk back up as we followed the crowd of children our age down the winding tunnel solely lit by floating sconces.
We arrived at the end of the tunnel leading us to the ceremony hall and what we saw was breathtaking.
The tunnel opened into a cavern with natural support pillars made of the most beautiful crystals. I glazed over the scene in front of me to see a bridge made of the same crystal stretching out to what seemed to be a small rock hut, not much larger than my house.
Below the bridge was a clear glass lake that stretched the entire cavern. Inside the lake were stunning fish of all different colors. One that particularly caught my eye was a fish that looked almost like a swordfish but smaller in length, much smaller. The miniature swordfish danced through the glassy water before I was able to realize why it caught my eye.
It had the same glassy texture as the crystals holding up the cavern.
I stared in awe for a second longer before composing myself. I turned to Blaze, whose jaw, as per usual, had gone slack. I poked his cheek lightly, and he closed his mouth, still staring wide-eyed at our surroundings.
"I couldn't even imagine a place like this existed in the Fire Tribe," Blaze spoke, voice painted in wonder and admiration.
"I guess this would be where our Goddess would reside," I shrugged and took another look around the cavern.
Each portion was as beautiful as the last. I kept staring around the cavern while the children attending the ceremony all started to line up.
For some reason, the adults managing the ceremony almost seemed rushed, as if there wasn't enough time to get everyone done.
'How odd,' I thought, 'doesn't the Goddess' crystal stay down here anyways? Why wouldn't we have enough time?'
I shook the thoughts out of my head and assumed the people directing us were sick of their jobs.
Blaze was behind me in line, and as I looked over my shoulder, I noticed him craning his neck to see throughout the line.
"Find him?" I asked, knowing he was trying to find our silver-haired friend Cato.
"Not yet. You'd think having such a weird hair color would be good in times like these."
Blaze muttered to himself as he kept looking, "It doesn't help that you're short as all hell, too, Cato."
I stifled a laugh at my friend's expense and let Blaze keep searching.
As we kept progressing up the line, the number of gloomy faces coming back didn't look promising. I tried to keep my nerves calm and ignore the children trudging back down the bridge with slumped shoulders.
'You can do this. You prepared for this day; you will become a contractor.' I thought to myself.
I glanced once more back at Blaze to try and find some comfort in his expression, but the smile I had come to love and almost expect had been replaced by a downcast gaze and a solemn expression as he stared at his feet advancing up the line. It looked almost as if Blaze was walking to his execution.
I turned my gaze forward, and now the seemingly small rock house was towering above me. I stared ahead at the straw hanging down to cover the doorframe and saw a familiar figure push the straw apart.
It was Cato!
His silver hair gleamed under the crystal light, and his shorter stature shone almost brightly as he entered the house.
I whipped around back to Blaze with a grin plastered across my face, "I just saw Cato ent—"
Suddenly the whole cavern began to rumble. The bridge violently shook side to side, throwing children into the deep lake below before they could even react. I gripped the edge of the bridge as Blaze crouched down next to me, holding onto me.
I looked up just in time to see a boulder the size of our training room—almost three meters in diameter—come crashing down from the ceiling.
The boulder connected with the side of the bridge about twelve meters behind us in line. The side of the bridge with the line.
Blood painted the clear crystal of the bridge as squished bones and organs spilled out from where children used to be.
Screams echoed throughout the cavern as more deadly crystals came crashing down into the water and on the bridge. I sat in shock and stared at the blood pooled in the middle of the bridge back where I was standing just minutes ago.
I tore my gaze off of the blood to look up and see a girl no older than me get split in half by a crystal taller than Blaze as she crouched on her stomach.
I watched as the light faded from her eyes and her blood pooled at what used to be her waist.
I stared at her corpse for a brief moment before I threw up on the floor in front of me.
Tears clouded my eyes as I vomited up anything I could muster from my stomach.
I stared down at my hands as I coughed, with tears clouding my vision. All I could make out were my hands pressed against the beautiful crystal bridge in a pool of someone else's blood and my vomit.
~~~
Cato Emberson's Perspective:
As I pushed past the straw covering the entrance, what sat before was quite odd. It was a red gemstone, no larger than my fist, in the middle of a table. It looked similar to the jewel in my sword, albeit larger.
The actual room wasn't huge. The building looked enormous, yet the inside wasn't quite as impressive.
A board behind the table read:
"Grab the crystal, and the Goddess will speak with you."
I shrugged, not knowing what I expected, and reached for the crystal.
As I was about to grab it, an enormous rumbling resounded through the cavern and into the small room.
The rumbling lurched me forward, and I accidentally grabbed the crystal.
As I touched the red gemstone, my body launched into a tunnel.
It felt like one of the tunnels I would walk through every day to get to the town square, but something was off. The sconces on the wall were different colored flames, some red, some blue, some white, and some even green.
I wasn't walking, yet I was gliding through the tunnel. I continued to speed up until the sconces turned into bright blurs in my vision.
'I wonder what that huge noise was outside? Nobody has attacked the Fire Tribe in years; it couldn't have been an attack, right?' My thoughts raced as I thought about where Blaze and Angelica might have been in the line.
'Well, let's hope that they already completed their ceremony. Hell, Blaze could be a True Power Wielder by now, and I wouldn't even know it,' I tried to calm myself with anything I could think of as I raced by the now solid line of changing colors.
When I finally came to the end of the tunnel, it spat me out onto a never-ending expanse of the color red.
The horizon glowed a brighter red while, what should have been the sky above me, was a dark maroon providing little light.
The floor was the most interesting. It seemed as if it were stained the color it was—a dark, unsightly red.
I tried to move around in this infinite box I had been transported to, and to my surprise, I could. I stretched my arms out above my head and realized I was still holding onto the crystal.
'Well, it couldn't hurt to have this, I guess.' I stuffed the gem in my pocket and continued to move forward. Whatever forward even meant in an endless abyss. It also did not help that the tunnel put me here and as quickly left me behind.
I studied the floor more with nothing else to do. I pushed my index finger into the floor and was met with solid resistance. When I dragged my finger across the floor, it picked up a line of crusted red that had stained the floor.
I brought it to my nose, and I only came to one conclusion;
Blood.
This never-ending expanse, someone had coated it in blood.
As if reading my thoughts, a commanding voice resounded behind me,
"Yes, it's blood, any other questions?"
I turned around quickly, only to be met by the most beautiful figure I had ever seen.
I struggled for words as I tried to grasp how beautiful and yet, how dangerous the Goddess seemed.
I let out a sigh and realized I was face to face with a Goddess. One I revered and stared at every day in the town square. Here, however, the sculpture would have looked no better than one created by a toddler.
Her serene glory emanated throughout the space between the two of us. She was wearing a dress redder than the horizon and carrying hair as black as night. In stark contrast to her hair, her eyes shone a golden hue.
I stood speechless as the silence grew between us.
She stared down at me as I swallowed what little saliva was in my mouth.
"Should I be asking questions?" I hesitantly asked my Goddess.
"You are welcome to; whether I will answer your questions is yet another question."
My thoughts drifted to my friends and family. Were they okay? Was the Fire Tribe okay?
I swallowed hard again and steeled my resolve.
"Is the Fire Tribe okay?" I started with a simple question, not knowing what to expect from the Goddess.
"The Fire Tribe is alive, yes."
"Alive?" I sputtered.
"Yes. Alive." the Goddess responded.
"What about my family? Are my mother and father okay?" I asked through gritted teeth.
"I'm afraid that is something I cannot answer."
"Why not?" I pressed.
"For it is something you must find out yourself."
I sighed and let my shoulders slump. I swallowed one more time and opened my mouth,
"What about Blaze and Angelica? Are they alive?"
"Child, I do not wish to repeat an answer. Ask another question, or we can move on."
Angrily, I kicked at the dried blood coating the ground. I briefly thought of two more questions before I ran out of ideas.
"What is your name, Goddess?" I asked, genuinely out of my curiosity.
"Ah, I visited with many children today, yet none asked for my name. Very well, I shall tell you. The name you and the rest of my subjects call me by is not my true name." she responded, with a hint of a smile.
"You are not the Goddess of Fire?" I responded, slightly confused by the sudden development.
"I am the Goddess of Fire, for that is what I control. However, my true name is the Goddess of Destruction."