Young Flame

I’m alive.

In a lot of pain. And at the bottom of a fissure. And stuck.

But alive.

The fall hurt, I collided with the walls of the chasm many times on my way down. The impact with the stone below me almost snuffed out my flame altogether.

It is only when a boulder dropping from above crushes my leg that I truly feel pain. The agony slams through me, silencing any other aches I’d gained on the way down. I try to pull my leg out, but it won’t budge. Lightning jolts up my leg and through my body with each attempt.

The rumbling of the earth is reducing in intensity now. I am still scared, I don’t know whether I will be buried alive or if the ground will break open underneath me once again.

I don’t move. Not because I can’t, although with my leg stuck that might just be the case, but I can’t bring myself to do it. The world closes in on me, the walls closer than ever. Every cluster of rocks falling from above makes me clutch my arms tighter, the next stone to fall could be my end. The pain and fear freezes my body, my arms feel like they are replaced with brittle shrub sticks.

I am alone. Stuck down here away from my tribe.

They are still alive, we only got separated, I’m sure of it. There’s no way they’d die because of a little rock fall, I didn’t and they are all much stronger than me. It’s impossible for them to be gone.

If I wait here, I’m sure Uncle or Auntie will find me. I need to wait for the tremors to stop, and then they’ll come and help me and everything will be back to normal.

I’m overcome by a wave of nausea and my inner flame pulls in on itself. My eyes struggle to remain open as another now subdued quake drops a pile of gravel and sand over me. I'm exhausted and the gravel weighs down on me. The impacts from the fall took a lot out of me. I’m in too much of a battered state to do much at the moment. So I try to ignore the intense throbbing in my leg and let my consciousness fade into darkness as the earth continues to rumble around my body.

❖❖❖

I don’t know how long it’s been since I went to sleep, but I can’t feel the tremors anymore. So at least that monster isn’t nearby.

I will never be able to get the sight of that Titan out of my head.

Hopefully, enough time has passed since it left that they might have started searching for me.

“Uncle? Auntie? Anyone? I’m down here.”

I wait for a minute for some form of response. Hearing nothing but the echo of my voice.

I am completely alone. I don’t know if I am buried underground where they can't get to me or if they think I am dead, but for now, whatever the reason, I am alone.

Moving my attention to my trapped leg, I find I can’t feel it anymore. I dig away the gravel and sand covering my leg and much of my body until my leg is visible. It doesn’t look good; It’s gone black like charcoal below my knee. My inner fire won’t flow back into it no matter how hard I push. I try to tug it out with what strength I have, but it shows no signs of coming loose.

Thinking positively, at least it doesn’t hurt much anymore.

The next thing I try is to push the boulder off me.

It doesn’t move.

I would be closer to pulling off my leg than moving that boulder. My fingers scratch at the gravel and stone to try and dig under my leg, but that only gives more room for the boulder to crush my leg. The short knife is useless and hardly scratches the surface of the stone when I hack away at it.

I give up and lay back, staring up into the darkness of the fissure above. I wonder how far I fell. How far underground am I now? Will I ever get out of here? Despairing thoughts circulate in my head. I can’t help but feel the situation is hopeless. I have nobody to help me for the first time ever and I am stuck in a position where I need them more than ever before.

In the hours that follow, I regularly call out, hoping for anyone to be there to hear me.

I am desperate now. I am starving and lack energy from the fall. My knife continues to scratch away at the boulder despite the futility of it. A frustrated jab at the rock dislodges the knife and drops it on my blackened leg. It is only then I realise the only option I have.

With trembling hands, I grip the handle of my blade and bring it to where my leg is wedged under the boulder. I push the sharp edge against my blackened leg, or at least I try to. I lose all the strength in my arm as I try to cut into it. It’s too daunting, I can’t push myself enough to go through with it.

If I am going to be able to do it, I need to be quick to stop myself from hesitating. I pull the knife away from my leg before swinging down as fast as I can.

I cringe at the feeling. It isn’t painful, rather it’s extremely odd. I push myself to saw away at the charred remains of my leg, trying to pretend that it is anything but my own body I’m cutting through. Each movement of the blade in my leg sent reverberations through me, causing uncontrollable shivering and repulsion.

The unpleasant sensation continues as I struggle to cut my way through my leg. Ash puffs out from the cut as the blackened parts of my leg crumble under the knife. It is a lot like charcoal in the way it fractures and crumbles from my efforts. A loud screeching noise rings out whenever I push the blade through it. The noise echoes through my leg and makes me squirm as I force myself to continue.

The sudden freedom of my leg takes me by surprise and I roll backward. I hadn’t realised I was getting close to cutting through. Looking down at the new black stump of my leg in discomfort, I can only hope it won’t take long to regrow. I’ve seen Auntie grow back her finger after it was cut off once, but I have no idea what an entire leg will take to regrow.

With my freedom gained, my stomach lashes out at me, letting me know how hungry it — and I — am. My inner flame flickers as if ready to pounce on the nearest morsel. But first I need to find a way out of this crevice. Missing a leg will not make it any easier to escape.

I raise myself to my only leg while leaning against the wall of the fissure and hobble along the bottom of the crevice. I go in the opposite direction to the boulder. An attempt at climbing it might be too much for me right now.

Stones and boulders lodged between the angled walls of the chasm provide a path stable enough to walk on. Now and then, I glimpse through a gap in the stones underfoot. The ravine underneath goes down farther than I can see. The walls are close enough that I could likely stop myself from falling, but looking down still makes my leg wobble.

I hobble along for only a few minutes before I find my first lucky break. I find one of our wagons wedged between the walls above my head. The wagon turns out to be one of our pelts and skins wagons. It's disappointing but my hunger demands sustenance, so I send out my inner flame to consume them. I go through a pile of sand-worm skins and dingo pelts before I burn through the fennec fox furs. It’s unfortunate there isn’t much else. I really like their fur.

As wasteful as it is to consume the pelts, I am too hungry not to. I imagine I’m going to be a lot hungrier than usual until my leg is back, however long that will be.

It doesn’t take me long to regret eating the pelts. All the abandoned wagons must have fallen into this crevice, as in front of me is a graveyard of our broken carts. Including, of course, our cart loaded with coal. If I had been patient, I could have saved a few of the fox pelts.

Ah well, what's done is done. I fill the satchel at my hip with coal so I have enough to travel with before gorging myself until I feel satisfied. I am tempted to take some cobalt too, but I still can’t burn through it, so it is worthless to me. If the others need it when I find them, I’ll bring them back here.

I find Auntie’s stick underneath an overturned cart, so at least I have something to help me walk. There are no actual weapons around, but I consider that a good thing; it means they are still with their owners. I might think the worst if I find a weapon by itself; áed bodies don’t retain their forms long after death.

I follow along the fissure for a few hours at a sluggish pace, barely able to move a few metres before having to climb rocks or scale the walls. My passage is made all the harder with my missing limb. Eventually, I reach a point in the crevice where light breaks through the rock and bathes me from above. The crevice breaks into open air six or seven metres up. After so long, I’ve found an escape.

I search for a way up before deciding the best option I have is to scale the walls. It's slightly terrifying to think about it, but it is my best bet. There are plenty of ledges and small grottoes I can use to rest. Even if I fall I’ll be fine… probably, I survived a fall from much higher, right? I’m going to ignore the fact that said fall made me an amputee. I should be fine.

So I begin my climb. The faux spear makes the climb much easier than it would have been otherwise. I am able to wedge it between the walls and use it to pull myself up with little issue.

About halfway up, I reach one of the grottoes lining the wall. While wide, the ceiling is a bit too low to fit in. I move my arm to continue up the wall, placing my hand in a small pocket of the rock wall. Stinging pain assaults my fingers and I fling my hand away. My fingers are steaming and already the tips have gone black, steam rising from them.

Alarmed, I look up the wall I’ve been climbing. Thin streaks of water trickle down the side of the fissure. I flinch away, almost losing my balance before I grab hold of my stick. How can I keep moving up if there is water above? I don’t know whether I should make my way back down or try to continue up while avoiding the water.

Before I can make a decision though, a bright light briefly engulfs the world around me. I look up towards the sky where the flash originated. Hardly a second passes when a loud crack booms through my chest. It doesn’t reverberate through the ground as the Titan’s steps had, but it is similar enough to the sound that I fall into a panic.

Fearing the Titan is back, I dive into the grotto and hide as much as I can. It is an impossibly tight fit, both my back and chest scrape hard against the stone while I am forced to keep my head twisted. I push as deeply in as I can until the tight clutch of the earth brings almost as much of a chill through my body as the Titan did.

The Titan does not appear. I do not feel the heavy quaking through the ground like I had before. Instead, the recognisable pelting sound of rain appears. Even if I had hidden away for the wrong reason, it still saves me as the sky unleashes a torrent of rain greater than I’ve ever imagined. Water pours down into the crevice in incredible volume.

Squashed as far back into the grotto as I am, I tilt my head enough to see out into the fissure I’d been in not ten seconds ago. Already it is hard to see the other side of the chasm, the incredible flow of water cutting it off.

Well, I got my wish to see rain, now I would really like for it to stop.

Please?

Unfortunately, the world isn’t willing to appease me. Though, the rain isn’t making its way into the small hole I find myself in, so I can be glad for small fortunes.

I once again spoke too soon. As the rain picks up, I notice the air becomes more stifling the longer it lasts. Soon enough I feel stinging in my throat, followed not long after by all my exposed body. It feels like the fog has returned. Every breath now comes with agony. It feels like my skin is being rubbed with knives all over.

Is the air coated in water? But there is no fog, so why?

I am having trouble thinking straight now, the pain blinds me from everything else. Each breath like my chest eating at me from the inside.

My body aches worse than ever before. I lack the energy to even open my eyes. My body is cold. Colder than I thought was possible. My body has already reverted completely into flames, but I still feel cold. All over my body, I can feel hardened lumps where my flames won’t reignite. I can't think straight with such a pounding headache, but considering where I passed out, I need to make sure I’m safe.

Opening my eyes, the first thing I see is the sickly black marks over most of my exposed body. Attempting to ignore the pain, I glance out into the chasm. There is no waterfall over the opening to my grotto, which brings me only some relief. It is hard to be too happy when my body feels like this. It looks like the rain has stopped. I can still hear a constant flowing noise though. I am too tired to do anything, so I orient my arm enough in the tight space to grab some coal to eat before allowing myself to relax into a nap.

At least there isn’t any immediate danger.

The second time I wake, I feel much better. Munching on some coal, I struggle to drag myself out of the tight hiding hole. I can hear the loud rushing sound from down the crevice. Looking down, I see the entire bottom replaced with an incredible amount of flowing water. Suddenly nervous from the knowledge that I’m sitting directly above certain death, I move away from the edge.

Looking up, the sky that I can see is clear. Hopefully, there will be no more rain to worry about.

I’ve already gone through so much, it is difficult to push myself to resume my climb. My body aches and it feels like I barely have enough energy to remain awake. But I need to move, I can’t stay here any longer. Feeling for a handhold, I force my hand to steady its shaking and hold tight. With my spare hand, I raise the stick above my head and lodge it in a ridge before jerking it tight on the opposite wall and pull myself up.

I continue this until I’m almost at the top. I only have a body length left to climb when I find the chasm has opened up too wide to wedge my stick anymore. I’ll have to climb the rest without it, but I don’t want to throw it away, I will need it to walk. So I throw it over the ledge above me and hope it stays.

Climbing without the support of my stick is much harder. Holding myself steady with cracks in the wall, I try to jump from one ledge to another. On my first attempt, I try to jump too far and miss the ledge I was aiming for. My chest slams into the wall, but I am saved by my wrist wedged in the crack. It is cutting into my hand, but I hadn’t fallen to my death, so for the first time today I'm thankful for the pain. My eyes fall down to the ravine below and I’m stricken with vertigo, the sight of rushing water makes me cling tighter to the wall.

Learning from my mistake, I only make small jumps as I proceed. It is exhausting and time-consuming, but I finally make it. I sprawl out on the ground at the top of the crevice, praising the solid, flat earth beneath me.

When I raise my gaze to my surroundings, for a moment it looks like I am in a completely new place. It doesn’t take me long to realise I am back at the bottom of the cliffs. The entire area is decimated. The ground has massive fissures all around, and the cliffs themselves are by far the worst. They have crumbled and collapsed in some places, looking like the entire cliff face has slipped off.

In other places the earth has been torn apart with such force there are canyons where there were none before. The starkest difference from before is the river of magma that flows from the top of the cliff. Or should I say sea? I can’t see the other side of it, the flow of magma must be kilometres wide.

It is, without question, the path of the Titan.

It climbed the cliffs so far to the west from here and still caused this much damage? How is that even possible? I had thought the creature was climbing above our heads, but the proof before me says otherwise.

The path of the crocodile is far more than devastated, it just isn't there. The area doesn’t even look like there had ever been a cliff, a slight incline is all that’s left to show what it used to be. Magma flows from the higher ground down the molten river all the way to the ocean. From where I am, I can’t see the ocean, but the steam rising from that direction is telling. The cliff has disappeared, melted from the direct contact with the terrifying being.

I search the cliff face for hours trying to find a way up, but any option I come across is far too unstable to attempt climbing. My tribe has to still be up there. If they can’t come down either, then how will I reunite with them?

The first place I look is the path of the Titan. It is an hour-and-a-half trek to reach it. When I try to get close to the flowing lava, the intense heat wraps me in its warmth. The Titan is long gone, but the heat it leaves in the area is still far hotter than my flames even days later.

The lava river looks like the best way to scale the cliffs, but the closer I get, the more unstable the earth under my foot becomes. It crumbles under my foot as I walk, my wooden stick breaking through the surface as I lean on it for support. I fear the ground will collapse under me again, so I gave up on that path.

Now I have nowhere to go except east, the west blocked by the river of lava, the south by the ocean, and the north by the cliffs. I can only hope I can find a way up the cliffs soon.

I miss my family.