Casting Flames

Chapter Four

Sometimes I feel like the world has stopped turning. That the sun has ceased to shine and the rain has decided to stay way up in the sky where life is easier and there aren't any people trying to use it. Sometimes I wish I could be that rain. No more suffering. No more pain. No more people trying to use me for their own personal gain. It would be the perfect way to hide. The perfect form of existence.

If only I knew a spell for that.

***

My entire body was covered in mud. The whites in my eyes the only thing visible under the thick layers of sticky brown.

I had two weeks of rations in the line, and I was determined to win. My competitor was Gary Fisher, a boy twice my size but not anymore likely to win. He threw a punch towards my gut, but I served out of the way and tackled him to the ground. I pinned his legs down and my fists rained punch after punch against his face. Just as the referee, another boy from town, was about to declare me the winner, there was a scream from the crowd.

I looked towards the sound, finding Ella on the sidelines, passed out on the ground. That's when Gary Fisher flipped me over onto my back and clocked me once, hard, in the face. It was the first time I had lost in weeks. But I lost more than a mud fight that day.

My dream shifts from a memory to a vision of the present. Or at least, what I hope is the present.

Ella cooking dinner, healthier than she's been in months. Mom, sewing at the dinner table. Aaron, the step dad I loved to hate, wiping his muddy boots at the front door as mom gives him her famous warning glare. I can still hear her voice. Better not track any dirt on my clean floor, she scolds.

But eventually we all have to wake up and face reality. When I do, I almost forget where I am. A gentle flow of light shines through the windows, and I think I've slept for three days until I look over and see that it's only been ten hours.

The soft sheets against my raw, rough skin feels foreign. Silky socks on my feet and clean clothes on my back are like finding myself in a different world. The powdered soap scent lingering on every strand of my hair is disorienting. And I take this all in, one at a time, and remind myself. No more cells. No more torture. No more pain... yet.

I will enjoy this for as long as possible.

But then there's a knock on my door and after thirty seconds, the soldier lets himself in without any other warning.

"He wants to see you right away," he says.

The flock soldiers escort me to a new door on the other side of the floor. This door, a simple white one, leads to a meeting room of some sort. Inside, two walls are made of glass, revealing the grey morning. I watch the rain fall on the top of what looks like the warehouse that must be connected somewhere to this larger, taller building. I assume it's the one I entered from, but there could be several warehouses for all I know.

In the center of the small room is a round, glossy table surrounded by black swivel chairs. The third wall has a large white screen on it and from the ceiling, a projector hangs. I secretly want to turn it on. We had a small TV at home, but the Void, which got its name from being almost void of contact with the outside world, only gets electricity a few hours a day, and I usually wasn't home to watch it. This screen is so giant it could probably have at least a hundred different channels on it at once.

Jackson is standing at the head of the room in front of the screen with a tablet in his hands that he swipes and taps like a musical instrument. 

I stand there for a moment, uncertain if he's even noticed I'm here.

I clear my throat and speak. "You wanted to see me?"