Ashes (Flame Ash Burned Backstory)

Chapter 20: Heart-ache

3rd January 2010

There was not a single area of The Under-Realm that was brightly lit.

The place was like a large city; skyscrapers towering far above the other buildings into absolute darkness, and there was a faint buzz from TV screens in a nearby shop window that showed nothing but static. Flame's footsteps echoed through the streets.

Streetlamps gleamed green and blue due to the colors of the stones inside them, and not a single soul walked the cracked, blood-stained pavements - but even so, Flame decided that, because of the types of messages she had seen involving the Fire Kingdom, it'd be best if she stuck to the shadows. Out of sight.

It had been some time in the late evening when Flame arrived in The Under-Realm, so it made sense for everybody to be tucked away inside their homes, but still, Flame knew she wouldn't want to take a chance of being spotted.

One Fire Person against a whole city of Under-Realm citizens did not sound good.

There was a large black castle, raised up from the rest of the city on top of a hill which was littered with bones -broken, sticking up out of the ground- and glowing red and green crystals.

It didn't quite look right: a large, modern-looking city with an old-fashioned castle. Flame guessed that the castle was the oldest piece of history there, and so it had been kept, and that a lot of places had probably been destroyed during wars and so they were replaced and updated.

Flame stuck to the shadows of the alleyways, and began to quickly make her way towards the edge of the city; towards the Under-Realm Castle, looming high above, atop the hill.

She had walked past countless dead things: stray dogs and cats, and the odd young child or elderly person, all of which were either spilling out of or shoved up carelessly against trashcans. The sickening scent of decomposition and death was overpowering.

When Flame reached the edge of the city, she looked up at the castle. She could see up into the windows, even the ones on the top floors, and began searching for the one that could belong to Blackout's bedroom.

If she was going to talk to him, she needed to get him alone, and getting into his bedroom seemed like a sure-fire way of finding him. He'd either be there, or be heading there on his way to go to bed for the night.

She just needed to talk to him. To ask him why he had changed. To ask why he had asked her out if he and his people hated the Fire People so much. To ask why he had taken a knife to her eye after an argument that he had started.

Flame didn't understand why everything had gone so wrong.

She had fallen for him so hard.

She just wanted it to work out - wanted things to go back to the way they were before he changed -- before he took a knife to her eye.

Flame had lost so many things in her life: her mother, Evie, Joe, Lyric, Griffen from her old village - her first friend, Ruby - the poor dying girl in the basement belonging to a kidnapper, and she had no idea about Escape Thanatos, the slave boy who showed her affection and taught her how to smile for the first time in years.