What we leave behind.

Prologue: Flames which lick memories away.

Content featured in this chapter:

Character death (Of scene with only reference to it), Burning buildings, Loss of safety, Abandonment from family.

If you believe anything else should be added here as warnings please tell me.

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Smoke. The first sign of a disaster which would quickly destroy anything and everything which breathed to close it. The first cry of help from the earth, praying for anyone to come to her aid and stop the burning light from destroying her treasures. The laugh of danger, taunting the people who dared to fight it, suffocating the ones who were stupid enough to try to walk through it. Something which swarmed the lungs like flood water destroying an undefended home, made the fearful and traumatised eyes water, never leaving anything alive in its wake to tell the story of its anger.

Or so Lilith had been told. But something, whether it was luck from saluting the magpie who danced across the sky, or someone up there hoping to save at least one creature from the dangerous heat. Dark red fabric of the leotard she wore had never felt thinner, her bare legs and feet in agony from running out of the falling building. Her tongue felt like lead in her mouth as she tried to breathe through the plague in her lungs which seemed to want to fight against her luck. Lights flashed around her as she curled up in the back of the far too empty ambulance, the thermal ambulance blanket far too big around the shaking nine year old's body.

Hope sat tight around her throat as she watched fire men run in and out of the building carrying anything they could save which was worth saving, a large filing cabinet drawer filled with legal documents, and a cat or two which had found their way into the dance building. Still not a single young child's body, dead or alive, had emerged from the building. Her tongue ran across her lips as salty tears fell down her face, pictures of the people she knew were in the building flashing before her dark blue eyes. Fear had run her out of the building, and she hoped that it had run them out of the building as well. She couldn't imagine a world without the girl who she knew was still in the building, her real in all senses but blood mother, the woman who had given her everything she had.

"Hi Kid." A soft female voice came from the open back doors of the ambulance, Lilith's dance blue eyes filling with panic as she tried to see through the blur, trying to figure out who it was. Dark brown hair, pulled into a tight high ponytail with a black gas mask covering her lower face. A black bodysuit clung to her curvy frame, under her arms a pair of crow-like wings which spread with her arms, her black boots able to make a hoverboard underneath them on command. The Ares, one of the kindest but smartest Heroes in the city. Her chocolate brown eyes looked down at Lilith with a look of understanding, as if she was saying yeah I understand the pain you feel. "What's your name?"

"Lilith Hearst." She muttered pulling the cover away from her face to watch the hero sit cross legged in front of her, the double ended scythe she used placed next to her gently. Lilith had sat with her mother on the roof of the dance building on quiet nights, watching the young hero jump from roof to roof looking for crime, her movement almost angelic. Lilith had jumped around on the roof copying the girl's movement which had obviously been learnt through dance classes, trying to be like the girl she couldn't help but adore. Something about the interaction, the circumstances in which she had met her hero, seemed to almost taint her picture of the girl. She had expected to see the girl on one of her patrols one night and convince her to let her become the girl's sidekick before swooping across the roofs with her.

"Well it's a pleasure to meet you Lilith, Im Ares." She smiled as if it was a fact that no one knew, as if she was just a normal girl who had decided to sit at the same bench as her in the park. Tanned skin covered her as she turned her head to look at the small bag of Lilith's belongings, the only belonging she had her whole life. It was a bag for life from the local Tesco filled with; her real mothers hoodie, a dagger, all her legal documents, a phone only to use in emergencies which her other mother had given her, and a large white t-shirt she wore to bed and most of the time. "Are they all your belongings?"

Lilith nodded slowly and she watched the hero's brows furrow before she breathed out slowly, robbing one of her black gloved hands on her clothes as if she was itching to do something she wasn't meant to. The news had labelled the woman as 'kind', 'understanding', 'smart' but never violent, however Lilith knew that even the calmest of minds would one day snap. Lilith could almost imagine the woman being pushed to her breaking point by something hurting the people she cared about, the young boy who followed her father around mindlessly or her father. The young boy was a child her father had taken in after mysterious circumstances and slowly he had become another one of the young people running around the streets defending the world.

"Right. Do you have anywhere to go?" Lilith couldn't help the way her throat tightened further and her blood ran cold, her eyes widening at the connotations of the older woman's comment. Where was her mum? Why couldn't she go with the woman? Did she have anyone else? A soft shake of the head left the hero nodding slowly before she shuffled slightly closer allowing one of her hands to grasp one of Lilith's tiny pale ones. "I'm going to tell you something which is going to be really hard to tell you, but you need to hear it." Lilith could almost feel her heart speeding up as she gripped the elders hand tighter, as if she was waiting for the injection to pierce her skin. "You are the only survivor, I'm so..."

Time seemed to freeze as Lilith lent heavier against the wall, a few tears running down her face as she stared at the girl in front of her who was rubbing soft circles on her hand, her mouth moving but no sound reaching Lilith's ears. Stability had been something she had only just claimed again, but now she could see it slipping between her fingers, the world she had built for herself deciding to fall like a house of cards. Six years left her like the sun left the sky, leaving her exactly where she was two years ago when she stood at the door of the dance building with nothing but her mothers leather jacket and a letter from her father telling the dance club to look after her.

"I think it would be best for you to come with me, to let me look after you. If that's okay?" Lilith could feel cotton filling her ears as she slowly nodded before leaning into the woman who let her cry into her chest, the floodgates she had patched us so many times finally falling. Lilith had heard her friends talk about death and how painful it was to realise someone you care about is dead, but she never thought this would be how it felt. The hollow pain which seemed to fill her lungs and grasp her thought, flooding her eyes and blocking her ears as her whole body tingled. Lead seemed to fall onto her eyes as she sat there, letting darkness lull her into the sleep she was sure would be filled with nightmare, her family dancing around the dreams.