Playing with Fire

29

Darkness.

That's what I can see around me but below me is illuminated. Weakly. I stare around me but everything felt weird. As if it was... upside-down.

My head somehow pulsates as blood rushes towards my brain, my hair dangles below me and the only thing keeping me up is a cyan light-circle-thing by my feet. I can feel myself levitating from the floor. Sweat beads dribble down my forehead, onto the elevated platform which I am hanging above.

I bend up to see whether if there was any external pieces holding me up but what I could see: there was none.

"Hello?"

                            "Is anyone there?"

                                                                                 "HELLO?!"

                                                                                                       "Can anyone hear me?!"

No one can.

I am stuck in a room by myself which is entirely filled with black and blue. Like the bruises on my arm.

Wait.

Bruises on my arm?!

I lift my arm up to see big purple-ish splodges on them - most on the forearm - and same on the other.

Suddenly I hear a metal door open and I see a feminine silhouette.

"Lawrence. Come on." Jeanine stands by a control panel, staring at me. She raises the same eyebrow as before and presses one button and I fall onto the floor (as before) and around 10 seconds later, she stands at my body. She assists me up onto my first two feet and I see her hold something in front of her-

A pistol.

"Take it." 

"Where's my mum?"

"Take it!" she shoves the weapon into my two hands. I grasp hold of it and stare down at it. It looks simple to use but I know it's difficult. To maintain the jolt, reloading. All that crap.

I wrap my hand around the gun I have been equipped and I feel raw power climb up into me-

I kinda like the feeling.

I look back up at Jeanine. "Now. My mum."

"You are so impatient, my girl." she smiles at me and places a hand behind my back and surprisingly, it doesn't burn - nor does my legs and arms. Everything seems to feel healthy. 

She guides me to a rectangle which is made of glass and it displays a girl with clean Caucasian skin, hazel eyes, brown hair cut like a boy's, the white vest-top displaying a tattoo of the alchemical insignia of fire on her right arm, her grey trousers looks tight around the calves of her legs, same as her waist, her black boots looks so clean and new. I turn around and she does too but something looks different about her. She has a red phoenix poking out of her vest, wings spread out-

Just like the Lunar Phoenix logo which was on my mother's letter to me and James' plate.

"It's you Lawrence. I needed to do what I needed to do," Jeanine tells me, hand on my shoulder, speaking into my ear whilst I still stare at my reflection.

It is actually me there.

I look so clean and healthy.

I have never looked like this.

"I think she'll love this." she guides me out of the dark room, through a white passage with loads of twists and turns. 

"I still don't believe you," I say eventually, still facing forwards.

"Well, you should. Because you'll be outstanded by how much I know about you and this person who you will meet."  

I stare down at my feet, trying to think what she means and in true fairness: I don't know a single about what she said but I pretend to know. "Okay." is all I say.

She opens a door and lets me through into the room first. It is coated in mirrors and I cannot identify where I actually am-

Like it's some kind of maze or something.

I guide my hand around the glass, trying to find gaps. I feel my hand slip off on my right and I turn that way, then same goes for left, then left once more, then right. I continue to walk until-

I see a woman with brunette hair, stone grey eyes, her skin is all rosy, battered and bruised, she seems to be the same height. She is sprawled across the floor, face expressing pain. Her hair covers her hair in a few strands. Her hair is quite short but taller than mine currently. 

Jeanine stands beside me and rests a hand upon my shoulder once more and stares down at her. 

"She is the one who abandoned you when you were younger in New Elizabeth..." Jeanine informs me.

The woman looks up at Jeanine, glaring daggers at her, mouthing, "You dare..."

"She lost against me and I gave her a fair deal and she accepted but cheated around it."

I stare down at the woman who seems to cry her eyes out in front of me.

"SHE is a threat to everyone you care about. Including that Adam."

Jeanine makes eye-contact with me and pulls my wrist up which holds the pistol in my hand. "This has one bullet. Use it on her if you do not want your friends to suffer."

That's when I realised.

She was the leader of the Lunar Rebellion.

She was left me there to survive on my own-

Abandoning me.

"Kill her." Jeanine commands me.

I cock the gun and hoist it directly aiming in between the eyes, finger coils around the trigger and I stand there-

Pointing the pistol at my mother.

END OF BOOK ONE