moonfleur

He wanders the street, aimless, more lost in his head than he is on these familiar car-lined streets. There’s been no change since it happened, the sky is still cold and grey, overcast with clouds that look far too heavy to be that high in the sky.

The sun hasn’t moved too, stuck at an odd degree. He checks his watch. 4:57PM. It’s been 4:57PM for a while now too. He thinks it should be a few days since the ritual wss cast, since he last saw his friends, huddled around a spell circle in clothes far too thin for the weather.

They had done this, shifted him out of time. Out of their time. Because the freeze wasn’t getting any better and any longer at these sub-zero temperatures and he might as well say goodbye to them permanently.

He flicks his wrists, the flurries of snow hanging in the air around him shifting with the movement. He tries again, tries to focus on the pit of heat he knows is buried somewhere deep within him, but nothing comes and his palm remains cold and depressingly empty.

Sighing, he kicks at a pile of snow, watches as the flakes fan out in the air and then get stuck there. He walks down the street, past rows of identical houses, much like his own, but different in their own way. And all of them covered in a thick layer of snow. He shivers slightly, tugs his coat tighter around him.

He should be able to do this. He did it before, almost set the entire room on fire and yet he feels disconnected. Like the little ball of heat he’s supposed to carry inside of him has gone out, flames dying to embers that will no longer rekindle. The char marks on the floor of his bedroom is the sole reminder that he hadn’t dreamt the whole thing up. That and, well, the fact that he’d had to be saved from his own fire.

Embarrassing.

His cheeks flame and he stills, trying to focus on the sensation, on the heat in his cheeks and the back of his neck. A warmth that shouldn’t be possible in a time like this. He tries to follow it, imagines a path of darkness that leads to an empty room full of nothing but flame. It’s getting warmer now, he can feel it, his breath is coming out in puffs of steam, not mist, and there is a tingling in his entire body.

Nearly there. He closes his eyes, concentrates, follows the warmth, holds on to it like a lifeline. His palm tingles slightly and he holds it out, palm up towards the sky. He breathes in, two deep ones and one shallow, just like he’d been taught — a flame needs oxygen after all.

And then he is at the entrance to the room in his mind, a hall full of nothing but fire. He takes one last breath, another, before he crosses the threshold and his hand bursts into flame.

Above him it starts to rain.