Blue Phoenix

Part One: Chapter One

   I see him falling, slowly plummeting through the air, arms outstretched like a bird. His bright blue eyes flutter open and gleam in panic. He opens his mouth to scream as he abruptly meets the bottom of the cliff.  His scream echoes in the darkness as the jagged rocks pierce right through his flesh and I watch in shock as blood soaks through his clothes and drips down onto the rocks, painting the ground. He’s not dead… Yet. Somehow he manages to stay alive, after such a fall. Black shapes emerge out of his skin and dance around on his arms, devouring every last bit of his pale skin. He grins and blood escapes his lips. Only then do I realise it’s a curse, his demon is beginning to emerge, taking over his thoughts and actions. I sit there, frozen with fear. I want to run away but I can’t. I stare in horror as the black shapes open up, and serpents escape in thousands out of his flesh, coiling around his body, squeezing the little life he has left out of him. I hear myself scream, hearing my voice for the first time, before the world around me fades to black.

   I wake up, my face dripping with sweat. My room is still dark but I can see the birds chirping on my windowsill at the thin strings of sunlight reaching out into the purple-blue sky. I’m on the cold wooden floor of my room, confused. Who was the boy? He seems familiar but I’m sure I never met him before. I dispose of the thought. It was just a nightmare, I think to myself as I stand up. I feel a sudden sharp pain on my forehead, as though someone just run an ice-cold blade across my skin, and collapse back onto my knees. A sweet metallic taste fills my mouth – blood. For a second time, I heave myself up and waddle slowly outside into the empty corridor.

   I must’ve hit my head on something as I fell off my bed, I think to myself, wandering aimlessly through the black corridor. But a cut that deep is really strange. I try to figure out an explanation but I give up on it once I reach the bathroom.

   I turn on the light, wincing at the blinding brightness, and look in the mirror. A 13-year-old girl scowls back at me. Her hair, in auburn waves, hangs limply at her shoulders and blood trickles down her face from the cut on her forehead and into her cat-green eyes. From a distance she looks like normal girl, with an injured face obviously, but as I step forward I see a wild look in her eye and notice an ugly snake-like scar coiled round her hand and wrist. Her face isn’t pale but still looks rather dead and her eyes look almost bruised from the lack of sleep. I lean down slowly, turn the tap on and wash my face, ignoring the fact that the crazy girl in the mirror is me. The cold water is soothing against the cut, and numbs the pain almost immediately. If only it could numb the nightmare.

   Carefully, I dry my face and bandage my head before going back to my room. I don’t bother going to sleep, since it’s almost daybreak. Instead I watch the sun rise.

   When morning finally comes, my head isn’t doing much better than before. The pain came back ages ago and won’t go away and my mouth is filled with the bitter taste of dry blood. In the end, I slip on a grey hoodie and shorts and tiptoe downstairs into the kitchen, because I am rather hungry. No-one is awake yet, just me, I think as I walk through the empty hallways. It’s Sunday so I shouldn’t be surprised. As I walk into the kitchen I notice a small note on the kitchen table. I carefully open it, curious to see what it reads.

Mike, I’ve gone to pick up the new kid. The airport is in Dawlish so I should be back by two at the latest. Make sure you have the welcome party ready. Jackie

   I hear footsteps and the kitchen door opens. Mike, the hopeless care-worker, peers into the kitchen, with breakfast on his mind. And I suppose the rest of the kids in the home are awake now too, since he wouldn’t go to make breakfast if no-one was awake.

  “Fancy seeing you here, Eris.” He greets me with a cheerful smile on his face.