Inferno

Chapter One

Long, crimson hair messily floated down Blaize's shoulders, as a determined brush tore through the locks. Dramatically, the redhead sighed, dropping her head onto her sister's vanity mirror.

"How many times do you brush your hair?" An exasperated female voice laughed, deft fingers pulling back a long strand of hair. Blaize just groaned, looking up. One orange eye open, the girl gave her sister a truthful stare.

"Maybe once every seven, eight days?" The young girl stated, questioning herself more than her sister. A quite chuckle broke through the following silence, shattering the comfortable quiet.

"You're hopeless..."

With that, the very unordinary redhead cracked a smile, closing her one open eye. "Yup. I do my best, Paige..." Blaze trailed off, tracing invisible patterns on the oak wood of the mirror.

A long, shrill howl struck the once again comfortable silence, as Blaze winced in pain. Paige looked down at her sister with a sheepish smile, setting the brush down on the mirror.

"Sorry, Blaizey... at least we're finished, right?" Paige tried to comfort her younger sister, but only earned a bored sigh, pain still coating the edges of her voice.

"I guess you're right. Remind me to never let you brush my hair, again," Blaize subtly said, standing up from the chair. Stretching her stiff, back, turning to walk out her sister's bedroom door.

Reluctant to let her tolerant younger sister go, Paige blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

"You look more normal with your hair brushed!" She called after his sister. Blaize stopped, frozen. Her hand hung in mid air, floating just above the doorknob, as if an echo of the action.

Normal. How Blaize's heart yearned for that word. Hope, longing, and need bottled up as her emotions as the word escaped her sister's mouth. The one thing she wanted most. To be normal. Not to be the flame-freak she was.

Blaize wanted to look normal. No pale yellow skin, orange gaze, or flaming crimson hair. But normal colors, to be able to blend with the crowd, instead of stand out.

She wanted to act normal. To love simple things, to have a simple mind. To only see fire as an object, not as a being.

To feel normal. Blaize yearned to stop the everlasting burn in her heart, the kindling flames waiting for ignition. She wanted to know why she looked the way she was, acted the way she was, and felt the way she was.

It was as if she were a whole entire being else.

"That word has no effect on me," Blaize curtly ignored her sister's comment, quickly escaping the confines of the room.

Oh how she lied. She wanted everything. All the normalities that came with being your average Joe, just being another Jane Doe. She wanted to be like the other girls, not to be the sore thumb in all situations. Yet, still Blaize knew her wish was ungrantable. Nothing could giver her what she wanted most.

She wanted to fit in.

---

Blaize stared at the ghostly reflection in front of her, finger slowly tracing the detail on the mirror. She looked like a flame, a glowing ember in the dying light.

A shrill knock on the door tore her away from her daze. With a reluctant breath, Blaize quickly exited the room, to see her waiting mother.

Hair hung in tired strands, her suit worn and crinkled, Amelia Fortune had had a long day. Hours of work ate at her, consuming the time she could spend with her daughters. But with it only being the three of them, Amelia had a hard trouble supporting.

Paige was oblivious to the fact, as Blaize would rush to her mother's aid, helping in every way. Though she was different, extraordinary, and unsubtle, she always knew there was one person she could count on for love.

Her mother.

With a tired glance, Amelia collapsed into her daughters arms.

'Mother worked herself much too hard today,' thought the redhead, doing her best to escort her mother to her bedroom. With a grunt, Blaize kicked open the door with her left foot. With a relieved sigh, Blaize let her mother collapse on the bed in a tangled heap.

Life was different for Blaize. Almost as different as her.

An overworked mother, ditzy sister, and intimidating child. The world seemed to despise the Fortune family. And most of all, it struck its anger out on poor little Blaize, cursing her with her style, and her way of doing things.

The girl draped a blanket over her sleeping mother. 'Looks as if I am going to be dumped with dinner again tonight,' thought Blaize, a sigh erupting from her throat. But thinking to the days her mother was actually happy, when Blaize's father was still around, when Blaize–being six, maybe seven– would be lifted into her fathers arms, as Paige sat on the counter drinking her juice, their mother being pulled into a kiss from Blaize's father, 'ewww's!' erupting from the girls' mouths.

That was the one place Blaize could fit in.

And it died along with her father.