The Cycle of Fire

 I would have stayed on the floor in internal torment forever. However, perhaps I had only three people, but they were good people and each one saved my life...

Damini waited anxiously at the cliff ledge. She could feel the energy of the volcano, both physical and magical in a way only a creature of nature could comprehend. Obviously there was the magma, bubbling and boiling, far enough away that the heat was marginal, close enough that it could kill her in a few measly seconds. The magical energy was much more powerful that that though. It made her hair stand on end. She wasn’t sure how this volcano came about, but she was sure that it could trap you and trick you and torture you in a thousand different ways, and she wasn’t eager to discover them either. All this worry and she hadn’t even begun on the hopeless subject of her intuitionless companions.

There was Cade, with his sight - who was really so blind he could not see the evidence under his nose. And there was Ruza, with her apparent disregard for her own life. The two of them were as hopeless as each other.

She should go after them, and she was a coward for not, she decided. But no matter how guilty her conscience, she knew that she couldn’t step any further in. Ruza and Cade were resourceful, they would come back, she convinced herself.

As well as anxious and scared she was also restless. Being alone with her own selfish thoughts was boring as it was pointless. It’s okay though, the volcano distracted her. A scorpion scuttled from a crevice and scuttled towards Damini.

Avoiding it Damini flew backwards, out of its way, but it scuttled even closer. “What do you want, pesky reptile?” she muttered.

The scorpion flicked its tail deliberately and Damini looked in that direction. As she did a scrap of fabric caught her eye. It was from Cade’s t-shirt, and it was stained dark red; a bad omen if she ever saw one. Without further hesitation she flew off of the ledge in pursuit of her friends.

It didn’t take her long to stumble upon the two pathways, and a man screaming down the entrance of the right tunnel. “Janus?” Damini wondered aloud to herself, but the man turned and bellowed up at her, his previous troubles forgotten, “What did you say?”

Damini zapped him and the man jerked for a second. Seizing the moment she flew into the right tunnel flying as fast as she could. It was fairly well lit and it didn’t take her long to see Ruza, stumbling in the distance. “Thank God,” she muttered under her breath.

Ruza turned around, sensing someone behind her. Damini called out to her but Ruza’s eyes were looking straight through her, at a demon only she could see.

But it wasn’t in fact a demon that Ruza faced, but an elf. The elf had dark brown hair, piled neatly on top of her head and a sharp knife in her hand. It was old, and flowed with powerful magic, but Ruza didn’t care about that. Magic or no, this woman would kill her. Maybe now, maybe tomorrow maybe next year; but whichever path she followed, whichever choices she made it would always end here.

She fumbled for her own knife and held it in two hands, “I will kill you!” She screamed, and the lie echoed around the cave.

“How could you? If you don’t even believe it yourself?”

The elf was right, Ruza had given up. There was a hollow feeling inside of her, she wanted to slay her enemy and prove her wrong, but she couldn’t. She could only go through the motions and then she could die. In a fit of desperation she threw the knife at the elf and shut her eyes, presuming she had missed. But the clatter of cold metal on hard rock never came.

The elf was smugly grinning, not a scratch on her body. But it was clear she was no longer going to kill her, Ruza knew her punishment had already been served but she wasn’t sure what it was. A pool of blood began forming from nowhere on the floor, and Ruza walked over shakily, her legs like useless stumps of rubber. She collapsed and touched her hand to the warm, sticky liquid and finally was jerked out of her hallucination.

“Damini.”

The faerie lay on the floor, the cold point of the knife through the delicate skin of her stomach. It was only then Ruza began to appreciate how small her companion was as she bled out on the floor. Numbly she ripped her shirt and wrapped it around either side of the knife, stemming the blood. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” she repeated it so many times it became a mantra, then she cupped the girl in her hands and gently lifted her from the ground. Ruza carried her back down the tunnel, in a trance, until she heard a ringing sound.

The ringing came from through the wall and immediately she recognised it, it was the sound sometimes emitted from those human contraptions like the one Cade carried. Ruza looked down at Damini in momentary indecision but then she continued walking down the tunnel, she had to save Damini.

When they reached the end she stood in the entrance and drew the attention of the bumbling man, “Hey, you!”

The man turned.

“I’ll tell you about Janus, if you save my friend!” Ruza demanded.

“What makes you think I can do that?” But his eagerness betrayed him, he was as close to her as he could manage, but he could not enter the tunnel.

“You have three seconds.”

“Fine, fine! He waved his hand nonchalantly over Damini and the blooded fabric became dried. Ruza unwound it and check the wound, and found it healed. “Good.” She said as the faerie wearily sat up. Ruza gently pushed her back down again, “Rest Damini.” Unable to disobey she did. Ruza took out her blade, swiped and the man and danced around into the other tunnel. The ringing had stopped but she knew where to go.

Then she saw me, curled up, phone in pocket. And once again it began to ring. Ruza didn’t know how to use phones, or even what they were, but she picked it up and examined it. It appeared one side was lit with a green circle and a red one. She dragged her finger across the screen like she’d seen Cade do and a voice started speaking to her, “Cade, Cade?”

“This is not Cade. I am Ruza.”

“What’s happened to Cade?” The woman demanded an answer.

“He seems to be rocking back and forth on the floor with a notably pained expression.”

“You need to snap him out of it, then. Sharpish.”

“How?”

“Use…” the line became crackly and then there was silence. Frustratedly Ruza jabbed at the box. The screen flickered, but not a lot else happened, the voice did not return. Throwing the phone away she crouched by Cades side and shook him harshly. No response. She took out her knife and dragged it lightly over his arm breaking skin, he shuddered but did not come to. “Cade!” she called in his ear, “I’m here, you need to wake up now.” He stilled, which Ruza took as a sign that he was listening. She rested her hands on his shoulders and fixated on his closed eyes.

“I don’t know what you’re dream is about, but mine was about my mom. We dream about our worst fears here, so I guess yours is something really noble, huh? I try to be noble, but sometimes I am very selfish. Wake up, Cade, and you can help me be noble.”

Cade’s eyes opened tentatively, and he mumbled wearily, “You don’t need my help with anything, genius.”

The sharp angles of her face revealed nothing to Cade, but inside her head was swimming. If only he knew. He would not like her so much then.