Short stories, (PJO, HP, Sanders Sides, anything really. I take requests!)

inferno

I've been alone my whole life. I have no parents, no friends, nobody. There's only my overseer, Cicely, who doesn't care. She educated me, fed me, clothed me, and that was it.

It started on my 21st birthday. Up till then, I'd thought Cicely was my aunt.

She wasn't. It turned out that I was a weapon. My biological mother was 16. She didn't want me, so she gave me to scientists when I was a baby. I was experimented on, mutated, somehow turned into a freak of nature. I have what could be called fire powers. An inferno that could envelope the world. The most deadly weapon in the history of weapons.

I was a successful experiment, so they made more, experimented more. And when they had an army of us, forces so deadly we could rip the world apart, they conquered.

There are no countries now. Just Earth. And one dictator.

It's kinda an understatement to say that the world's going to hell.

Not anymore. I found a way to make a change. And I'll take the last chance I get.

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Both Cecelia's apron and mine are splattered with cookie dough, but neither of us can bring ourselves to care. I smile wide as the cookies cool.

This was a good idea.

This was a good idea.

Cecelia's my best friend. My only friend, actually. I'm homeschooled, and rarely leave the house, except for the occasional walk in the park. I literally know no one in the world but the teachers in the online courses I take, my Aunt Cicely, and Mrs Felix, Cecelia's mom.

Yeah, it's like me and Cecelia are destined to be best friends. Mrs Felix and my aunt have been friends forever, and so of course she brings Cece when she visits.

It feels nice to have a friend.

It's nice to have a friend.

Even with Cece, sometimes I feel lonely, though. My parents died in a fire, and my aunt's never home, leaving for work before I wake and returning after I sleep.

I manage fine on my own, though.

Always have, always will.

Forever.

Always have, always will.

Or at least that's what I thought.

It all started on my eleventh birthday.

Of course Cece was visiting, but she'd seemed tense for a while now, and naturally I wanted to know what was up.

She looked at me solemnly, strangely serious. "Eversor, you have to believe me, okay?" She paused, drawing in a breath, and blurted out. "You're an experiment."

Cece told me that I had been an experiment from the start, an embryo formed in a test tube, and that Aunt Cicely wasn't my aunt, just somebody sponsored to take care of me.

Oh, and that I had fire powers.

So I did the reasonable thing: laugh till my stomach hurt.

She seemed hurt. "It's true!"

"Yeah, sure."

Words led to words, and it all escalated from there. Until Cecelia slapped me.

What?

She'd never hit me before. No one had hit me before.

I was frozen in place, shocked. Cecelia started apologising,and apologising, but the world was a blur, mostly because of the tears at the corner of my eyes.

I found my voice. "I think you should leave."

No! No, Cecelia can't leave!

Cecelia sniffed. "I can't leave! You don't-"

That's when the world went up in flames.

Fire. Really, I should have guessed. It burns, dripping down my fingers and pooling in the room. Like water.

Searing pain follows in its wake, and I scream, and scream in this red gold inferno.

But nobody answers.

Maybe they're all dead. I can hear Cece screaming, and the noise is loud and guttural.

I love this. It feels like home, a river of flame, a hellhole. I am in control for the first time in my life, and it feels indescribable. I shriek with my power, my voice blending in with the crackle and roar of fire, beautiful and dangerous and mine.

No! This wasn't what I wanted! You promised! You PROMISED.

Fire like the fire that can steal a person's family. Everyone gets what they deserve.

When the firefighters and medics come, they find me and Cece. I'm covered in burns. My body is mutilated, but I don't care, caught up in the euphoria of it all. And Cece?

She's dead.

I'm not sorry. Why would I be? Fire scorches the tips of my fingers, and I can't really feel a thing anymore.

No! N-

She's dead.

Close the book! Please! Th-

Ironic, isn't it? They're all dead.

They called me a pyromaniac when they saw the sick smile on my twisted, scarred face.

Names are a strange thing, aren't they? So many labels.

There's a white room and static in my head and an inferno wherever I go. I'm trouble.

That's new. I'd always been the good girl.

But now I'm a god.

No one can stop me.

One day, I get loose again.

It's time to watch the world burn. Fire's addicting and powerful and everything. It hurts, it burns, but there's a sick pleasure in pain. And I am both dead and more alive than anything before.

Close the book and NEVER COME BACK!

I always see her face when the world is up in flames, after all.