Halo of Fire

Shackled to my life

I was twenty, anxious and confused. After having fallen quite unceremoniously face first and somehow ploughing through my first year at university, I had quickly brushed myself off and hastily run blindly into the future congested by acrid streaks of chaos and the unknown that awaited me.

Like I found myself doing very often; I found myself upright and working at seven thirty am on my first day off from university. My hair was piled up out of the way, my clothes were as formal as the occasion allowed and my eyes were outlined by dramatic eyeliner as always. My 'job' involved taking in the rotting remains of homicide victims as they lay poorly sprawled upon their backs with faces wax-like in death. I was a Mind Marauder; being around dead bodies made my mind click and propel me through vivid snatches of photographic images that I had the hastily grab and force together to accurately understand exactly what had happened to the victim. I had the capacity to step into the final flickering moments of the bodies before me and would relive their deaths, immediately identifying their murderers. I had never been wrong. Yet. No one knew of my existence though; perhaps even I was not wholly aware of it because I had forgotten the last time I looked into a mirror.

No one helped me when I forced myself awake all night. No one cared; more importantly, no one really knew and would have stayed ignorant even if the truth ran out in front of them wielding a bloody knife. I work. I work because I do not know how to do anything else; I never did and probably never will. Work is my pleasure, my enjoyment and my passion; I do not have to string together sentences when I am around the books that eagerly await the feel of my hands gently prying them open and devouring what they have to offer me. I do not sleep or rest, food is another thing I stay away from; if I enjoy food too much my mind becomes slow and foggy, stopping me from doing my very best. I take in oceans of coffee though and things like pineapples, dry fruit, whole meal bread and feta cheese in very small portions. My meals are ritualistic.

Breakfast:

1 mug of soya milk coffee

3 tablespoon-fulls of mixed dry fruit.

Lunch:

5 pieces of pineapple

Dinner:

1 wholemeal bread slice with feta cheese spread.

To an outsider it would seem like I am either lying or 'spreading porkies' or else starving myself. The truth is, I am not; ever since I managed to attune myself to my own capabilities, I have realised that my body has very strange reactions to most foods and I can only take in very limited things. According to those people who know me, I get my 'talents' from my father who unfortunately vanished off the face of the planet.

"So, what exactly do we have?" Collin leaned against a wall, his voice pulling me back to the present. "What happened to our friend?" He is wearing a fashionably scruffy suit that suits him; his prematurely greying hair is always badly rumpled because he likes tugging his hands through it.

I managed a slight smile before turning slightly towards him. "Well she is a victim of the skin crawlers."

Collin's lips twitch, immediately giving away his discomfort as he thoughtfully rubs as his stubble. "Hmm..."

I nod and continue. "They took the soul through the familiar slit in her neck. They have removed her heart and threw her down twelve flights of stairs. At least seven of her bones are broken beyond repair and they have taken her teeth. As you can see they also took her eyes out of their sockets and have stitched them atop her shoulders and have gone on to stitch other victims bone fragments into her abdomen. They also planted seeds into holes in her arms that flowers are now growing out of. She has been dead for three weeks; died on her way home from work, she was an air hostess and no one has yet noticed her missing. She is in her early thirties, weighs fifty kilograms and had a bad cold." I stop though I can go on; if I continue, I might slip into her world again and the second time leeches the life out of me, leaving me helpless.