Felixentric

Scene 8: Nope. Fire. Haghagaa. NO. NO.;'Izskfha NO.

Though the screaming and running and burning had quieted down, this wasn't the end of it.

When he neared his home, the atmosphere around Felix was all wrong. The birds were yelling louder than the trees, louder than when the tree was on fire. The wind was blowing in a way that made Felix think it was coming from the wrong direction. The air itself was hot, instead of its usual frozen deweyness.

"Hello?" he called like someone might be around, hiding behind one of the huge tree trunks or shrubs.

When no one answered, he shivered and darted away as fast as his injury would let him. As if anyone who caught him would put his body up for public display. Like they would hang him up on rafters of City Hall and throw things at him or trap him in a glass case. Or put his taxidermied carcass in a museum for the rest of eternity.

He limped, holding his pant leg off the burn and wheezing. Get home, get home, get home.

He returned to his human form as he went. His eyes got heavy as he did so, but they also stung with the hot-cold mixture of the air.

In front of him, a ball of fire took over the clearing of trees. Felix held himself together, with arms squeezing his own torso, as he stared into the opening of his illuminated house. Flames leapt from the windows and crumpled the door frame.

He fell to his knees, the injured calf rubbing into the dirt.

His worst memory: fire... licking the air but engulfing and swallowing the windows hovering over the city... his brother at the bottom... screaming... humans...

Someone had done this as a strategy to not only to confiscate his home...

It was a strategy of horror.

Because fire was how Hale, Felix's twin brother, had died four years ago.

Felix couldn't move. He wept as the air buzzed and burned. Black smoke rose through the grey trees. Even the glow of fire in the unholy forest was dull and saddened.

Every piece of memorabilia inside was burning up. His paintings were dripping from the walls, mixing together in one chaotic composition of paint and fire.

The candles in his living room were melting away. They spilt over the coffee table and tiles of the floor. They bound the wooden planks together as they too fell apart into ash.

The photographs of his family... the ones he didn't have, because they couldn't afford a camera. They burnt up on the shelving units which didn't exist, because no one had built them. The house didn't just burn down; ideas did, too. Wishes and dreams and emotions...

Fire. It would not leave Felix. He could not get rid of it.

The big laboratory fire... the boys in the cemetery... his house... that Quixotic guy chasing him...

It was a miracle the fire hadn't caught any of the nearby trees.

Fortunately or unfortunately, that was Jupiter.

Felix lied down in the brush where he had fallen to his knees and squeezed his eyes shut.

#

Muffled voices. There was a tingling in his Fade arm. He fluttered his eyelashes, but the scene was blurry. People? The voices were getting loud.

"Felix!" It was like he was in a tank of water.

"Is he going into shock?" someone asked, their voice mustered with panic.

Felix's lungs pushed harder. His heart raced with it. A groan filled his ears and buzzed in his throat... The air was still thick with smoke.

"Sir? Can you please step back?" The response was irritated.