The same piano melody is playing in my head again. When the song starts to crescendo, my heavy eyes slit open, and I awake to strokes of color, painted skies of iridescence, and the splashes of ocean behind where my head lie in the sand. I know they are smoke and mirrors all put here to imprison me. Yet, the warmth of the drawn sun feels real, as real as the chill that runs down my spine when I turn my head toward the sound of approaching steps. I see him—Calligra, my father.
The white blotch moves toward me like a ghost, phasing through cascading filters of hazy white that cloud my perception like fog. The blotch grows larger and larger; each sinking step into the moist gravel steadily pricks my heart to beating faster. He holds his arms out, draped under shredded long sleeves. He wants to hold me. His voice is a rainstorm, and he keeps calling my name.
“Pyro. Pyro. My dear child, why are you afraid?”
The world flickers black and purple for a second, as if the nightmare concealed under this dreamlike shell had found a small breach. A flock of drawn birds flies over me, and though I wish I had Valkyrie’s wings to fly with them—even if they aren’t real—I must face my reality in this unreality. I lie helpless across the sand, at the mercy of my fear, and Calligra is now standing over me. He speaks to me, out of the hollow darkness cast by the shadow of his hood.
“Child, my dear child. Why are you in the sand?”
Streaks of black trail his every movement as he raises a palm and bends his fingers toward him. Gravity loosens its grip at his beckoning, and I slowly suspend in the air, roll to a stand at his guiding gesture, and then settle down gently until my feet sink into the folds of the beach.
“There. Now I may look upon that beautiful face of yours.”
The faceless mirage raises a hand to caress my cheek and combs aside a red bang hanging over my left eye. My throat begs me to release the screams I have stifled, to curse and tell him how much I hate him and wish he had never made me, but my lips are trembling too much to remember how to form words. My hands twitch. I am burning to envelop him in flame and swallow him whole, but the fire is dampened by an unexpected tearful intruder that trickles down my cheek, parading my facileness. He barks a brief, gurgled laugh.
“There is no need to be sad. It is not like you to be this way. Of all my progeny, you, my dearest daughter, have always been the loveliest. Your smile carries the rays of the dawn, and your eyes the light of a thousand stars.”
The sky flashes black and purple again, in a blink, while his hand moves to wipe the tear he put there.
“Do you know why I made you? You remember … Valkyrie I gave the wings of eagles, to be seer of all horizons and guardian of the heavens. To Tuck I gave the spear, that he shall hunt and bring war to those who threaten Oranirock. To Isis I gave wind and lightning, that she may govern the rains and produce fruitage in the land. To Orion I gave the moon and stars that even in darkness there shall be light. To Antares I gave the living creatures, that this world may swarm with life, and that its flow may never lose balance. To Jade I gave the plants and flowers, that Oranirock may always know beauty and life. But to you, oh Pyro, to you I gave more. You I made special. I gave you the fire of dragons, in order that you may purify this tainted canvas that was born at my hand. You are to cleanse this palette that I have birthed, for its imperfections have become wearisome to me.”
His hand cups the side of my face as he leans in closer to whisper. “I have given you everything, and what am I asking back, but to fulfill your purpose? Embrace your destiny. Unleash the firestorm. Bring salvation to us all.”
The lightning of Isis and the resonating thunders crack the sky, opening a floodgate that crashes down and wipes the scene away like leaking watercolor. The color runs until all that remains is a white canvas, and the shadow I call my father. Then he is gone, and so am I.
The piano starts playing again.
Everything turns to black ink.
YOU ARE READING
INK
Science FictionA short story inspired by a drawing a friend gave me. When Pyro learns that everything in her world is fake, the product of a pen and someone's imagination, she seeks to escape. Her father Calligra, however, has other plans for her. Her purpose is t...
