Chapter 16: Trial by Fire (Mort)

I came to a while later. Things had gotten worse again. I could hear Gwen shouting. I was chained to something a post in the ground, surrounded by piles of wood. With a sinking sensation, I realised I was on a bonfire, chained to a post in the centre.

I looked up and saw several men holding my sister. In front of them were my father and mother. My father was holding a lit torch. Father was spouting some religious scripture, while mother looked on with a righteous look on her face. I heard my brother cry out, and then saw D run round the corner. She had come to save me.

Hope peaked momentarily, then I heard my father say something. "The Heathen scum are too late to save you, demon. Now we free the soul you have imprisoned with fire." He tossed the torch onto the bonfire.

The fire caught quickly, as the wood must have been soaked in petrol or something. I heard D scream out, and saw one of the men turn towards her. She casually threw him out of the way. The fire was catching faster, coming closer, I could already feel the heat. As D raced towards me, Father attacked her and she just picked him up and tossed him aside.

The fire was getting much closer. It was at my feet, then surrounded me on all sides. D tried to get to me, but the fire was too intense. I could see more people running towards us, Joyce, Anna, Sarah, and Officer Williams. I struggled with the chains, but it was no good, I couldn't get free.

When I saw my clothes catch on fire, I screamed. I could feel the heat surrounding me. I looked up at Gwen and D, seeing tears in both of their eyes.

The fire was moving up my clothes. I was ablaze, fire all around me. I could barely see out of the flames to where everyone was standing, held back by the heat. The heat haze distorted everything. I could hear Gwen's screams as she tried to get to me, while a sobbing D held her back, knowing they couldn't reach me.

I realised though, as the fire became more intense, something was off, I didn't feel as if I was burning. My clothes had been almost completely consumed by flame and my body was at the centre of an inferno. Yet, while I could feel the heat, it was not painful. It was more an abstract quality, just a temperature I could feel around me, similar to stepping from the cold outside, to a warm room. I could feel the difference, but there was no discomfort or pain involved.

I could feel the fire, it was like it was drawn to me. My clothes were completely consumed now, and I was now bathed in flames. The flames seemed to flow through me. Where they touched my body, they clung to me, making me seem to be made of living flame. I was naked and yet clothed in fire. Yet it was more than that, the flames were part of me, as if somewhere inside me, there was a core of fire that was reaching out, controlling and creating the fires around me.

Instinctively, I reached out with my senses, feeling the flames. I concentrated on my hand, and I felt the flames respond, flowing around my hand, with more fire issuing from the bright hot core of my being, causing the heat to intensify to unimaginable levels.

I focused the flames on the chains which were now glowing red hot. The chains got hotter and hotter, going from red hot, to white hot. They began to go soft, then melt away, the metal flowing like liquid off me.

I was free. I stood up, the bonfire blazing brightly around me. I stood at its centre, the bright heart of the inferno.

The fire was so intense that anyone looking would likely have seen only flame. The bonfire had seemingly been accelerated by my presence, nearly all the wood having been consumed. I looked out at the scene in front of me.

It seemed the blazing inferno, and my silence, had made everyone assume I had perished in the fire. Gwen was on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. D stood by her, but was facing my father with a look of fury. In the confusion, my father had picked up a shotgun, probably the same one he had taken my hand with, and was holding it, pointed at D and Gwen.

"Put that down" shouted officer Williams. "Don't make it any harder on yourself,"

"You won't stop me. I am doing God's work" shouted my father. "I have already destroyed the Demon who took my son. Now I must root out the corruption in my daughter."

I knew he would kill both Gwen and D before anyone could stop him. He thought he had already killed one child today, what was one more? The other Morfs girl was merely a bonus. I stepped out of the bonfire, fire parting around me revealing my fiery visage.

The men, who had been holding my sister, and my brother, screamed out in terror. My sister's and D's eyes went wide.

I walked forward, the ground bursting into flame where I trod, the heat reaching before me. Mother turned, feeling the heat, then screamed as the fire reached out from me towards them.

"The Demon!" she screamed.

My father turned and looked at me in terror. He swung the shot gun towards me. A shot rang out.

I reacted instinctively, and focused all the heat I could in front of me, creating a shield of flame, white hot in intensity. The intense heat, combined with the direction of application, caused a massive blast of high velocity super heated air to travel in front of my shield, a bit like a jet engines output.

This slowed the projectiles, and also melted their aerodynamic shape, slowing them further, so on reaching the flames, they fell harmlessly to the ground. The blast of air also knocked Mother and Father down, and rather surprisingly, punched a hole in the barn behind them. Before Father could fire another shot, I focused the waves of searing heat at his gun. He screamed out as the fire reached him. The gun's barrel turned red hot and deformed to the point it would never fire again. Father dropped the smoking hot gun and backed away from the approaching fire.

Through me coursed the anger at years of humiliation and lies. Fire burned in me. I wanted to burn everything to ash. I clenched my fists in rage, the heat building to unimaginable levels. The ground was aflame, fire spreading out from me in a sphere.

As my parents cowered before the flames, I took a slow steps towards them, the ground around me immolated in a circle of by my blazing aura. "You wanted purification by fire? Now embrace the fire you yourselves have set," I shouted.

I reached out, jets of flame setting fire to all the buildings around me, fire flowing like water covering every surface.

"God! Protect your loyal servants from this demon!" screamed my father.

"Fool! You think a just god would protect one such as you? He would send you to burn," I shouted

They were still trying to edge away, so I surrounded them with flames. The flames were so hot their clothes began to smoulder. The rage inside me burned still brighter. It would take so little to let the fires consume them.

I was so full of rage that the rational part of me that knew doing so would probably destroy me, was almost gone. I stared at them, pitiful snivelling creatures that they were, praying to a god I didn't believe in to save them.

Then I came to an abrupt decision. I wouldn't let the rage win. I wouldn't become like them. I had a life now, beyond their petty minded ideals. "I will not let you destroy me," I said in a quiet voice. " It may be less than you deserve, but I will let you go. So the police can cart you off in irons for a life behind bars. I will not take your path of hate and violence. I am better than that."

With that, I pulled the flames back. All the fires went out, and the temperature dropped till it was back to normal. The flames around me receded, and as they faded, they shrank till there was only a tiny flame deep inside me. I realised this fire would never truly go out. It was part of me now.

I collapsed to the ground, the exertion of calling all that flame catching up to me. D and Gwen ran up and grabbed me, being careful to check that I was now cool to the touch.

"I can't believe it you're alright, Tish," exclaimed D. "When I saw them set you on fire, I thought you were a goner."

Gwen said nothing, just hugged me tight. I could feel her joy at my being alive glowing within her.

"I nearly lost myself there for a bit. The anger at all they had done just boiled out of me. I wanted to burn them up," I said, tears in my eyes.

"But you didn't! You stood on the edge and stepped back. You are better than them, don't forget that. You had a chance to hurt them for revenge, and chose mercy instead. I'm proud of you," Gwen hugged me even tighter.

After a while, I tried to stand up, but I was still very unsteady on my feet. I was also naked. my clothes having been consumed in the blaze. D gave me her coat, which was quite big on my smaller frame, which worked to my advantage covering me up.

Then D lifted me into her arms and began carrying me. I put an arm round her shoulders and looked up at her and smiled, feeling safe again.

I looked around. The whole area was a smoking charred mess. I had done a lot of damage. Most of the buildings I had set ablaze were pretty much destroyed. The area where the fire had been set to burn me alive was nothing but ash now, razed to blackened earth in a circle a few meters wide.