Unbearable heat consumed Miranda’s skin. She kept her eyes shut tight as many sensations passed through her body. Terror. Weightlessness. A tugging pull she felt in her belly that stretched an uncomfortable distance before snapping back to normalcy.

A hand (was it a hand?) clamped over her mouth, preventing any scream. Miranda sought to struggle but could not move in the stern grip of whomever had taken her. All she knew was that its flesh was cold even through her clothes, a searing contrast to the heat filling her body.

Where is father? She thought he had gone to get her medicine, but as soon as he’d left the room, the shimmering shadow abducted her and all was changed. There had been no time to scream, no moment to respond, and so she had shut her eyes in fear.

Now a soft glow passed through her eyelids. The hands released her and she felt something cool yet hard against her side. Energy pulsed through her limbs, causing her to convulse. Miranda writhed, twisting and contorting her body with the pain that spread through her. The heat grew even more intense. Though she no longer felt captive, terror at what was occuring grew until she was frantic, and she despaired.

“You have done well, Aldreal,” said a voice, comforting yet soft in its beauty. Almost it seemed familiar. “Tell me of my husband. Does he still mourn my passing?”

The woman’s voice felt strong now, commanding. It haunted her, filling her mind with memories she could not have. A young woman with auburn hair laid in a bed surrounded by machines. The woman screamed, though in pain or in terror Miranda’s young mind did not know. Sweat covered the woman’s face, and eventually she collapsed from her exertion. A man - (father?) knelt next to her bed, gripping her hand and cradling her head, sobbing. Then darkness. Then light.

Miranda risked a peek, seeing black rock beneath her. A tall regal woman stood silently nearby, clad in a dark purple dress, lightly ruffled with a blue gem clasped at her throat. Upon her brow sat a circlet of unnamed metal that glowed with a suffused light that illuminated her face in the darkness of night. At her feet hunched a small winged creature with a spike-filled snout, beaming with pleasure at the woman before him.

“Unknown, my Queen,” the creature replied. “I simply completed my charge. I do not believe John knew of my presence.”

“He knew,” the queen replied, turning to Miranda. Miranda squeezed her eyes tight once more both in terror of the woman’s gaze as well as in pain as a new wave of fire pulsed through her. Slowly, she began to keen, no longer able to contain the fire within her. Muscles clenched and she went rigid. Miranda screamed.

***

“Shhh, shh, shh, shh, baby girl. Everything will be alright,” the woman cooed. Miranda calmed, somehow reassured by her voice. Her agony remained, no less intense - but now, for a moment, bearable. She opened first one eye, then the other, tears leaking down her cheeks, sizzling before steaming away. All around her, pulsing waves of orange glowed unpredictably, reflecting off the obsidian altar upon which she laid.

Miranda’s breath came ragged and shallow, her screams having stolen from her tiny form what had been of her strength. She struggled to sit, her arms weakly fighting to push her up. She did not know where she was.

The woman had come no nearer, hesitant. Miranda saw her own reflection flickering back in the woman’s eyes, a flame in the darkness. Crouched at the woman’s feet was the creature, not as small as it had first appeared, but long and lithe, wings folded against its back. Its majesty revealed in profile. Yet a terror not of her world. Did it cower from her?

Another wave pulsed through her and she shrieked unbidden. No reassurance came this time, and as she reopened her eyes she noted the woman’s face maintained its stoicism no longer, replaced by fear. Unrelenting heat surged through her, and Miranda saw the woman and the creature step back involuntarily.

Ionic vapors irritated her nose, and the rock beneath her became pliable, slowly melting beneath her. While she supported herself with her hands, she watched with new horror as her skin began to darken and peel, cracking and sloughing off. Her hair burned off, wisps of glowing strands dancing in superheated chaos about her.

Faintly from the distance Miranda heard “Please hold together, just keep it together,” but that voice twisted away from her and she knew not the source. One more pulse, and flames curled through her limbs and torso, erupting outwards and searing away her Paw Patrol pajamas, polyester melting and causing additional pain before it, too charred and crumbled from her.

The obsidian altar split, falling away in flecks of re-molten shards beneath the devastating inferno that consumed her. Rivulets of melting rock flowed slowly toward the woman, the creature’s Queen. Tears streamed down her face as well, burning tracks in her cheeks as permanent scars from the inferno’s fury, marking the Queen’s beauty.

“My daughter…” she said as the conflagration furiously battered the hilltop, visible for miles in every direction. Aldreal glanced at her, then at Miranda. As the trees began to splinter from flash heated sap and began to roar, the demon snatched his Queen and erupted into the sky, fleeing into the dark of night. Behind them the hilltop exploded with a thunderous roar, and the altar and child were lost as the night blazed into day.

***

Destruction erupted from within her in a cacophonous blast, shredding the landscape in every direction, even cratering the ground beneath her. Heat, flame, and light swirled in a vortex about Miranda as a shockwave blew outward. Earth fell away to the fury of her power, melting and tunneling deep.

She had become a beacon in the night, a fire soul. Searing pain gave way to numbness. For her, the light faded to dark. Vision faded. Terror abated. Miranda, child though she was, lost all sense of time, of place, of self, of presence. Consciousness abandoned her, and she fell weightless. Her devastated body did not plummet, but instead drifted, dainty as a leaf, buffeted by the storm of her evolution.

Miranda drifted lazily through hellish dreams. John chased her playfully through their house, a game of hide and seek he always lost. With each game, he became less recognizable, withering away and weary. Like pieces of his soul kept stripping away, denuding his humanity. Mother - what was her name, why couldn’t she remember? - held Miranda tight to her breast, feeding her liquid fire from that same bosom, and she gagged, unable to take all of it. Above those her head throbbed, always throbbed, even when she told father (Jorge?) it didn’t, just so he wouldn’t worry.

Why couldn’t she remember Mother? Truly remember her? Miranda knew she had one, she had to have one. But father (James?) never mentioned her either. Did he remember? Had he forgotten mother too? What was father’s name again? (Jason?) Miranda couldn’t focus, even on these dreams, on these memories. Would she forget father (Jackson)? Even worse, would he forget her? As he’d forgotten mother?

Who am I?

Soft muscle and fatty tissue melted, evaporating into the air, disintegrating piece by tiny piece. Bones cracked and shattered, blowing apart into dust, fine powder consumed by the famished inferno. Vital organs scorched away to nothing. No trace remained of Miranda’s body, obliterated by the indescribable power of her heritage.

What am I?

How am I still here?

“Please hold together, just keep it together,” echoed around her. For a moment, Mathilda grasped at the noise, piecing the sounds together, pulling them from the ether. They made no sense. Over and over those particular sounds repeated. Was it a message? Marileth didn’t know. Couldn’t know. What is a message? What...is?

That noise enveloped her, cutting softly through the flaming cacophony, and Marcy held tight, not knowing what else to do. She didn’t even know how she was doing that. Or if it was her at all. Moment became moment became moment. Eternity itself stretched, flexing infinity into a weave that permeated Monica. Unconscious strands plucked pieces from nowhere, and then from somewhere, stitching together what was, what could be. From Nothing, Something became.

Reality bent a new frame, and Marcy began again. Licks of flame dashed upon this new thing, but this time were absorbed. The frame thickened and solidified, quickening in this forge of creation. Bone teased its way out, hardening around marrow that oozed into the frame. A body built itself from unfathomable energy, wrapping bone again with muscle. Organs filled Marileth’s body cavity once more. Skin, so soft and tender, bloomed over fatty tissues, capillaries, and viscera. Her heart began to beat once more. Mathilda gasped for breath. Soft cloth, impossibly undamaged by the storm, draped her body.

Infinity stopped. Time resumed and Miranda once more felt the world as the explosion hurled her far into the eldritch sky.

***

Originally published at: https://vocal.media/fiction/fire-soul-part-1