I hurl myself against the restraints: “I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL CRUSH YOUR SKULL, GET OVER HE-” Leather and metal rip open my barely closed skin again. I wail, bite my tongue too hard. There’s blood in my mouth. I spit. Another blow. I scream. My back is burning. Another blow. The skin beneath the shackles has chafed away, so that open flesh presses against cold silver every time I move. I hurl myself against the restraints. “YOU FUC-” A blow. And another, again, and again and again.

  I scream I threaten. I fight. It changes nothing. The voices laugh and I laugh with them, until my broken sounds are no more. And when the last remnants of gravel have faded into gasps, I continue mute.

  Time slips thru my fingers like smoke. The door opens and closes, old blood dries, new one falls, and still, it screeches its rusty song.

  I used to wonder what would happen if I finally broke. I imagined I would cry. That sobs would fill the air until my chest closed up and my eyes turned red; red like the monsters they know me to be. But I don’t. All the forced down tears stay gone. The rage has consumed them first.

  It’s summer. Ash dances in the wind like autumn leaves.

  They flip and twirl, unbound by gravity. One gets lost and lands on my arm. “Go be with your friends”, I think and try to pick the fragile thing up. Instead, it’s reduced to a gray smear.

  Before long, the entire world is sprinkled in smears. I watch with na?ve curiosity as the columns of smoke and ash creep closer and closer. Birds take to the air, screeching panicked warnings, animals bolt past our ledge and thru our stream, my eyes begin to burn but still I cannot look away.

  The smoke has grown heavy. It’s hard to breath. I’m coughing so much it’s difficult to stop long enough to get air, and when I do, it sears my lungs. Thru the coughing fits I stumble back into our cave, though it offers no salvation. Red flickering casts the forest in stark silhouettes. The fire blazes, chases from tree to tree, igniting them like torches before sending their smoldering remains crashing to the ground. It’s deafening. The cries of the animals which could not flee are swallowed by its roar, and still, it burns. For as long as there’s fuel, fire, by its very nature, will consume and destroy.

  Voices mock, demand and beg; some might be real. They burn up all the same.

  The scares the fire has edged into the land remain. Even years later. You can see them whenever you look down. But, legs swinging, wind whipping thru my hair, smiling from ear to ear, I so seldom do. My gaze is fixed towards the sky, drunk with the idea that one day I could flap my arms and be free to go wherever. On days like these, I would imagine taking just one more step and be surrounded by nothing but air. The thought made me giddy.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Mom was furious when she found out. Or maybe she was furious and my dream a good enough excuse.

  “But I want to come visit da-“, I try to explain.

  The back of her hand hits me so hard I bite my tongue.

  “Don’t”, she hisses.

  “I want to see him. I miss–!”

  “Quiet!”

  My mouth closes on instinct. Obey.

  She grabs me by the throat and presses me against the wall: “How can YOU miss him? You don’t even remember him.”

  My eyes begin to water.

  “Stop crying. Do you have any idea how much I must sacrifice to keep you alive?”

  She squeezes harder. I claw at her grip. It tightens even more.

  “And you decide to, what?, roll of a cliff? NOW?!”

  I’m crying and shaking my head. She picks me up like a ragdoll and slams me against the stone wall. My head explodes with pain.

  “I could BE with him if it weren’t for you!”

  I’m dizzy. The world is spinning.

  Moms eyes have glazed over: “You can’t– I promised him.”

  The pain is beginning to numb. Fingers slip from where they have tried, in vain, to claw for air. My arms go limp and still she squeezes.

  “I won’t let you make me a liar!”

  It’s the last thing I hear before the black river swallows me. It’s a familiar feeling.

  When I come to, the sun has set. Rigid muscles protest my every move. My skull is throbbing. Small fingers run over a swollen lip and aching cheek, trace where hands much bigger than mine have left their mark. I press, wince at the pain, let screaming nerve endings assure me I’m still alive. I try to heave myself up and almost slip on the dead bird lying next to me. My favorite food. I kick it. Mom is tossing in her sleep; her labored breaths drown the cave in noise. I look up, to its entrance, where stars shine. A thousand distant fires calling me; and like a moth to the flames, I lip towards them. And away from her.

  White clouds litter the night sky, purple bruises my skin. They burn. Even brighter, now that the wind stokes their flames. I beg the stars to burn with them, to be wrapped in fire, just like dad. And take a take one more step.

  Pain is a constant the way not even air is. I pray to it as my savior, curse it as my jailor and cling to it as all I have left. It feeds the rage after all else has turned to ash.

  But hands cannot hold tight forever, even the biggest fire will one day burn out and all that flies high must eventually fall.

  For the last time I flicker, then crumble into nothingness.

  It’s summer. Ashes land on a river like snowflakes.