Thane, a young boy from a rough part of nowhere, catches himself in a wildfire bred for bleeding, until something in the inferno finds him, something that never intends to let him go.
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I woke up in a bed that wasn't mine.
I didn't panic, at first. It wouldn't do much, and I still hadn't opened my eyes, so nobody knew I was awake yet; and there was definitely someone there to check. I could hear them breathing, the turn of a page every minute or so, a sigh breaking the silence. My ears strained for more, a musky smell in my nose.
There wasn't much to go on, and my memory was a little fuzzy. I remembered the fire, the smoke, something calling out for me to run run run, like I was being chased, the feeling of fingers reaching for the back of my neck. I didn't remember how I'd gotten from there to here, but I wasn't going to sit up and ask.
Not yet, at least.
I found out it was a girl a little while later, which somehow made me feel a little better. Girls were less likely to torture, more likely to kill quickly if it came to it. Or maybe I'd been watching too much true crime. She spoke once, when the door opened and heavy footsteps came into the room. Whoever had walked in hadn't said a word, but she responded with a blank voice.
"Not yet," she'd said, short and clipped. "I told you, I'll get you when she's awake. Now go, before you get in trouble again."
It had been a while since that happened, and I hadn't heard anything since. She'd stopped turning the pages of her book and her breathing had become lighter, as if she knew I could hear her. As if she knew I was waiting. It was dark out; that, or I was in a room with no windows. My wrists were strapped down, but my legs were not. I couldn't decide how that made sense.
I kept track of time by counting breaths for a while, and on breath 568, the voices started from outside the room, deep and faded, but the words were clear. For a moment, I wondered if that was on purpose, but I couldn't help but listen.
"Jared, you need to calm down." A man, older.
"How can I calm down?" Another man. Agitated and named Jared. Not a good sign. "It happened again, Luke! It's all happening all over again, but this time... this time, I can stop it."
This one was Luke. "Stop nature?"
"Stop the deaths from it."
A silence. A few muffled footsteps, a shuffle.
"Look..."
"No, you look." That was Jared. His voice was rougher, grungy. "I get it now, alright? I get what's happening, but it's the same thing every time! They get so close to figuring it out, and then... nothing. They black out."
Who blacks out?
"It could be a part of the transition." Luke is pulling at strings, and even I know it.
I don't even know what they're talking about.
"There was no transition when it happened before."
