The Last Few Embers

Chapter One

Hello, friend.

I say 'friend', but I really don't know you.

I don't even know if you exist.

Most things in my mind are fake, made up.

That's what everyone says anyways.

I often contemplate this; what's real or not. What if I am just some person in someone's story? What if I'm insignificant? Or the opposite, what if I am meant to be the one person who can save the universe?

Neither sounds fun.

My mother used to say that our smallest actions can make a huge difference to someone else.

She's right.

Was right.

Whatever, past tense, present tense.

She's dead anyways.

And I don't say that kindly or nonchalantly, I loved my mother. And my father.

Married at 24 and 21; Carol Banks and Paul Williams lived in Norway.

My mother was British, and she was in Norway researching.

She was a journalist.

My father worked in a mine.

He mined for diamonds.

"Like a dwarf." He told me.

My father was Norweigan.

They met at a bar in a small town, and they got engaged a year later.

Then they had me.

That was their biggest mistake.

I killed them.

Not purposely, but you see, friend, I have a gift. A rare gift.

The gift of fire.

I also have other gifts too.

Like clinical depression and schizophrenia.

And one night during a panic attack I lit the house on fire. By accident.

And killed my parents.

When the firefighters found me I was burnt to a crisp. They still don't know how I survived.

It was because of my gift.

I can't die from fire.

When I say fire, I mean, I can make fire appear and disappear at will.

In my hands, hair, I can even propel myself and fly.

When I 'embrace' my powers, my usual brown eyes turn yellow and my auburn hair turns bright orange and bursts into flames.

But I don't do it often.

Because of things like killing my parents.

The reason why I made you up is to talk to because I'm stuck in a 'special' hospital for trauma.

They think I'm off the wall crazy, but I'm not.

The nurses and doctors call me crazy because I talk out loud, because I talk to you.

But I'm not crazy.

It's just not real.

Or maybe it is, I should I know?

I made you up.

I could be dreaming right now.

I could be asleep in my house with my parents downstairs.