Young Flame

The area I find myself is absolutely drowning in moss. I couldn’t tell from a distance, but the area is filled with small huts along its slope. Each house covered by green moss and overgrowth. The dense moss hides any other artificial construction, leaving the village looking like nature warped into the shape of people’s homes. The perfect right angles of each large mossy square are the only distinction this isn’t natural.

I walk to the closest hut. The soft spongy ground crunches under my feet. An opening that might have been a door at one point is now only recognisable by the rectangular shape of vacant moss. I take a step through the opening into a surprisingly still intact home. A table, couch and bench counter all remain in good condition if you ignore the growths climbing up and over them all.

A hearth sits at the far side of the room and when I go to approach, I find myself unable to move. My legs move forward, but I can’t seem to get enough grip on the ground to push myself forward, like something is pulling me back.

I try to back up, to get out of this hut and see what is happening. The same thing happens. I’m rooted to the spot. An attempt at spinning back to face the door has me tripping over and falling off my feet. My hands come up to brace for the impact with the ground, but it never comes.

I crack an eye open to see I’m suspended in air, the ground only a finger length from my face. My left arm comes forward to press against the moss below, but my right doesn’t leave my side despite my attempts at moving it. It’s stuck there, but I can’t see what stops it from moving.

A prick of pain snaps my attention up to my leg above. It’s not quite enough to hurt, but it still feels like a pinch. There on my thigh, biting into me, is the tiniest spider I’ve ever seen. I might even call it cute if it isn’t for the fact that it’s trying to eat me, as futile as that is, considering the size difference.

I quickly heat the skin it’s biting into. There is no need to kill it, the littlest bit of heat shouldn’t be enough to scare it off.

The little thing poofs. Gone. Wha.. Did I kill it? But I just heated it the tiniest bit, nowhere near enough to kill anything.

My free arm spins, trying to dislodge me from whatever is keeping me suspended. My left arm gets stuck. It’s caught on something in midair, nowhere near the rest of my body. Frustration mounts as I can’t pull my arm back from the awkward position and I just burn through whatever is holding me.

My face slams into the ground, no longer held back by the suspending grasp. A groan ekes out my throat as I get my feet under me. This hut is too much. I push towards the exit, ready to look somewhere else, but my legs won’t move once again; whatever it is has grabbed me once again.

My arm swings wide, burning through anything holding me back, and I run out the doorway before it can grab me again.

Again, out on the spongy ground, my legs work properly. Each step isn’t made impossible by some invisible force.

I’m tired. Hours must have passed since I first saw the fog. The huts would be a good place to sleep, but that strange force is not something I want around when I rest.

Between the huts is a single tree surrounded by overflowing moss. Unless I want to risk going inside again, I don’t think I’ll find a better option. The soft moss welcomes me like a mattress as the branches above obscure the void in the sky.

Maybe this whole Void Fog stuff is all a dream and it’ll go away when I wake.

❖❖❖

Nope, it’s still real.

I got some needed sleep, but now I’m stuck on top of some insanely tall obelisk rather than the soft field I fell asleep.

On hands and knees, I shuffle to the edge of the flat stone. I peek over the edge and can’t help but flinch at such a long drop. The pillar below me is a part of a series of equally tall obelisks that tower above the black mist far below.

I need to escape, but I can’t see how I’m going to do that if I’m stuck so far in the air. The world changes each time I seem to stop paying attention. Maybe I can get that to work for me. It’s worth a shot.

I look up at the void above and close my eyes. In my mind, the picture of the towering pillars transforms into the Void Fog with a great big door in it. The image repeats in my head, forcefully trying to get the fog to let me escape.

My eyes open and the pillars remain.

I slump in disappointment for only a moment before the surrounding changes become apparent. The obelisks are no longer straight. They twist and intertwine in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Most I can see should collapse under their own weight, mine included.

I close my eyes and try again. The world changed the first time, maybe I’ll get something easier to work with this time.

I peek out again but movement under my knees makes my hands grasp for something to hold on to. My platform has shrunk and I’m able to hold on to the edges, but that doesn’t freak me out. What freaks me out is that the pillars are now moving. They’ve split at the bottom and now walk like huge stone creatures.

The ground underneath me lurches to the side and I’m almost flung off.

“I’m sorry, I won’t try to force any changes again,” I yell out. Maybe my attempts to force changes pisses off the Void Fog.

If the void is conscious, it doesn’t respond.

The neighbouring once-obelisk’s long leg impacts the platform I’m on, sending me flying. I squeal and brace my arms in front of my face as I tumble down into the Void Fog below.

There is no impact, instead my back is suddenly sliding along flat ground. It didn’t feel like I changed directions, but I have definitely switched from falling vertically to sliding horizontally. I try to sit up, but I’m yet to stop sliding.

The ground around me is white for as far as I can see. It’s strange seeing an almost perfect white ground against an infinitely black sky.

The sliding never seems to stop. I just keep moving along the ground as if there’s an angle I cannot see. It’s getting colder. Each second spent sliding seems to cool my flames and chill the surrounding air. I amp up my heat, trying to counteract the cold, but as I do, stinging pain rips through my back. The pain of water digging into my spine stops me from increasing my heat. The chill returns but the pain leaves.

Is the ground underneath me… Ice?

I’m tempted to immediately close my eyes and hope for a better environment, but after the last attempt to force a change, I’m hesitant. I’d hate for the change that is all this Ice switching with water; just the thought has me shivering as much as the cold.

This is getting ridiculous, how long am I going to slide?

I pull the scarcely used knife from my waist and stab it behind me, it screeches as I pull it through metres of ice before jerking to a stop.

My leg wobbles as I try to steady myself on the ice. My second foot joins the first and I rise to stand.

A loud earthshaking howl knocks me on my ass again. A huge white fox as big as the colossal-worm is behind me, right in the place I just slid through.

I try to back up, but the ice stings my hands on contact. The fox looks around as if unsure of where it is. Its eyes lock onto mine and I can’t pull them away. I can tell, there is more intelligence in those eyes than any animal has a right to; its gaze is calculating, inspecting me up and down before turning away, deciding I’m not a threat or at least not worth its attention.

The fox shakes its head, the long fur shimmers as it moves. As it moves, its coat shakes and seems to tremble with increasing intensity. The vibration parts the air around it and black particles of mist fall off the creature.

My eyes don’t miss the moment the fox disappears from existence. It looks like the very air is pushed away only for the Void Fog to replace the beast. The void compresses, then disperses into the air around.

Am I seeing things? Is all of this just inside my head?

I spin in place, making sure that there is nothing else around me. I saw that. I actually saw it that time. The fox disappeared not when my attention was misplaced, but when I had all my focus on it.

What’s different about it? Did the fox force the change? How?

I shake my body and shiver in imitation of the fox. Nothing happens, except feeling like a fool. It’s silly to think a bit of shaking could force the fog to change.

It’s getting colder. This isn’t the time to think about the strange fox. I need to find a way off this ice, or at least somewhere to warm up.

My flames slow with the temperature. I want nothing more than to stoke, to burn hotter in retaliation, but the ice under my feet stops that. My inner heat rises as far as I can push it without affecting my skin temp, but it is nowhere near enough.

My movements become sluggish. Each step is like trying to walk while buried in sand, which isn’t helped by how slippery the ice is. Every time my leg comes forward, it is a battle to keep it from sliding out underneath.

The Horizon doesn’t change, no buildings, no rocks, no new features, just the same ice and void as far as I can see.

The cold is soon too much. My leg refuses to move as much as it should and I tumble down on the ice again.

It’s too cold. I stoke my flames enough to keep my movements free, but the ice melts underneath.

I try to regain my feet before the water can burn me, but the ground disappears underneath me.

I’m falling, drowning, I can’t breathe. My arms, legs, and tendrils of flame lash out, trying to grasp anything to save me from plunging into the water. There’s no air to breathe. My flames spread, searching for something to breathe that just isn’t there.

A sudden calm washes over me. Breath doesn’t come to me, and neither do my limbs or flames follow my thoughts, still stretching farther than I’d thought possible to find any small bit of air. My thoughts are clear, despite the gasping breaths and reaching flames.

There is no water here, only the darkness of the Void Fog. No, that’s not quite right. There are stars all around, little lights dotting the normally endless black of the void.

I’m falling, but I’m not sure which way is down; everywhere looks the same.

My flames sputter, not finding the sustenance they need to continue burning.

Some stars are moving now, swaying back and forth as if living creatures swimming in the darkness.

The lack of air is getting to me. My searching flames die out, and all that remains is my form, but that won’t last long, the physical flame only a bit more resilient than my other flames.

The stars spin, rolling around me as my mind decays.

Thoughts are hard.

Light dims.

…

I gasp deep as I finally find that sweet nectar, my flames reaching and snatching away as much air as they can.

Warmth embraces me and after a few minutes of choking and struggling to regain my breath, I relax. Beside me is a pool of lava. The boiling rock exhibits an inviting warmth that pulls me to its shores.

I’ve had enough. This is all too much, I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home. It doesn’t matter if home means being with Ash, Leslie, Kerry, and the twins, or my tribe; I just don’t want to be here anymore.

Every minute I’m being pulled and stretched to my limit. I fear what the next place is going to hold. I glance around warily, wandering what this new place might hold in store.

I’m underneath that huge half volcano from earlier. The top of the mountain arcs high over my head, suspending hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rock above. An incredible amount of magma drops from the looming mountain, free-falling leagues through the air before splashing down into the lake of volcanic rock before my feet.

I lower my foot to the lake and dip a toe in. It’s not too hot! Last time my tribe visited a volcano, I’d been too young to enjoy the heat with the others. But as much as I’d like to just ignore my problems and relax, this is hardly the time. I need to get out.

There is something I have to try. Back while I was struggling to breathe, I noticed that the Void Fog seemed to appear, compress, then spread after my flames extinguished. Whether it was my mind playing tricks on me in that air deprived state, or it actually was the same thing that happened to that fox, I need to find out.

A ball of flame appears in front of me, about the size of my head. I move it around to see if that does anything. Nothing. Next, I have the ball extinguish. As it poofs out of existence, a few black particles spread out from the centre of where the ball floated.

It works! I can finally change the world around me.

Trying it proves difficult, I can hardly extinguish myself, that would be rather counterproductive.

I create another ball in front of me, planning to experiment with ways to create the same effect without extinguishing the central fire, but a cacophony of synchronised warbles drags my attention to the sky above.

There, flooding the sky above, is what must be millions of magpies. Their individual caws mangle together into a constant droning buzz. Every part of the void above that isn’t covered by the mountain is now layered by innumerable birds.

Okay.

I look back down and create the flame again. I need to test this quick. There is no way I want to be here if they start to swoop at me.

Thinking back to what the fox did to create the phenomenon, it shook its body with speed, right? Could I do that with my flames?

The ball in front of me pulses back and forth as fast as I can force it, but I just can’t seem to get it to move fast enough. I need to try something else. What is it that the fox and my flame both achieved in common that caused the fog to appear? Where does the fog come from?

An idea comes to mind. I take the ball in front of me and force it to push a hollow sphere of flames from it in every direction, leaving a space between the outer shell and the inner ball. Something happens even as I force the outer shell to extinguish.

The ball of flame is missing, but I can still feel it for barely a moment before I feel it extinguish as well. It is strange, like my flame both doesn’t move and travels an infinity away.

It works! Yes!

It’s a good thing I figured it out, because I’ll be attempting it very soon. The swarm of birds close in, much of the mountain above now obfuscated.

One bird swoops, but completely misses me and flies straight into the falling magma. I can’t help but stare at the fireball that was a bird not a second ago. It missed me by a full body length. Was it even trying to hit me?

My answer came in the form of thousands more swooping birds, all just as bad aim as the first, but with millions of them I’ll be mauled eventually. A claw cut through the top of my shoulder, sharper than a magpie’s talon has any right to be.

Fire wraps around me, covering every part touching the air. In a swift push, I create a shell around me, which disappears as soon as it leaves contact with my body.

The retched noise of a million birds ends and the sky turns blue. The moon hovers above and the rock returns under my feet.

I’m… out?

I can’t see the Void Fog no matter how much I look, instead all that remains is a scarred landscape, as if a massive scoop has been taken from the land. The ground is smooth, curving upward to a ledge above each side of me. The path left by the Void Fog is immense.

I’m out. I almost cry in relief.

There’s nothing left for me to do now but climb my way out of the scar of missing land. My arms are all torn up. It looks like I was scratched by far more of the birds than I’d thought. Well, it doesn’t matter; I am out now. I just need to find where the others went.

Over the ledge, there is a definite line where the fog travelled. Buildings only half consumed by the fog remain, cut down the middle with the interior rooms showing. It’s odd, but nobody is around. Did they all run off?

I walk north, hoping to find a clue of my friend’s whereabouts. The crossroads between streets are behind me when sudden pain in my knee drops me to the ground, the bang of the gunshot echoes in my ears a moment later.

My flames burst out to defend me, but I’m forced to pull back before they hit a wall of water that suddenly forms around me. A pit grows in my stomach; they found me. A man walks forward from behind a building, hoisting a long gun over his shoulder. I know this man. He’s the lieutenant from the Cano mansion. The man who killed a person I’d seen knock down a wall with a flick of his hand. A murder he achieved with ease.

“Finally, I don’t think you could imagine how difficult you were to find, little áed.”