Fire...
Oh, how I love fire; I adore the intense heat, and its vibrant colouring; the way it glows beneath my skin; the way its flames wrap intimately around me like a long, flowing gown; the sound it makes when it devours its prey; the scent it makes as it consumes wood... and flesh... My mouth watered at the thought of burning flesh and boiling blood, but I would be unable to quench my hunger until the next soul fell down to me, deep within the clutches of Hell.
The sound of a weeping infant filled my eardrums, and I immediately raced to find the source. The thought of feasting on an innocent life so suddenly was enough to send a burst of adrenaline through my veins and increase my speed. The second I laid eyes on the defenceless, weeping child, sitting on a small stone, surrounded by gigantic, angry flames, I knew that this was too good to be true. Any demon could smell his sweet, innocent tears from over a kilometre away, so I had to devour him while I could. I was barely three feet away when the young boy looked up at me and I saw something terrifying: a pair of pure, white, luminescent eyes.
Those eyes pierced me. A loud screeching sound began to tear apart my eardrums. I faulted and fell to the hard, rock floor, into the embrace of fire. I let out a scream and grasped my head, squeezing my eyes shut as I did. The sound was unbearable. It felt like a dozen - no, more - sharp knives were carving along my brain, slowly and torturously.
The boy now stood before me, the flames parting to create a small, fire-free circle for him.
"Come back," the boy beckoned softly, his angelic voice made my blood turn cold.
I grunted as sweat poured down my face.
"Come back," the boy beckoned again.
This time, his voice snapped something inside of me.
'No!' I panicked. 'No, no, no! This can't be! No!'
My skin began to tan and thicken til they were no longer pale and bony.
"No," I wept, as the tanning spread and my body became less corpse-like. Something inside of me burned brighter that the flames that previously lit up my body. This flame was a bright white, a pure flame.
"Stop this!" I shouted at the boy, venom spilling from my dark lips. "Stop it!"
I shot my head up to see that the little brat had gone. Another scream escaped my throat as I felt the darkness seep from my body. I glanced down at the stony ground to see a dark liquid flowing from my body. I reached down to touch it, but my hand began to tremble wildly and it felt like it was too far away - despite the fact that it was right in front of me. My vision blurred as I felt something sprout from the right side of my back, then the left side. Two heavy objects now hung from my back, close to my shoulder blades, and I knew exactly what they were; wings.
Minutes of this torture continued before it finally ended, and something within me changed.
The darkness was gone.
I was pure once more.
"Come back," a new male voice called, one I was familiar with, one that always takes away my pain and fills my heart with warmth and happiness.
Opening my eyes, I felt them changing from that dark violet to electric blue, and that's when I knew I was ready to return to the surface, to the arms of my lover and my friends, to the light...
