POV SHIFT: ???
I did not open my eyes.
Not at first.
The sensation of emerging consciousness.
The slow-blooming process of awareness of my surroundings was particularly unpleasant.
First came the throbbing pain in my head,
which refused to subside for the first few minutes.
The thick numbness plaguing my body subsided in incremental steps, and slowly I was able to feel my own body.
My neck and shoulders were particularly stiff, it felt as if I had just been released from a hanging rope as If I'd just been choked to death.
'Curses, what is this...'
Is as if my blood flow had been entirely cut, I didn't need to try, I knew I couldn't move my body just yet. It felt as if I was being bitten by myriads of little ants.
'Did sleeping on the hard floor mess me up?'
Luckily, my condition seemed to be fading rapidly.
Within the first seconds, I began to be able to feel the ground.
I was lying on a hard, uneven surface that felt like rough-hewn stone.
I had memorized the smooth concrete surface of that cell, this was different, and perhaps that's why I resisted the urge to open my eyes.
'Act as if you are still KO, Emma. Buy some time till you can move.'
I was on an unknown floor.
In an unknown place.
Most likely surrounded by unknown threats.
This was not a good situation. Not at all.
More so provided my blurry memory.
So I focused on my hearing instead, listening intently to the sounds around me.
Somewhere near, the soft, rhythmic drip of water echoed through what I suspected to be a larger, cavernous space, punctuated by the dull scent of damp earth and salt.
The ground beneath me felt cold and hard, I could feel the moisture seeping through my clothes.
I resisted the urge to shiver or move in any way.
'Am I... Am I underground?'
My heart pounded in my chest, I could feel the pulse of blood rushing within my skull, like recurrent tidal waves.
...
I was alive, I could breathe, I could move.
Not nimbly... But maybe so in the next couple of minutes.
Then the question surfaced in my mind...
How had I ended up here?
What had happened to me?
And what would happen to me?
All of the questions were eating me by the second, and the dull, repetitive sounds of my environment did not provide any more useful information to calm my worst fears.
'Dam it, I might as well be about to die and I wouldn't know! But I can't risk it, god!!'
I wanted to grit my teeth so bad.
'No!... Can't do, I have to make sure I can run, or fight worst case scenario. '
I had to be patient with my move.
It was no time to be running around like a headless chicken, even if the scene was eating on my nerves, I had to use the surprise element to my favor.
'Crap, but I just can't!...'
That unnerving quietness looming at each stone crevice would make the hair on my skin stand up in terror. As if the hands of death itself caressed the fragile shell of a newfound soul.
'That damned silence...'
And not only that... There was something. I could not shake the sensation, the faint certainty that I was not alone within that space.
I was not alone, not a chance.
But who was there with me?
and why?
'Right, think. I need to remember what happened.'
It all started on my way back home...
That man, then the kidnapping because of Dad's debt. The countless days living inside that decrepit cell... and the last thing I had seen... Anna. That beast. Right. Anna was dead... She had been shot from the back numerous times.
After that came the scorching pain, my arm bursting into flames. Then I killed him, I burnt him despite him pleading to be... Right, right...
'I was supposed to have accepted that already, had I?'
Like a violent geyser, the heavy reflex to mourn and cry like a helpless child resurfaced.
The impulse to curb myself into a ball and let go of everything...
Why rebel anymore against fate, what point was there to the whole thing?
What reason did I have for standing up?
'My life is already done...'
As if a wall of bricks crumbled all over me, the little will I had evaporated as fast as it had manifested.
'What did I yearn for? Even if I managed to return to safety... God, what was safety either way? Would I step back into that house? Was that my plan? To get the cinders of my life back together?'
God, I knew that was impossible... The debt, and the bullying, and Dad.
'No, I can't go back to that... It was not an option. I couldn't come back, not with that man.'
The impulse to weep right then and there grew bigger. The weight of uncertainty, loneliness, and death had been part of my life for a long time, but I had always refused to bend.
At that moment though, all facades of strength seemed to collapse on themselves.
'Damn...'
My teeth were buried in my tongue, dripping the taste of iron.
The silence prolonged for what seemed like a dozen minutes... It was a tough fight, but sharp pain always seemed to numb emotions. I could not afford to cry. I could not be reckless, not now.
'Anna... She would have wished I lived on. That is enough of a reason.'
...
'Right.'
I will find a way out of this shithole.
Whatever kind of shithole it may be.
My body, could I move on my own?
What were my options?
Were my legs shackled? My hands tied?
'Am I restrained in any sort of way?'
I checked my wrists and ankles trying not to make any sudden movements.
Even though the shackles remained coiled around my hands, they were not connected anymore.
I wasn't completely sure yet, but the odds were I would be able to stand up and move, and if I could walk, then running wasn't impossible either...
In normal conditions, I would not dare take such a risk.
Still, things had changed, had they not? I was not normal anymore.
It was escaping or getting gunned down.
'Plus...'
The blurriness clouding my mind had made me almost forget it.
'I'm now a marksman... markswoman?...'
Whatever the case, that chaotic flaming vortex was still somewhere within me, those short few minutes had not been a wild dream of mine, they could not have been, the pain had been too real.
The heaviness of the scorching brand across my skin still lingered. I had become a marksman.
Even if I didn't find myself in peak condition, my body should be stronger...
I didn't know to which extent...
But I was sure I would be able to outrun any ordinary persecutors.
If that didn't do, then the fire...
Even if it was slumbering at this very moment, the embers of the chaotic flare still lived. Then, if I willed it, would I be able to reignite them back from their ashes.
I had already done it once... A second success was within the realm of possibility.
'I could burn my way out of this place...'
I gulped down.
The weight of those words seemed too burdensome to fully grasp, but the blaze of desire seemed to ground my determination.
My heartbeat instinctually ramped up in unhinged anticipation.
My breathing intensified, instinctually preparing to withstand the burden of the flames.
A part of me still felt the urge to wait a little bit longer,
but my body seemed to refuse to wait anymore.
'Am I really going to do this?'
Turns out I was...
By the time I could exert any control over my own body, I was already on my knees. The shackles that had bound me not that long ago clanked along with the motion.
I inhaled strongly. Then exhaled, letting vibrant sparks escape my lungs.
The thick, wild contours of the infernal mark began igniting, one after another in rapid succession, Its colors flourishing with rampart strokes.
In a fraction of a second, the turmoiling rose tornado danced freely through my skin, fueled by my breath.
| FLUMNnmm!! |
With the might of a fiery explosion, the left side of my body burst into flames. My eyes slid open, burning rose, slaying the lethal silence under the melody of starving aberrant fire.
'The cave is dimly lit. Someone lives here.'
My gaze hungrily skipped through stalagmites and sprouts of mush that covered the walls of the space I found myself.
The ample cave was whitish, washed by layers upon layers of built-up lime.
The flat reflections that filtered through the corner of my vision, on my left... Water, a subterranean, cristaline blue pond. Across the pond, what looked like a naturally crafted balcony, an upper level to the open cavity.
'Unaccessible.'
It was too far and too high for me to reach without sliding. I had to find some other way o-
...
Another shiver.
My body locked as my gaze shook from side to side.
'A second ago... Did something just move behind me?'
A thin layer of steam from sweat formed from my body.
I tried to turn around to face the danger, but my muscles felt far too slow as if they had been frozen in place by an overwhelming force.
Unable to regain control, panic started to rise within me.
'Turn damn it!!!'
I gritted my teeth even harder, to the point of drawing blood as I forced my body to turn against its will.
'You?...'
...
That was the moment our eyes met.
Standing just a few feet away from me stood a man. No... A kid.
He didn't look older than seventeen. His body was dressed in a classic black suit, complementing his raven black hair.
His face was cocked lightly to the side as he carefully read a thick, old-looking book.
'What the f-'
My eyes were lying, they had to be.
Something in those abysmal, dark eyes was wrong. Something wasn't adding up.
'Crap.'
Was the only thought I managed to piece together as my burning palms acted on their own.
Like raining thunder, the hand stance surfaced in my mind, without hesitation, two of my fingers moved to simulate the barrel of a pistol.
The youth have no time to react.
"Devour..."
I aimed clean for the kid's head, allowing the fiery blast burning on the tip of my nails to seek its prey. For an instant, the youth's expression paled.
| Bang!! |
There was no blast, no shockwave.
Faster than the baiting of an eye, his body had simply burst into incandescent rose flames. The voracious hurricane consuming the kid's clothes, flesh, and-
"Wha-thjk..."
I felt my neck being squished appart.
...
As if hit by a gelid gale, my body froze completely in place, suppressed by a sudden pressure emanating from the direction of the flames.
'What is this...'
| Gasp!! |
Forced by an alien power, I felt my lungs being squished, and the air on my insides escaping.
In a fraction of a second, my forces crumbled, and my vision went dark as the anomalous fire residing within me gluttonously consumed the depleting oxygen within my blood.
Maimed of their power, the flames lost strength, before finally dying down. The source of heat disappeared, letting only a thin column of steam be seen.
'Him!..'
A flashing image... The last thing I remembered seeing was those same eyes.
He had been the one to knock me out of consciousness back then.
"YouhT-"
...
| Gasp |
Only then did he let me breathe.
Drained by the flames, I fell to my knees, grasping my neck with my hands in an attempt to unblock my throat.
"I wouldn't try anything with fire here..."
His ghastly voice echoed ominously like that of a sickening tyrant.
His tone devoid of any discernable emotion.
| Cough, Coughk |
...
Laying powerlessly on the floor, I could only stare dumbfounded.
"Goodw- flames."
A vanishing cloud of grey smoke surrounded the boy.
The scent of burnt flesh filled the air. My eyes fought to penetrate the blurriness to discern what lay beyond the deadly gas.
The man's body had not moved. He remained sitting on top of the same metallic containment box, a mere few feet away from me.
This time, however, his appearance was radically different.
The skin and vestiments around his upper body had vanished, leaving only palpitating red burn marks.
His shoulders were now but a mess of charcoal and solidified blood, to such an extent his right arm had fallen limp.
In the chaos of the devouring firestorm, the flesh of his right eyelid had melted, sealing it shut, and his facial hair had been consumed, almost leaving his skull be seen.
The target of the blast, the head, had been the worst affected, deforming most of his facial features to an unrecognizable degree.
Witnessing such deadly horror, I couldn't help but clench one of my hands in bewilderment as the curtain lifted even further.
It was his only working arm that stood firm... Holding onto the unscathed red tome.
...
Exchanging gazes one last time, the boy lowered his arm, placing the book aside.
Bearing the pain, gritting his teeth together, he used his arm to push himself off the crate. Although slow, his steps remained conscientiously firm.
"What are y-"
Voice struggled to come off my throat.
Letting a trail of blood droplets behind him, the young man's body softly kneeled down along the shoreline of those unmoving, turquoise waters.