They say that when you think you are about to die your life flashes before your eyes. Well as I ran into that burning building, you could say that I felt a little apprehensive. But it wasn't until I saw that flaming board falling that I really began to think about my life up until then.

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The first thing that came to my mind was the first day of high school (Now that I think about it, that day wasn't that long ago). I had just moved so I was in a completely new place with no friends. I was that one shy girl who didn't fit in. I was the one that was different from everyone else and because of that I suffered. All the other students isolated me and I had no one.

The next thing that I remembered was when I was only ten years old. I was playing in the park with one of my dearest friends when a crazed madman came. He began to shoot at random people and I was frozen in terror. If my friend hadn't pulled me out to safety then I would have died that day. Instead she lost her life for mine. After that, not only was I emotionally scarred from losing my only friend, but the other kids began to think that I was cursed. They started to avoid me, tease me, and resent me. It was then that my parents decided that it would be best to move schools, but that didn't help. Where ever I went, something happened to someone around me. At that point I really did believe that I was cursed.

The last thing that I could recall (It doesn't take long for a board to fall after all…) were the strange dreams that I would have nearly every night. They would usually be filled with these dark, shadowy creatures that didn't look friendly at all. There would be so many of them that it made me dizzy looking at them all. I always thought that the darkness would consume everything. Then, out of nowhere, a girl would just appear. At just one glance I could tell that this girl was not normal at all. In the seemingly perpetual darkness she seemed to glow so brightly. As soon as the shadowy creatures turned their focus onto her a flash of light would blind me. When it dimmed and I stopped seeing spots, I could see that all the creatures had disappeared and the girl stood alone. This was the dream that occurred most often. Other times I would dream about many hooded people and other strange people like the girl. Yet no matter what, the girl was always in every single dream.

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The searing pain that I felt throughout my body only lasted for a few moments. I knew that I was still in pain, but my body was just too numb to feel it. The smoke filled air along with the immense pain made it hard for me to breath and I started to see black spots clouding my vision. I felt my mind shifting in and out of reality.

At that moment I couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction. The boy that I had come in the building to save had gotten out safely. I saw him run out of the building before the entrance collapsed and trapped me inside. But saving the boy wasn't really my source of satisfaction. No, it was the fact that I was finally feeling the effects of my own curse. All I have ever wanted was to just die so that people wouldn't have to deal with me. Now nobody will have to be hurt because of me again…

"That's not true is it?" A sudden voice startled me and my mind became fully alert.

"Who's there?" I coughed out. "What are you doing here?"

"You didn't answer my question," said the stranger in a sweet, calming voice. "What you are thinking is not really true is it?"

I struggled to open my heavy eye lids to look up at the stranger. The smoke stung my eyes and they began to water. Through the thick smoke and tears in my eyes, I could barely see the person standing above me. She had pale yellow hair, not exactly blond, but close to it. The girl looked about my age and was of average height (Or at least it looked like she was from my point of view). She seemed normal, but when I saw her sun shaped pupils I thought otherwise. It was then that I realized that this girl was the one from my dreams.

"Is this another dream?" I asked. "Is this really happening?"

"Yes," the girl answered. "You are not asleep, this is reality. This fire will end your life and you will no longer exist in this world Amber."

"How do you know my name," I mumbled. The smoke was making it harder to breath and I could feel my mind fading away again.

The girl giggled sweetly and said, "I know more than your name. I know what happened to you in your past and I knew that you were going to die today. I also know that what you were thinking just a minute ago is not what you truly want."

"How do you know what I was thinking?" I asked. "And how do you know those aren't my true feelings. I want to die so badly. Nobody needs me around. I only cause them pain.

"But that's not true and you know it," replied the girl. "You keep trying to convince yourself that, but in reality all you really wanted was to be needed, to be wanted. You just wanted to be accepted by others. "

"How do you know what I want?" I asked. "How can someone like you ever understand what I want?" Tears began to fall from my eyes again, but this time they weren't from the smoke.

The girl just smiled solemnly and said, "I can't explain it to you right now, but in time you will understand. Now just close your eyes and set your mind free." She kneeled down beside me and placed one of her pale hands on top of my head. Even in the blazing heat, that hand was surprisingly cool. Under that soothing touch, I felt my eyelids close slowly and my mind fade for the very last time.

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"Come on let's just wake her up already, she's been asleep forever!"

"Will you have some patience brother? She will wake when it is time."

"But I'm getting bored Angel!"

"Will you just hush Demon? You are getting on my nerves."

"Not you to Dark… I can tell that you are sick of waiting as well."

"At least she has the courtesy to stay quiet about it Demon."

"Ah shut up Angel…."

Three unrecognizable voices woke me from my slumber. My mind was a bit foggy, but when my senses became fully aware, I began to remember what had happened.

"But if that really happened, how am I conscience now?"

My body started to ache as I slowly sat up. My head was pounding and it took some effort to open my eyes. As I looked around, I could see that I was no longer in that burning building. Surrounding me was this thick purple haze that seemed to go on forever. Within the darkness, balls of light that were about the size of my head were floating around aimlessly.

After gawking at my surroundings for a few seconds, I noticed that there were three people standing not too far away from me. They all had their backs to me so they didn't realize that I was awake. I think it's safe to assume that these people were the source of the voices I heard.

The little group consisted of one girl and two boys, all of whom looked around my age. I faintly recalled the boys calling each other 'brother', but they didn't look anything alike. One of the boys had long dark purple hair that went down to the bottom of his neck. He had on a long torn up black coat, a dark purple shirt, and black jeans. It was almost hard to see him because he blended in almost perfectly with the environment. His brother on the hand had stark white hair that sat messily on his head. He wore a neat, pale gold dress shirt and white slacks. The girl that stood with them looked more like the purple haired boy in terms of looks. She had long black hair that went down to her waist. She wore a black tank top and short black pants. I was about to call out to them and ask what was going on, but the purple haired boy turned and looked at me with chilling silver eyes.

"She's awake! She's awake!" he cheered jovially and started jumping up and down. He was an odd one for sure….

"We can see that you moron," snapped the girl. I looked over at her and saw that she was staring straight at me. Normally it wouldn't have bothered me, but her black, crescent shaped pupils sent chills down my spine.

"What's going on? Where am I?" My throat felt like it was being rubbed by sandpaper as I spoke. I started to cough violently and the pain in my throat intensified.

"Don't worry my dear," said the purple haired boy as he walked closer to me. "All of those questions will be answered in time, but before we do that let us introduce ourselves." The straightened his back and with an arrogant smile said, "My name is Demon, but you can call me Damian. I like that name much better 'cause it sounds much less threatening don't you think? In fact, I-"

"Don' you ever shut up," I said in a hoarse voice, interrupting Damian's little 'speech'. I just met him and already he was annoying me. How sad….

"My you are a mean one aren't you~." I could see him faking tears and a frown. "If you keep saying things like that you're going to make me sad."

"Will you behave Demon," said the other boy. Damian shrank away from me and stood next to the girl. The boy sighed and looked at me with stunning golden eyes. "I do apologize for my brothers annoying tendencies." The boy bowed and said, "My name is Angel. It is a pleasure to meet you child. And the girl over there is our sister, Dark." At this, I heard the girl scoff and mumble something incoherently under her breath.

"An angel and a demon huh? So does that mean I'm in heaven or hell?"

Damian started to laugh loudly and said, "Well it's good to know that you have a sense of humor!"

"Will you shut it," I mumbled

"It would be best to just ignore him," said Angel as he glared at Damian, who completely ignored his brother and continued to giggle quietly to himself. "To answer your question, you are in neither because you are not dead. Technically."

"But how is that possible?" I asked. "It would have been impossible for you to get me out of that fire alive!"
"Well we didn't get you out alive," explained Damian in a matter-of-factly tone.

"You aren't making any sense!" I cried. "You say that I'm alive, but you are also saying that you didn't save me!"

"Calm down girl you are being annoying and loud," said Dark. "Quit being so hot headed about everything." I was about to retaliate, but she stopped me. "If you want answers just stay quiet and let us explain ourselves." I nodded my head in understanding and allowed Dark to continue.

"You see, you are neither dead nor alive," explained Dark. "Your body was killed in the fire, but your soul was not."

"My soul?"

"Yes your soul my dear!" shouted Damian. "The soul is the very essence of humanity and without it a human would have no life. When the human body dies, the soul that inhabits it still lives on. The soul will stay attached to the body for about one day before it will leave. Now please pay close attention to what I'm about to say because it can get a bit confusing…."

"So, a soul is made up of two parts, one of light and one of dark. Normally there should be a balance between light and dark so that they cancel each other out. Well, humans are different. For some reason humans are unbalanced and have more darkness in their soul then light. Now when a human dies, the light and dark start to destroy each other. Since there is more dark then light, there will be an excess of darkness when the light is all gone. When the soul leaves the body, the excess darkness leaves as well and manifests itself into a dark creature. These creatures are evil, vile things that wish to corrupt the worlds with darkness. They hide in the shadows and tempt humans with their dark auras. They cause humans to do terrible things to spread the darkness that they love so much. We simply refer to these creatures as Shadows and it is our job as Peacekeepers to stop them."

"Peacekeepers? Is that what you guys are?"

"Yes child, that is the name we were given when we were created," said Angel. "It is our job to preserve and protect the peace within all the dimensions." He chuckled when I gave him a confused look and said, "Do you see all those floating balls of light around you. Well those aren't just meaningless balls. They are the different dimensions that exist."

"Really? But there are so many of them!" I exclaimed.

"And there are only four of us to deal with all of them," said a familiar voice from behind me. I jumped in surprise and turned to see who it was. My shock only increased when I saw the girl from before standing there.

"I-it's you," I stuttered softly.

The girl giggled and said, "Oh did I surprise you? I'm very sorry I didn't mean to startle you like that." She walked closer to me and said, "And while I'm at it I might as well introduce myself. I am Light. It is nice to see you again."

"I guess that makes you one of them?" I asked. "You don't have to answer that," I said when I realized that I asked a question with an extremely obvious answer.

Light simply laughed and said, "Yes these people are my siblings. Between the four of us, we have to keep the darkness from spreading within all of these dimensions. We each have our own quadrant that we patrol and monitor."

"That must be tough," I commented.

"Yes it is a bit overwhelming," answered Light. "That is why we have brought you here. We need your help dealing with the darkness."

"Me? But how can I do anything? I'm not super strong or anything and I have no special talents at all!" I exclaimed.

"You don't need to have special talents, "answered Light. "You are perfect for the job. You are brave, you are able to accept things even when they make no sense to you at first, and most of all you are able to put others before yourself. Now you may not have been super strong as a human, but you are no longer human."

"Wh-what do you mean," I stammered. My breath caught in my throat and I could feel my heart beating fast than normal.

"Why don't I just show you," said Light in a soft, comforting tone. She pulled out a small mirror from a pocket on her coat and held it in front of me. The person that I saw was completely foreign to me. Instead of its normal brown color, my hair was now a deep shade of red. My eyes were now orange instead of green and my skin was much paler then I could remember. Also, I didn't remember wearing a red shirt or red jeans at all. If I had to describe how I looked in two words, they would be 'on fire'.

"What happened to me?" I asked in a small voice.

"Well your old body was destroyed so we had to give you a new one," explained Damian. "But this new body is much better than your old one, I promise you that."

"What do you mean by 'better'?" I asked.

"This one that you have now, as I said before, is not a human body," answered Light. "You may still look human, but you are not. The same goes with us four. The bodies that we have now were manufactured to do what is needed of them. They are much more resilient to pain and heal quicker than human bodies do, much quicker. Also, we no longer age, but that doesn't mean that we are immortal in anyway. If our body sustains too much damage, than it will disappear and we will no longer exist. Each of our bodies is made to do different things, to use different powers. As my name suggests, my body is created entirely of light and I was given to power to control the essence of light. The same goes for Dark."

"So what about you guys?" I asked the two boys. "What are you guys made of?"

"We aren't made of anything special like the girls," answered Damian with a slight pout. "Like Light said, our bodies are made to do different things. There are many things that I can do while the others can't, but I'm not going to go into too many details at the moment. Wouldn't want to bore you with needless information."

"So you keep saying that your, our, bodies were made. Well, who exactly made them?" I asked.

"My you ask a lot of questions don't you girl?" muttered Dark.

"Now Dark, it is only natural. She knows nothing about us and wishes to know more so of course she is going to ask many questions," said Angel. He looked back to me and said, "They were created by Ammeal, the leader of the Wanderers. And to spare you from asking, the Wanderers are the beings that live here in the Realm-In-Between. They watch over the dimensions from the outside and alert us when something starts to go wrong with a dimension. They are also given the task of helping lost souls get back to where they belong."

"So how does he do it?" I asked. "How did he make these bodies?"

"Well we don't really know the answer to that," replied Damian. "The only thing we know is that he merged our souls with something and that changed our human bodies into what they are now. Unfortunately, we aren't exactly sure as to how he makes these certain somethings or why they are able to do the things they do. "

"Ok this is the last question," I said. "If all of our bodies do different things, then what does mine do?"

"You have to find that one out for yourself child," answered Angel. "All you have to do is reach deep within yourself and pull out the dormant power that lies in your body. Just think about the power within and will it to come out."

"Alright, I don't really understand what you mean, but I'll try," I answered. I closed my eyes and began to think about what kind of power I may have. If what they said was true, then I could do anything. It would be impossible for me to think of every little thing that I could do! I tried to stay calm, but I could feel my anger rising and my body started to grow warm from my rage. How do they expect me to do this! I'm still so confused about everything and they think that I can do this kind of thing on my own! They could at least give me some direction or at least help or something!

Suddenly, I heard Damian start to laugh wildly and say, "She's on fire! She's on fire! You were right about her being a hot-head Dark. Ahahahaha!"

My eyes shot open and the first thing I saw was that it was suddenly a bit brighter. I looked down at my hands and I nearly screamed when I saw that Damian was right. I was on fire. What really freaked me out was the fact that I didn't feel any discomfort from it.

"Well I guess you have the power of fire," said Dark. "How ironic."

"Ah can I get a little help putting this out," I asked through clenched teeth. "I don't really feel comfortable being on fire and all."

"Sorry, but we can't really help you because we will get burned from it," said Angel. "But if you ask it to go out then it will."

"Talking to fire? Are you serious?" I mumbled. "Well compared to all the other crazy things that have happened to me today it actually sounds normal." I closed my eyes again and thought, "Come on fire just go out. I really don't want to have to yell but if you don't listen to me I will have to. Oh great I really am going crazy." Suddenly, I felt the heat start to die down and I opened my eyes to find that the fire was completely extinguished.

"Wow that actually worked," I said in amazement.

"Of course it did," said Dark. "Unfortunately, even though you were able to do that you still have next to no control over your powers. Frankly, I'm surprised you even put out the flames on your first try."

"Don't be so mean Dark," scolded Light as she smacked Dark in the arm softly. This earned her a pointed glare from Dark, but I could tell that she wasn't really mad at Light.

"So how do I get full control over my powers?" I asked.

"I thought you were done asking questions?" muttered Dark, earning her another hit from Light.

"We will teach you," replied Light. "Actually it will be me mostly seeing as I will be your Master."

"Master?"

"Oh when you put it like that it makes it seem like I'm going to be controlling you," sighed Light. "What I mean is you will be helping me in my quadrant of dimensions."

"So I am pretty much just a servant to you guys?"

"When you put it like that it makes us sound bad," answered Damian. "You are sort of a servant, but we aren't going to order you around constantly. You can do your own thing as long as it doesn't go against our codes and you are doing your job when it is asked of you."

"Just so I don't break it on accident, what exactly is your 'code'," I asked.

"Don't kill innocent humans and don't aid the Shadows," answered Angel. "That's pretty much all there is to it."

"Sounds simple enough to follow," I muttered. "So when do I start training?"

"Immediately," replied Light. "But first I think we should give you a new name. I mean, you aren't who you used to be so I think it would be fitting to give you a name that suits who you are now."

"How about…. Blaze?" suggested Damian. "I know it isn't creative or anything, but I would say it suits you Miss Hot-head."

I glared at him when he called me hot-head, but regardless of his teasing I said, "I guess that will work. I actually kinda like the name."

"Then it's settled," said Light. "Your new name will be Blaze, The Eternal Flame. We welcome you humbly and we hope that you will grow to cherish your new life."

"I hope so as well," I mumbled quietly to myself. I could feel their kind gazes looking at me and I felt a small tug at my heart that I couldn't understand. I stood to my feet for the first time in my new body and I was a bit unstable at first. When I regained my balance I walked over to join the others and followed them when they said there were going to take me to the place that they call the 'Home Dimension.'

During the journey I stayed quiet for most of the time while the others talked amongst themselves. I wasn't really paying attention to what they were saying because I was thinking about everything that happened and letting it all sink in. Then, I slowly smiled when I finally realized why I felt that tug at my heart moments ago. It happened because for the first time in so long, I was happy.