Flames And Blades

Chapter Twenty: Shackles

 I wake up surrounded by ashes and in complete desolation. One caused entirely by myself. Seeing as I don't want to wind up like the rest of the house, I run out, faster than the flames of hell towards the other end of town.

Only I get about one street down before I get out of breath. I drop, not far from my old elementary school, and sit on the cold, abandoned road. I feel horrible for leaving a possibly dangerous wildfire alone and call 911 for the fire department. The lines are down. No one is answering the who knows how many calls that have been made for help.

"Hello there, Indi, maybe I can help." A man, about five foot ten, with broad shoulders and an ashy blond buzz cut comments, in a very strange almost husky- if that's even the right term, take on a British accent.

"I'm sorry, you are?" I ask before he comes over and pulls me off the ground to stand.

"Taking you somewhere less destroyed." Is all the man responds with, giving me his arm and making a small daze form around him so all I can be aware of is what he is saying, and making sure that I am aware of nothing more. "You don't know me, you also don't know what's going on. I am going to explain while you warm up." I hadn't realized it, but even in the flames of the house after I let them go, I became freezing cold. I was also extremely exhausted and hyper at the same confusing time.

"I have a slight idea of what's going on, but not all." Is all I let out of my mouth before going into listening mode, somehow knowing everything he will say will be true, even if I end up hating it.

"Okay, well I'll just get into it then. What's happening, has had before. Just only my elite group actually caught onto it. Anyways, these souls- the ones I'm sure you know of by now, are never allowed to sleep. What they do in their dreams while sleeping, causes every element of imagination to come to life. And you see, that has the kind of power that is simply too much for the Earth to handle, so it copes by creating a story of sorts, one where everyone's imagination can be played out and manipulated. The two main characters, as of late, happen to be you and your brother. You two have to fight through the castes of the imaginations used in this Destruction and make it to the center war zone. The top caste of imagination, where all the vile lives.

Hold up, what does this even mean? At some point, I must've frozen in place, as the man made the almost cotton candy like a pink cloud around us deepen into an estranged liquid magenta that clung to me every limb and made me move alongside him. Not even bothering to think deeper into any of what he was saying and rather accepting it the same way I'd accept a child telling me that birds are indeed trees and nothing more.

"Well, I mean a lot of things, but in short, the Destruction, in means of using the imagination of everyone, did so by stripping the humanity of those nearest to its strikes, these would be from each time your brother caused a haze. Those who were broken hadn't any humanity to be stripped of and changed uncontrollably. Still, no humanity means most are quick to violence, thus making the starting of wars so much easier. Once you've found the proper use of these symbols and the map to the top case, you have to fight through it all. Every last caste and layer, survive and find your brother. Once this is done, the real games begin."

Fine, be mysterious and mind reading and melodramatic, but dude, who is this bloody soul so I can smack it in the face for being such a pain?

"That would be you, Indi." Is all the man responds with, he then proceeds to cuff me to a part of a spaceship we somehow managed to just walk right along into. Everything other than his words a green bubbly haze.

"What?" I ask, breathlessly, trying to free myself subtly from the cuffs.

"You, are the twin of both blood and flame. The one who was lonely enough to make the soul tired enough to sleep. Currently your too valuable to my mission to be harmed. So here you will stay- Carlisle will you please get the young lady a room and some food - please!" Handsome stranger than just ups and leaves on me.