NOVEL NEXT Ch. 19: Smoke and Hearth
There were more. There were so many more. Was one of them that child’s mother? Another child’s mother? A wife? A husband? A father? A sibling? A friend?
Cass threw herself into building after building. The smoke was choking, but a slyphid didn’t need to breathe. The fire was all-consuming, but Dodge let her flicker through it like it wasn’t there.
Every second mattered. Every second was a body suffocating somewhere amid the smoke. Was a body succumbing to the heat.
She ran to the next building, the next trapped civilian. The next family cowering in their basement as their house dropped burning floor on their heads.
This was the world. This was what ordinary people in this world could look forward to.
Monster attacks. Burning lives. Hopeless fear.
She wouldn’t let today end with this.
Her Stamina was dropping. It fell with every Dodge through the flames, with every Sprint from building to building.
Her Focus was flagging. Every cast of Elemental Manipulation clearing the smoke around a suffocating villager biting deep into her dwindling stockpile. Every Wind Blade needed to cut her way out of a falling building.
But there were more people. More and more and more.
Stamina: 32/105
Focus: 42/369
How many had she saved? How many more were there?
Had she found that girl’s mother? The faces were blurring together. Had that last woman had purple hair or brown? Were her eyes green or grey? Was that face sharp or soft?
The fire licked at her boots. It scalded her skin. The heat burned in her throat.
If she needed oxygen, her lungs would have long since suffocated.
Her body was burned and scraped from falling rubble.
Stamina: 12/105
Focus: 26/369
Her head hurt. String together her thoughts was difficult. The only thought running through it was a single question: Where was the next villager?
She didn’t have the energy for anything else. There was no space for her worries or her fears or the existential dread that had followed her like a storm cloud.
There was just one goal. Just this moment. Just that next breath begging through the choking smoke for the next breath would come. Or begging it would end before the fires got them.
Salos was on her shoulder. He was saying something. He was insistent. But it wasn’t the answer to her question. It was unrelated. Counterproductive. She dismissed it.
Where was the next villager?
He was angry. She could feel that crash over her like a wave. His anger clouded her vision and filled her head with a buzzing.
ABYSS TAKE IT ALL, CASS! Salos’s voice boomed through her head. She couldn’t hear anything else. Check your God-Forsaken Focus!
Cass blinked. Why did she need to do that? She—
Check the Focus.
Cass brought it up.
Stamina: 8/105
Focus: 4/369
Health: 72/87
Oh. That was very low. How had that happened?
That seemed important. Why was that important again?
If that hits zero, you die, Salos reminded her. So turn yourself around and go back to camp.
But she couldn’t. She had to save the rest of the villagers. She had to save that little girl’s mother. She’d promised.
I swear, why do you get more stubborn when you have low Focus? That is the opposite of how that is supposed to work. His words echoed around her head, though the tone suggested it was meant more as a mutter to himself than a conversation with her.
The pain spiked. Her head was only pain. Her skin was only pain.
You need to get out of here, Salos said. You aren’t thinking straight.
No. No. No. She could feel the breath of more villagers just ahead. Atmospheric Sense promised they were there and still alive.
She just needed to get through the next wall of fire. She reached for Elemental Manipulation. The skill slipped through her fingers.
Was this as far as she went?
Was this all she could do? How many more were there?
You can not expect to save everyone, Salos whispered. And you do no one any good throwing yourself at an impossible task.
He was right. She could feel it. The certainty he carried. It flowed into her. She was empty of everything. His certainty filled her.
And yet, she didn’t want to give up.
She couldn’t give up.
There had to be more that she could give. But there was no more Focus. There was no more Stamina.
Salos was right. She had nothing more to throw at the problem.
The face of the little girl flashed before her eyes. Hope turning to despair. A promise broken.
The girl’s face became Robin’s, the night she’d been kidnapped, his eyes full of horror at the sight of what was happening to her. The overwhelming fear as the unknown broke the world they thought they’d understood.
How long had he stood there after she’d disappeared? How long had he stood stock still, unable to comprehend the tragedy before him?
The face melted into Kaye’s. Burning desperation flaring in her eyes as Cass was dragged away. How had she yelled and screamed at the universe?
How could she give up on them? How could she just give up?
It was all impossible. From start to end. Every part. Wasn’t there something more she could do?
There was a spark sputtering in her chest. A burning unrelated to the anger burning in Salos.
A promise of a fire just waiting for her to light the match.
A promise there was more.
Cass took it.
Concept Applied: [Hearth - End, Res, Vit
The Hearth burns. The Hearth provides. The Hearth protects.]
A fire burst to life within. It flickered just under her skin. Not real the way the fire in front of her was, but not imagined either.
It burned bright, not raging, but powerful.
It was comforting, but not gentle. Kind, maybe, as strange of a word as that was for fire.
But most of all, it was as hungry as she was. To do more. To be more. And like a flame, all she needed was to feed it.
Instinctively, she understood. She offered it her Health.
The flame in her chest happily accepted, chewing through a portion of her Health like it was a log.
A burst of warmth shot through her body. Her head was suddenly clearer.
Stamina: 23/105
Focus: 49/369
Health: 42/87
30 Health burned for 15 Stamina and 45 Focus? Was that enough? Did she dare burn more?
The fire burned happily in her chest, her body relaxing and her mind sharpening.
Stamina: 24/105
Focus: 50/369
Health: 42/87
The Health she’d fed the fire was still burning. Her Stamina and Focus were still rising.
What did you do? Salos demanded.
“Applied my Concept,” Cass said as she ran for the next villager.
She could feel it. She could keep going.