Phield of Flames

1.3

My breathing weakened as the icy air started to penetrate my lungs. It felt like small shards of ice just kept stabbing them with each breath and step I took. But I didn't stop, not for the stinging in my chest or the unbearable aching on the left side of my body or even the pain in my right leg. No, I kept limping through the snowy forest that seemingly never ended, but I had a feeling I was going the right way. There was a pull that made me ignore the pain I was enduring, the embarrassment that I couldn't shake, and the paranoia that had overcome my mind. So I walked through that forest determined to seclude myself once I got home.

Then I stopped. It was like I stumbled into a bubble filled with hot air, and as soon as I wobbled back in surprise the heat disappeared, so I chased it. A heat that felt so familiar to me, so welcoming and comforting after everything that has happened in the past few hours, I chased that feeling as if it would save me. But it didn't. The feeling stopped and I was left cold again, well every part of my body was cold except for my stomach.

 When I looked down at the gem wedged into my navel, the icy air once again stabbed at my lungs. The rock blazed a blaring red and emitted the heat I was so intent on chasing, so I placed my hands over it and absorbed as much of it as I could.

"Do you remember?"

It was her voice again, the deity. She never spoke to me and I'd admit I wasn't keen on beginning a conversation with her until she decided she wanted to finally tell me what she was doing in my body. This would be the first time she has spoken to me since I found her...right here.

The ground beneath me was singed, not even the snow touched the crispy ground. The area looked like the ground had been dug up, but I knew that it was more like a small asteroid that had collided with the earth and left nothing but destruction in its wake. Even now as I looked up to the trees, as far as my neck would allow me, I could see the broken branches that swayed with the chilling breeze.

Of course, I remembered, how could I forget. Like the nightmare I lived through every night, the events never left my mind. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, the smell of burning earth traveling through my nose.

"How could I forget?" I asked her sarcastically and crouched lower to the ground, grazing my hand over the disturbed ground.

"I need you to remember."

I looked up to the sky in thought and back down to the ground in confusion, "I already remember, deity, what do you mean?"

"No." She frustratedly sighed, creating tension in the back of my head, making me reach towards my bag, only to remember my pills were probably somewhere in a school trash can. "You need to remember, everything."

"Deity, what do you mean? There is not a single moment I have forgotten."

"I need you to remember!"

Her yell made me clench my eyes shut in agony, the tension in the back of my head became unbearable and all of the bruises from my dream flared up. I gasped for my breath, like it had been stolen from me, and huddled myself into a ball.

Then it was over. The tension and pain all over my body disappeared all at once, and after two long weeks of anguish, I felt free. 

Slowly, I rose from my place on the forest floor, no longer charred to ashes, but blanketed with two-inch snow. My clothes had been switched from my school uniform to a simple sweater and leggings. My bare feet dug into the frozen snow and pushed me off the ground.

The sky above me was dark, and small stars littered the atmosphere with no such pattern. It was all familiar, so familiar. Then I clicked. I didn't feel a heaviness in the back of my head that I had gotten accustomed to in these past two weeks, I felt lighter, but empty all at once. My hand traveled under my sweater only to feel my smooth skin that emitted a warm heat, it just wasn't the same though. The gem wasn't there.