Identity?

Chapter One

     Shock—the numbness of it, the disconnect it creates with actual events—is useful. It keeps you from running through a burning house, screaming to the people left behind, when it is much too late.
    Let me start from the beginning. My name is Marceline, but no one calls me that anymore. Things have changed. Some say change is good, but this isn't some small, minor change. This was a change that altered my life forever and made me a completely different person than the one I was before.
    It all started when my parents were slaughtered and their murderer set my home on fire—with me still trapped inside.
    I'd be dead if it weren't for a group of amazing people. But I'll get to that later.
    It began after midnight with a low hum, an electric buzz like that of a bass guitar string. The sound grew louder and I tried to cover my head with a pillow, but my arms, heavy with sleep, would not move.
    I struggled to sit up; I felt paralyzed. Frightened, I tried to call out, but my mouth wouldn't move. An odd sensation began in my feet and traveled up my body, each nerve ending tingling with electric energy.
     Stop! I thought. Please, stop!
     Marceline. Let go.
     It was a male voice that had spoken to me. Struggling to recall the person, I momentarily forgot my fear.
     The vibrations stopped, and I stood up. I was surrounded by darkness. In the distance an orange light shone. As I moved toward it, I heard a confusion of voices, people talking in worried tones. The orange light flickered and I heard crackling sounds. I could smell now—acrid smoke.
     An object whistled close to my ear and exploded, glass against metal. A siren wailed. I heard feet—heard, rather than saw clearly, people running, panicking. I panicked, too. I didn't know who these people were or which way to turn, but instinct told me to get away from there. Then I heard someone calling to me.
     Marceline, be careful.
     There were more sirens, the wailing growing closer.
     Marceline, be careful.
    The fire surrounded me. I could see the flames like clothing on me, yet I felt no pain, no burning. I reached out my hand, then pulled it back in horror. I'd seen through it. I slowly put out my left hand, then my right: they were transparent.
    Help! I called out. Help!
    Then suddenly, I was sitting bolt upright in bed—in the dark, where all bad things happened. I got out of bed. My feet hardly seemed to touch the floor. I was surprised to discover I was dressed. I couldn't remember when I had gone to bed, but was puzzled that I hadn't changed out of my clothes. I always did.
     I walked to my bedroom door and stepped into the hall. All the lights in the house were out. My feet were bare, except for a film of dust, but I wasn't cold. The house temperature was hard to gauge. I was certain, however, that it was freezing outside.
     I hurried down the hall to my parents' bedroom. The door was slightly ajar and I peeked inside. The bed was bare of blankets and sheets. Something dark stained the mattress, floor, and even the walls. I took a step inside, and felt something wet and warm when my toes sank into the carpet. The metallic iron-salt scent filled my nose.
     Blood.
    And it was everywhere.
    My stomach flipped and threatened to send it's contents up my throat. Fear had its hold on me. For some reason I didn't, and never will, know, I pushed the door open and walked in further.
   What I saw was something that I'd never forget as long as I lived, the image burnt into my eyes, scarring my mind, haunting me every single second.
    My parents were dead.
    For a moment, I thought I somehow had been in a different home. The people before me couldn't have been recognized as my parents. They were too mangled, their skin shredded, their bodies coated in their own blood.
    A scream filled my throat, but didn't come out. Instead, I doubled over and threw up, falling to my knees with mournful, painful sobs.
     As I cried, I heard the soft splashing of liquid hitting the wooden floors. It was distant, the grief's screaming demand too pronounced for me to have registered anything of it at the time. I was too preoccupied with what I'd seen when I looked up—a message, written in blood on the wall.
     Better fire here, than fire hereafter.
     That was when I panicked, scrambling to my feet and running, slipping on a small pool of blood and falling backward in my terror-strickened frenzy for escape. I fell backwards, hard, and hit my head against an end table. I blacked out.
     I woke up to the familiar smell of gasoline burning my nose and smoke smothering me. I couldn't have been out long since the fire was only on the lowest level of the house. But that also meant that the two exits had been blocked off. I couldn't jump out one of the windows; I was three stories high off the ground. If I did jump, I would walk away with a shattered leg, least case scenario. Worst case scenario, I wouldn't walk away at all. I'd break my neck on the fall.
     In conclusion, I was trapped, awaiting my fiery demise.
     Better fire here than fire hereafter.
     It was like someone had whispered the words in my ear.   
     Cringing, I coughed and gagged at the smoke. I plunged ahead. I ran straight into a wall. For a moment, I was stunned, then I felt the surface in front of me—wood—a door. I groped for the handle. When my fingers touched the metal knob, I yanked the door open.
    There wasn't a pencil line of light visible. I moved forward steadily, trying to walk straight, my hands out in front of me. I felt as if I had stumbled into a room the size of a gymnasium. But memory told me that I'd darted left in the hall and now I was in my dad's study.
     Choking down my sorrow and trying to breathe, I turned a corner and at last my hands gasped loose fabric. I felt behind it, shoving back what seemed like yards of material. The walls of the house were thick, the windowsil deep. My fingers searched for cool panes of glass but touched wood—a set of inside shutters. I felt for the center, tried unsuccessfully to pry them open, then ran my hands up and down the crack, hunting for a fastener. My fingers gasped a knob, and I pulled on it. It wouldn't budge.
     This was when I remembered that dad's windows had locks in their shutters, locks that required keys that I had no clue where he'd kept them.
     I sagged against then deep windowsil for a moment, the straightened up and listened, my attention caught by a sound that seemed to come from the ceiling.
     Smoke seeped from under the door, filling the room. An orange glow flickered from the other side of the door, threatening to lap up the walls and swallow the floor by snaking under the door to get in. I couldn't stop coughing, my eyes burning and watering.
     To make matters even worse, the roof began to creak. There was a deafening crack and the support beams of the old house moaned. Flames emerged over the old beams, the wood beginning to char and splinter, giving in under the heat. I had only mere minutes until the house collapsed around me, either suffocating or burning me to death, and it didn't look like I'd be able to avoid the flames much longer.
     The house seemed to shift, groaning and begging for mercy as the fire ate it up. One of the support beams became loose, crashing to the floor so hard I swore it had fallen through. Oh, but it hadn't smashed through the floor.
     It blocked the door, my only exit.
     Another support beam was about to fall—directly on top of me. I ran as I heard the splintering cracks and barely cleared it before it came crashing down.
     I heard the sickening snap before I felt it. But then I did feel it, and I couldn't hold back the scream of agony that poured from my throat. I twisted up to reach for my leg, but it was caught under the smoldering support beam. There was a pain, a scalding pain in my leg that overshadowed everything else.
     "Help! Someone, help me!" I screamed as it burned me. I writhed wildly in the grip of the firey torture, the movement making the pain flare sickeningly and for the beam to shift up higher on my leg.
     I heard a loud bang, and part of the door ripped off with the hinges; the other part splintered into two or three pieces and rained down.
     Toward me.
     I threw my hands out instinctively to stop it, but it was solid oak. It was horribly heavy and my arms couldn't stop the impact. I let out a cry of pain as the pieces crashed into my hands and face with shocking force.
     "Nice job, Robin," an unfamiliar sarcastic male voice said. "Maybe we can rescue what's left of her."
     "Shut up," said another voice. "We gotta get her out of here." Suddenly the crushing weigh in my leg disappeared. At first the pain was worse. I screamed and thrashed, realizing that hands were holding me back. I opened my eyes to see a boy in a yellow jumpsuit, red boots, and red hair looming over me. He had a red lightning bolt in a white circle emblazoned on his chest.
     "You're safe now," he said. "We'll get you out."
     "Kid Flash," the other boy called. He wore black and red, a black mask that matched his hair, a cape with yellow on the inside and black on the outside, a red R on his shirt over his heart. "Help me out over here."
     Kid Flash, the boy in yellow, picked up wooden chair with a long back and four thick legs. They lined up, making a battering ram, and ran at the window, jamming the legs into the shutters. Pieces of wood splintered and broke off.
     "Can't you use something in that utility belt of yours?" Kid Flash asked.
     "Not quite yet."
     I watched as the boy in red and black began to yank the curtains, handing them to Kid Flash, who rushed to the door to stuff them under the crack, hoping to keep out deadly smoke. My gaze went back the boy, Robin, as I recall, and he pulled out something small from his belt. He shoved something into the lock and gave a sharp twist, the lock breaking off from the shutters, pulling them open. Robin moved back about a foot and with a quick, fluid movement, he kicked the glass. It starred and crumpled, shattering to the floor.
     I heard a whoosh. Drapes or not, the house was too old to be airtight, and he had just created a draft. Robin came over to me.
     "I hope you're not afraid of heights."
     "I'm more afraid of fire," I croaked, feeling hot tears of pain streak my cheeks.
     "I'm going to pick you up." Robin said, and slid his arms under my body. "It's gonna hurt, I won't lie." I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, my hand grasping his shirt desperately. Robin lifted me up, sending a firey pain to tear through my leg. I screamed, my nails digging into the flesh of his shoulder.
    "I'm sorry. It's almost over," he promised, going over to the window. Flash climbed up and took me carefully from Robin's arms and Robin leapt out the window. He landed perfectly, gracefully. Though when I looked down, I saw that the large portions of the house had put us father off the ground than I expected.
     "It's okay," Kid Flash said, as if sensing my fear. "This is like looking at the ocean at night. You don't like it because you can't see what's beneath the surface. Robin is right below. He'll catch you."
     I looked behind Kid Flash, seeing one terrifying flash of the office burning behind us. I was gasping and coughing, sucking in the cool, fresh air. The hungry flames were a quarter of the way in the room, close to an edge of a rug.
    "Here," Flash said. "I'll get you five feet closer to the ground." He lowered me and had me gripping the edge of the windowsil. His hands clutching my wrists was the only thing keeping me from falling.
     "Let go," he said, releasing my wrists.
     "Let go, Marceline," a voice, the voice from my dream, called. 
     "Let go, Marceline," the third voice was soft, familiar, closer than if the words had been spoken in my ear.
     My heart squeezed into a small, sharp rock. Mom? I thought.
     Let go. Now, she said
     And I did.