Year 6 Month 2 of the burning :

I have this I say to myself, flicking the match again, as it flares up, I toss it into the bucket, filled to the rim with gasoline and other fuels.

I hear a soft snap and start running faster than a lightning bolt in the opposite direction, until I hear an explosion. Then I stop, turn around and watch the flames swallow the village, licking up the buildings like they were a thanksgiving feast. I fall back, looking up at the stars, and start laughing like a maniac, letting the madness consume me. As tears start streaming down my face, I come to my senses remembering where I was and why.

I've been like this for a while now. The Pyro will always be there, it always has been ever since that day.

Most people would have gone insane from the emptiness inside. But I have Blood and thats all I need to prevent the Pyro from taking over, aside from feeding its rage with that pleasant warm feeling you get from having power. Having control. But that doesn't change the fact that it'll take over one of these days, and burning a couple of villages isn't going to stop it.

2: Chapter 1

 

Day 1 of the burning:

Running down the street, I trip over something, probably a corpse, and a red haze fills my eyes. But I keep running, shaking my head clearing the dizziness, if I didn't keep running, I would die.

       This is all my fault, I realize,its my fault that this happened. Holding my breath I run through the smoke to the forest which is where I can breath and find water. Stumbling and almost dead I eventually make it to an open field right outside the city borders, or what was the city. Now it was just a bonfire, for the others to roast their marshmallows. Tomorrow it will be a pile of rubble that was my home. I turn away and start running again, a burning city behind me.

 

      That was when I was ten, things are different now.

3: Chapter 2

Day 2 of the burning:

The bottoms of my feet are stinging from running barefoot for a day and a half, in the woods, at the age of ten.

 

I can get through this, I tell myself, in turn falling on my face. By this point in time I'm losing pints of blood and losing consciousness. That may stop me from running but I’m still able to limp over to a small tree and apply pressure to the large gash on my leg. Eventually I drift off not knowing whether I’ll be able to live another day or wake up and it’ll all be just a dream.

 

 

Day 4 of the burning:

 

  When I wake up, reality punches me as I realize that it wasn't a dream at all. I actually didn't notice the people standing over me, looking down at me with concern in their eyes.

 

  Thats funny, I think after all I've done, they’re worried about you?

 

        There is a woman and a little boy there watching still.

 

“The bleeding girl is awake,”the boy says, he looks about ten years old and dirty. I sit up and feel a river of pain flowing up my spine. Naturally I flinch, and the woman slowly pushes me back to lying down. I don't remember much but she had ocean blue eyes filled with kindness.Compared to my amber eyes, hers were almost angelic.

 

    I have to say something I realize, feeling the awkwardness in the air.

 

   “How many?”  I ask. The boy seems confused so I continue   “How many days has it been since…”I couldn't say anymore, because my jaw ached; probably broken.

 

    “two days”

   “Oh…”I make out before I can’t even breath anymore without feeling like I'm already dead and in hell.

 

 

Day 5 of the burning:

 

   His name was Ryu. The boy. He then asked me my name. Stupid first question, I think ,I don't even know. I managed to stutter that my name was Rouge, I didn't know what I was saying, but I remembered the men who took me away had called me rouge-No.3.

 

   “Rouge huh, isn’t that french for red?”Thats what he said after I told him.

 

   I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

 

“Well, it makes sense ‘cause your hair is reddish too!”he smiled and  laughed. I didn’t understand what was so funny though.

 

  “So is that lady your mother?”I wonder out loud. He tilts his head as if he doesn’t get it and answers “What lady?”

 

“The blue-eyed one who was also there when I woke up.”

 

Ryu looks confused, though the woman was right there next to him the day before!

 

“I was the one who found you there bleeding to death in the woods and brought you to the hospital, and I was the only one to visit you those two days. Plus blue isn't an eye color. It's the color of the dead.”He replied in a tone that read it-was-most-likely-a-hallucination.

 

I guess I sighed, he heard the disappointment and stammered “You can meet my mother though! After your wounds heal I’ll take you to my house! ‘k?”

 

“Sure.” I mumbled, still thinking about the woman with the blue eyes as he leaves the hospital where I’m staying.

 

 

Day 6 of the burning:

 

I overhear the staff talking about something. I can tell it’s important ‘cause of their tone and expressions.

 

   I didn’t catch the exact words they were saying but I managed to snag a few and remember them. “…Pyro…blue eyes…Ryu found her…fire…she has a broken back”

 

  I drifted off afterwards, dreaming about fire and blue eyes, clear blue eyes.

4: Chapter 3

Year 3 month 1 of the burning:

 

 I remember that today is January 5th. The same day those men came and took me away. My wounds have finally healed and I can finally leave the hospital. Every day in there was just waiting for Ryu to give me his daily  visit for a couple hours to talk and give me things to pass the time. 

 

   Of course, Ryu was the only person that had ever cared enough for me to do those sort of things. The people that I knew before weren’t like this, they were cold and………

 

I shake my head, don’t remember! I’m starting over now.

I walk to Ryu who’s waiting for me in the lobby of the hospital.

 “I’m going to your house.”I state plainly

He whistles, which is something he seems to like to do since he does it all the time, “You have your priorities straight don’t ya?”

“You promised.”I say.

“Yeah I know, but…”He attempts to hide his laughter with his hand.

“What’s so funny?”I know I sounded like a wife who had found her husband had two-timed her, but screw it.

 

“You can’t even go into town looking like that!”

 

He was right. I had ratty hair and was wearing a hospital gown three times too small.

 

“I guess so…”

So we went to the marketplace, which had a warm, happy feeling to it, there were people everywhere and they all had smiles on them which made the warm feeling in the freezing weather make sense. It was loud, in a good way, and people were lining up at booths for a variety of things, from silks and clothes to pencils and paper.

 

   It was hard not staring at the place in awe, Ryu was pulling me by the hand to keep me from getting trampled by the sea of people. He dragged me over to a shop with a sign reading ‘Spa’. It was a small building with a window in the front, where a gaudy lady was sitting there with a look in her eye that signaled that I looked worse than I had thought (which is saying something). Gold seemed to be her favorite color, since she was wearing a whole lot of it, bracelets, rings, and even makeup. Though she looked like she wasn’t a nice person, she smiled when she saw Ryu.

 

  “I take it your friend there needs me to treat her?”she said kindly.

 

   “Yeah, her names Rouge, she just got out of the hospital today,”he said back, he looked like he was good friends with the woman. He looked back at me. “Rouge, this is Goruda, she runs this spa. Don’t worry, she does good work.”

 

  I nodded, still nervous about it. I hadn’t had any real contact with people—save Ryu—so I couldn’t speak or look her in the eye.

 

   She sent Ryu off shopping for clothes for me and took me into a small room. The room was full of a strange, sweet smell that smelled somewhat of cherries and shampoo. It felt good to smell things other than sickness and blood.

 

   Goruda sat me down on a modern spa chair and started to brush my hair violently. She asked me questions about how I wanted it to be done, things like “How short do you want it?”or “Do you want it dyed? If so, what color?”and other questions like that. It felt good to be asked my opinion on something for once.

 

 

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After a couple hours, I was washed and ‘done up’(as Ryu said) and felt fantastic. My hair was short and dyed a dark florescent pink color, and my eyes were brought out by the framed cut that just barely touched the top of my shoulders. She toned my skin so it was slightly tanner than before, and the hour long bath I took washed out all the unclean feeling out of me. The clothes Ryu picked out actually looked pretty good, the outfit was just a black turtleneck and brown leather jacket along with blue jeans. Nothing special, but it felt good to look okay.

 

“OK ROUGE! LETS GO!” Ryu proclaimed grabbing my hand and running, thinking that I would just float behind him like a balloon, instead I ended up being dragged on the floor and getting dirty again.

 

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 Ryu’s mother was a nice woman, slim and fragile like a flower, with dark ringlets swirling over her shoulders and hazel eyes that reflected the light of the room. Though she looked shy and coldhearted, her face lit up when she saw Ryu, it was almost too obvious that she loved him very much.

 I wish my mother was like that…loved me.

 

She invited me to live with them in one of the spare rooms. I declined, not wanting to bother them anymore than I already did–since Ryu paid for my ‘makeover’and all. So I left for the nearest empty hut and sort of made myself at home (you don’t need to buy houses in this village, because it’s small and there aren’t that many people).

I decided to stay in this village until I was a threat. Apparently that was too long.