Rise from the Ashes

Prologue

When the flames were put out

And all became peaceful

He noticed the monster

Hiding amongst the ashes.

-SW

He was a human torch— a beacon to those lost in the night. A symbol of hope to the one he held so dear; he was the signal that she could come home. But the flames tore at every inch of his skin, feeling like the bites of a thousand ants slowly tearing away his flesh. It hurt like no other pain he had ever felt before.

Screams filled the air around him, though he couldn't tell if it came from himself or some other beings surrounding him. For he knew that there were other people there; they had told him not to do it— to set himself on fire— but he had ignored them all.

He had set himself on fire, just as she had once done— and as he had choked her flames, he knew that she would return the favor.

But she didn't come.

Around him, ghosts danced in the form of flames, calling for his blood to be spilled upon the ground. But he couldn't die here— she would save him from it all. She wouldn't leave him to die.

So he screamed louder, praying that she would hear him and end the fire that felt like his demise. He couldn't die here in this place. He wouldn't allow for his flesh to turn into ashes. She had to save him.

Laughter silenced the screams, a cruel, maniacal bout of laughter. It ate at his remaining nerves, boiling them down into nothingness and fear. The laughter felt like a fork swirling his intestines about like a nice bowl of spaghetti.

The flames went out in a whoosh and he fell upon the ground— except the earth no longer looked like it had before. The white snow was now covered in ashes, and though he could not tell from whence the ashes came, he knew what they were. They were the remains of all that he had loved, and it was all his fault.

He had started the fire— he had ended the lives of all his loved ones. And for what? The girl? The one who hadn't tried to save him?

Because while his friends rested in a heap upon the ground, a smothering mound of ashes, she still remained. Her eyes were the soft brown that he had waited ages to see, and her hair just a few shades darker. Hers was the face that he had fallen in love with— but her face was that of destruction.

"Why?" He asked, his voice barely a whisper. His hands clutched at the ashes upon the ground, groping at the remains of all that he had once held dear.

She walked over to him, and she looked like an angel bathed in the gray light of her new forsaken world. Everything about her was that same faded white that no longer held any purity within it. She glowed in her goddess-like gown of silver as her careful bare feet stopped right before him.

He had to crane his neck up to look at her from his place at her feet. And as she stared down at him he saw only pity within her features.

"Why would you do this?"

She knelt down beside him and placed a cool hand upon his cheek. She wiped the ashes from his face, placed a kiss upon his forehead and rose back up into a standing position.

"Because no matter how bad they burn me," she growled, scooping up a handful of ashes. She paused, then sprinkled the dust upon him. "I will always rise from the ashes."