Spark

Kyra and Kaiden

A fourteen year old with long dark hair fanned out around her sits under the shade of a willow tree. She sighs and her green eyes shift over to her best friend, Kaiden Hills. His blond hair is ruffled ever so slightly by the breeze. "Hey." Kyra said rolling on her side. Kaiden cracks open one brilliant blue eye, but then closes it again. "Do you think we have a Spark?" She asks, now poking him in the stomach.

It's a late summer afternoon and all of the children are on summer break. The lake by the town is always stock full of kids so Kyra and Kaiden drift up to the willow on the top of the hill that over looks the town. Most days they just lay and chat occasionally sleeping.

Without opening his eyes, Kaiden mumbled out his response. "Don't you pay attention in school?" Kyra flopped down on her back.

"No, what kind of question is that?" Kaiden took a big breath of summer air and let it out slowly. He opened his eyes and stared up at the weeping willow that gave them privacy, shade, and a place to hang out.

"Kyra, everyone has the Spark. It's the Spark. Just, the people with out it, are dead, and the people with a really strong Spark, are dead." Kyra crossed her arms over and stared at the top of the willow with him.

"It just doesn't seem fair."

"Life's not fair, what part of this are you referring to?"

"I mean why do we have to kill the people that have the Spark?" Kyra asked, moving into a sitting position. "Why can't we just send them out of the city? Why do we have to kill them?"

"Here we go again." Kaiden mumbled. Kyra scooted back to the base of the tree and leaned against it. It was roughly 100 degrees out so any movement was strictly on a need to do basis. Otherwise it was just creating extra heat. Under the weeping willow, however, it was a cool 85.

"I mean really? Is being awesome so bad? I mean imagine being able to fly!" Kaiden's eyes glazed over as he got lost in the idea of being able to fly. Kyra imagined it too. Big white wings, just gliding over the clouds, able to leave all the fire and burning below. Able to fly away from anything and everything.

Kaiden's prospect of flying was completely different from Kyra's. His was being able to control the air, he would be riding on wind he summoned, or riding on a storm cloud...

Both of them mulled the idea over in their head for a good twenty minutes. "Kaiden, what if I have a strong Spark?" Kaiden threw back his head and laughed. Kyra went red in the face and scrunched up her nose, like she always does when she's mad or embarrassed.

"Kyra, if you had a strong Spark, we would have seen it by now. You would have turned invisible to cheat at hide-and-seek or moved the water so that it threw out every kid that tried to get in besides you." Kyra grinned at the thought.

"You make me sound so evil."

"Try and deny it." Kyra made no move to deny his claim. By saying nothing she was basically admitting defeat. Kaiden propped himself up onto his elbows and looked out at the crystal blue sky.

"Even so, why do we burn people who have the Spark? I mean really, don't sparks start fires? It just doesn't make sense to burn Sparks, you should drown them or, I don't know, hang them, suffocate them. That's like me saying, 'A mermaid! To kill her, I will drown her!' It's just stupid, you know what I'm saying?"

Kaiden ignored her and stood up. "Come on Kyra, I don't see why you're so into this stuff, you don't have a big spark."

But Kyra refused to let this drop. "But do you? I mean you could have a Spark, and we'd never know." Kaiden glared at her and opened his mouth to speak, but there was a earsplitting scream that came from down town. Kaiden rose off his elbows and Kyra pushed off the willow tree and stood up.

The town sirens started going off, just like they do every time something astronomical happens. Kyra thought to herself. For example, when a Spark is spotted.

Kyra and Kaiden didn't need to say anything, with one look at each other, they both knew what to do. They took off towards the town, determined to find the Spark before the defenders.