Blood and Fire

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The moon was new. The stars glistened in the sky around a circle of darkness that held her place. Around me was a clearing by a forest. The soil was sterile, covered in only dirt. Not a blade of grass was in sight. The warm sea wind whispered rumors of another presence near me. I turned to see a familiar figure. Very familiar. A tall boy in a black and blue uniform concealing a slouching lean body covered in scars and bruises; his long, messy dark hair fell over his ocean blue eyes and framed his oval face, showing a cut on his right cheek that scarred his olive skin. The lack of a moon barely lighted his face but I didn't need to see it to feel the emptiness in his tired, drooping eyes.

A lump grew in my throat at the sight of him. "Not again," I cursed under my breath, almost choking on my words. My muscles tensed as the boy took a slow, calculated step toward me. Then another. And another again. I could feel my heart pound against my chest, as the husk of a boy approached me, suffocating my lungs with his pain and his regret. My sweaty hands clenched into fists, bracing for what I knew would follow.

The boy extended his arms at me, his fingers curled like a snow leopard-caribou's claws sinking into its prey. Suddenly, all my muscles hardened as if painfully trying to carry a bus with my bare hands. I pushed with all of my might in an attempt to fight back against the strain in my muscles. But nothing happened. I was stiller than a marble statue. The boy took a step back into a low Horse Stance and then pulled his arms away from each other as if tearing the skin off a giant fruit. In response, I felt my body fold to a kneeling position with its face stuck staring at the dirt under it and its arms twisted in an unnatural position backward, accompanied by the wet popping of its joints and bones. I tried to scream to release the pain but even my vocal cords were frozen stiff. The only sound escaping me was a choked-out wheeze. With another jolt, I felt all the vertebrates of my spine pop into an arch, forcing me to look back up at my attacker, his expression was cold and dead as ever. I felt my eyes watering up as fear crushed my chest with the weight of a boulder. "Please, stop," I manage to gasp, my body being strained to the point of losing consciousness, tears sliding down my face.

He ever so slightly tilted his head to the left, his eyebrows frowning the slightest bit, showing a genuine air of confusion. "But..." he started, his eyebrows frowning even more, stirring into frustration and anger. "But you're the one who did this!" he yelled, voice trembling with rage as if I'd just committed the worst injustice upon him. "You did this not me!" he swung his arms, making them cross his chest and in response, I felt my neck twi–

***

I jolted up from my bed, releasing a horrified gasp. My heart was still pounding from the nightmare that I had just woken from. I gave myself a minute to calm down and catch my breath before doing anything of myself. It hadn't been long since I'd had such a terrible night's sleep. When I woke up that morning, the sun hadn't peeped its head out yet. The winter solstice was a little over a month away, so the nights were getting longer. However, I realized that it didn't matter that the days were getting shorter, even in the summer, the sun remained dormant at four in the morning. I woke up with a sharp backache matched with neck pains from the twisted position I'd slept in, though I remembered being so comfortable when I had first fallen asleep. Proof that short-term pleasures could end up being harmful in the long run.

I pushed myself upright and sat on the bed for a minute with my feet hanging over the side, planting onto the stone floors of my studio. Across from me lay Taiyo in his own bed on the other side of the room, seemingly not getting much better sleep than I'd gotten. His hands were tightened into fists on the side of his pillow. His face was closed into a concentrated frown as if he were diffusing a bomb in his dream. Stressful stuff indeed.

I forced myself onto my feet, stretching my back quickly. The stone floor was usually cold but since winter was approaching, we had the heater on. I turned on the radio to passively listen to the news on the recent assassination of the Fire Lord and how they still had no leads on the attackers. Tragic news, but I was too tired to care at the time. I took out my exercise mat to do my actual morning stretch routine and after a good half hour of twisting my body into various positions stretching my neck, my back, and other body parts, I rolled up my mat to put it back in my closet before heading to the bathroom to clean myself up.