Phoenix

Witness

She wandered for hours, purposefully veering off the well-trodden paths, making her trek as difficult as possible just to keep her mind and body occupied. She wandered until she ran out of island and found herself amongst uninhabited jutting mountains. There, the terrain was rugged and the trees a deep shade of khaki, with fine, silver stems that flaked off in large soggy bandaid strips.

She found herself in a small clearing, thick with mist. The terrain had risen on a steady incline for some time, and she'd finally pierced the low cloud cover. The muggy air clogged her lungs and forced her to stop and catch her breath. She hooked her hands behind her head and breathed deeply while filling her eyes with the new palate of colours, subdued by the fog-thickened light. Swirls of vapour curled around her in blueish billows, turning the khaki trees a milky teal.

Something made her linger in that clearing. Whether it was the sudden quiet, the shelter from the wind, or the absence of the tweeting birds. She felt as though she'd entered a glasshouse where nobody and nothing else existed. For the first time in her life, she felt totally and completely in solitude.

She fingered Gunner's dagger in her hair, seeking the comfort of its protection. Then, she lay down on the soft, mossy mulch and closed her eyes. The cool damp earth soaked the back of her robes.

Slowly, she let her fire-proof walls fall and felt the air quiver with heat. She stared up at the trees in wonder, watching them mirage in and out of focus. She wondered what would happen if she used her force now. The trees were green, the ground was damp, the air waterlogged and still. There was very little chance anything would catch alight, let alone spread and there was no one around to get hurt if things got out of control.

She moved in a daze, standing and raising her arms out in front of her, palms facing down. Her mind disassociated from her body and drifted, ever so slightly backwards, so that she could see herself standing in the clearing from the point of view of her own shadow.

She closed her eyes and let the feeling in, felt her chest expand, and the tingling sensation in her fingers burn like dry ice. Images swirled in her head, a montage of horrors she'd experienced in her life beginning with walking down the stark white corridors of the orphanage, peering around the corners expecting to be jacked. There was the padded walls of Solitary and the sound her piss made on the metal urinal tray. There was the bleach-smelling toilets, the feel of a taser, or a torch-baton to her back, the shrill cry of the morning bell, and her dreams of electrocutions.

Around her feet, the mossy mulch began hissing and sizzling, curling as the moisture withdrew from every particle of bark, every pore of leaf, every vestige of dirt. Blades of grass, clusters of moss, bandages of sinew became brittle and thin, curled like the scabby surface of a desert. Steam rose and wafted around her so that she looked like a waif caught in a vapour storm. The hissing and sizzling grew louder as more of the earth fell victim to her force. She dried out the clearing until it was nothing but tinder.

With a single sweeping motion of her hand, she sent the flames into the clearing with such force, she stumbled backwards. They curdled the air, spread out in a thick panorama, seeking dry sinew and matter. For once, she didn't try to stop them, just let them flow and billow, gushing as relentless as a waterfall after rain. Everything she'd been holding back since arriving on the island was released in a spectacle unlike anything the natural world could produce. The flames were so red in parts, they were almost purple, or orange they were almost gold. The flames ascended high in the air and turned blue, flecked with bright golden sparks.

Soon, there was nothing left to burn, and the flames slowly retreated back to Ash. There was nothing left of the clearing as it was. Everything was white. The ground, the trees, even the sky plumed like a dule of doves. She'd burnt everything down to a skeletal ash, which, stuck in her throat when she breathed. For a moment, she was aware of her heartbeat pounding in her ears, the retreating hiss of the flames. Her head swirled and she staggered and fell to her knees.

She didn't know how long she stayed there, kneeling in the ashes, surrounded by her own destruction. It was late by the time she found the energy to lift her head and even then, it was only because she thought she heard sound of a branch snapping, and feet shuffling.

Straining in the direction of the sound, she saw movement between the chalky remains of a shrub on the far side of the clearing. Squinting, she could just make out the shape of a small figure crouched and a pointed face topped with glasses. The figure turned quickly when it saw her watching and scuttled away. But she'd seen enough to know who it was.

Jacob.

She watched him go, dread-filled, wondering what would happen to her now.

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