Girl on Fire

Chapter 5

I woke up the way that you imagine you would see in films. The sound came first, then blurry vision, then, finally, clear vision. River leaned over me and whispered to Ali "She's waking up,"

"Yay!" Ali said and she threw herself on top of me in a hug. I went to move my leg so that I could sit up and a sharp stab of pain jolted up it. I gasped.

"What happened?" I said woozily.

"Don't worry, Ash, it's okay. You just got a little bullet wound in your leg, I'm just going to bandage it up now."

Ali got off me as I opened my eyes properly and looked down at myself. There was a small graze on my arm where the dart skimmed it and, though it was a small wound, it was bleeding profusely. My leg was worse, though. Apparently they really wanted to knock us out, and the darts they used were huge. I had a mangled wound on my leg that, dispite River holding a cloth to it, still seemed to be bleeding.

"Hold this a sec," River said. Signalling to the flannel. I grabbed it and hd started searching through his bag, cursing under his breath.

"There has to be some kind of bandage in here!" He muttered.

"How long have I been out?"

"A five hours or so, you got shot with two tranquilliser darts though, so it's fair enough,"

"Oh, okay," I said, feeling annoyed that I had to be the feeble one to be looked after.

I jumped when I looked at my hand again. It was on fire. I took it away instinctively, stupidly. It obviously wouldn't hurt me. When I reluctantly looked at the bloody wound, I gasped with amazement. The fire was burning just on the injury and I could see, through the flames, that the hole was sealing itself back up!

"River!" I yelled and he whipped around with worry written all over his face. He rushed to my side when he saw what was happening to my leg.

"What the hell is happening?" He said. The fire suddenly blew itself out and we were left gaping at my leg.

There was nothing there.

River just looked at it, "H-h-how... it's... there's nothing there!"

He looked at me and I shruggedat him. "I have no idea... all I did was hold my hand on the hole to stop it bleeding and... and a fire started on it... I don't understand."

Something suddenly clicked in River's eyes.

"We can heal!" He said excitedly, "We can HEAL ourselves when we get hurt! Quick, do the others!"

I put my good hand to the other two bullet injuries and they healed themselves. The one on my arm leftjust a little bit of pink scar tissue.

River pressed his hand to a graze on his knee and it disappeared almost immediately, after a trickle of water had swirled around on it for a second.

"Wow! That feels so weird!" He said, looking slightly stunned.

I felt awesome, invincible, but one thing still bothered me. "What about the last one, on my arm. There was nothing left on the others but this one left a scar. Do you recon I've... like... run it out or something?"

The stressed look fell right back onto River's face and he said worriedly,

"Oh, I didn't notice that. Do you have any other cuts or grazes?"

I shrugged and started to search myself. I very quickly found a graze on my hip, probably from where I landed. I put my hand on it but the fire didn't just start automatically. I bit my lip and will a fire to start. I immediately felt light-headed and only a flicker lit on my hand for a second, no more.