The Amplified : Fire Blight (Book 1)

Chapter Six - The Lasting Nightmare

After getting home I wasted no time getting into bed. When I finally fell asleep, the darkness changed to flames, they spiraled around my legs and arms, but instead of burning they felt inviting. The sparks floated into the air off my fingertips as the tongues flicked around them, but they left no noise. The silence left me uneasy. Around me old trees and grass caught fire and grew quickly, small stone lumps erupted from the ground around me with engravings chiselled into them. The flames lifted me off the ground by my feet and slowly guided me towards one of them, I then realized they were tombstones, blood dripping from the cracks, the same words scratched into each them:

Here Lies Oliver Stark

His fire burned, and he burned with it.

The flames then consumed my body and threw me backwards, I tumbled in the golden orange curls of fire and struggled to get up. I watched as shades curled behind the tombstones, blue flickers grew from one the shapes like lightning from a broken taser. One of the other shapes was encased in a violet bubble but it hovered over a shape with a tang of marron seeping out of it slowly growing larger. My body managed to pick itself off the floor, I tried to walk but instead, I drifted listlessly. The tombstones protecting the shapes began to crumble away slowly like they were being chipped at with a chisel. I tried to move towards them, but I started to drift away, the more I struggled the further away from them I moved. The image faded slowly into the darkness, I tried to hold onto the image but it slipped away like water until I was left alone in the darkness and deafening silence, I tried to move and scream for help but I was stuck, and no noise left my throat. Then my hand lifted itself instinctively like trying to catch a ball, and a small flame sparked on the palm of my hand. The flame flickered an intense red and the flames gave off a faint hissing. I slowly realized the flames weren't hissing, they were whispers and as I tried to listen to what the flame was saying flame burst into an inferno shaking me awake. Only seconds later my mom entered my room, still in her pyjamas.

"Oh, you're awake. Why can't you be like this every day." She said as she walked towards me but as she got closer a look of concern grew upon it. "Aww baby, are you feeling okay."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"You're covered in sweat."

I rubbed the back of my hand against my head and a layer of sweat covered my hand. "Mom don't worry. I'm fine, I feel fine," I said to her as she sat down next to me on the bed. She put the back of her hand against my head and almost immediately took it off.

"Honey, your burning up. I don't think you should go to school today."

"Mom, really, I'm good," I said to her, but she had already made up her mind.

"I'll text your sister that you aren't going to school and that she should bring home all the work you miss. All I want you to do is rest. Okay."

"She's not home?" I asked.

"No. She decided to stay at Casey's last night."

"Okay." I sighed.

"Great now go back to sleep and I'll bring you breakfast later." She said as she walked out the door of my room as soon as she left I began to fade back to sleep. It didn't take long for the flames to shake me awake again and with it a shot of nausea that hit me like a truck. I rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom and throw up in the toilet, my throat was left burning afterwards and sweat trickling down my back.

It was exhausting and I just felt like I needed a shower after that. The mirror fogged up almost immediately as I turned the faucet, but the water wasn't hot, I still needed to take a shower so I hopped in. I prepared for the cold water to strike my back like the lashes from the whip of Satan, yet only a cool stream of water slide down the small of my back, but it wasn't cold or hot, it was room temperature. I tried to turn the hot faucet to make it hotter, but it stayed the same, so I washed myself in the calm waters letting it brush my body. Then steam started to rise slowly of my body, but I couldn't feel the heat from the water. When I open the curtain, the whole room was felled with steam, I couldn't feel the heat from it though. I was probably tired and hallucinating, so I left the bathroom and went into my room to get changed.