Prologue

I can’t say that I had the best 8^th birthday. After all, good birthdays don’t involve being tied to a stretcher as malevolent looking doctors gather around you. I had no idea how I had gotten there. One minute I’d been at the park celebrating my birthday with my mom and little sister, and the next I was strapped down, creepy men in white coats gathered around me, whispering. They all wore bulky glasses that veiled their eyes and sadistically excited smiles.

When I began to struggle, one doctor approached me with a long needle in his hand. I squirmed madly and tried to pull away as he moved to poke it into my arm. But what happened instead was that the man’s gloved hand suddenly caught fire, almost as though it had spontaneously combusted. The man screamed and the needle clattered to the floor.

A different man grinned with excitement and said to me “So it is true. You can light things on fire with nothing more than your mind.” He pulled something from the table beside me and asked “But can you put them out?” He flicked on the lighter he was holding and a small flame burst from the end.

I shook my head frantically, trying not to let the terror I felt make it onto my face. “No!” I cried out. “Leave me alone! I won’t show you anything!”

The lead doctor’s glasses gleamed in the bright light that was glaring down on me. “Oh, I think you will,” he said as his smile widened. He pushed the flaming lighter dangerously close to my face and I blinked fearfully at the heat. “If we light you on fire, I’m sure you’ll comply to our experiments.”

I began bucking on the stretcher. I squirmed and I twisted and I stretched. Panting, I yelled “No! Someone help me!”

And just like that, the world around me exploded. Fire erupted from every surface. The lights in the ceiling exploded and glass from shattered cabinets rained down. Many of the doctors were clutching their faces or trying to swat desperately at articles of clothing that had caught fire. Several stumbled and fell to the ground.

As the inferno raged around us, a figure stepped out of the newly created darkness and into the firelight. He was a boy, probably a young teen, though I couldn’t see much of his face because of the madly jumping firelight. The one thing I could see was his smirk. He looked directly at me and called me by name. “Hey Araya, it’s about time you ditch this place, don’t you think?”

I stared at him for a moment longer before nodding.

The lead doctor who had fallen to the floor exclaimed “Wait! You must be…!”

The boy stepped on the doctor’s outstretched hand and crouched down so he was closer to eye-level with him. “Yes,” he confirmed. “I’m exactly who you think I am. But that’s not what you should be worrying about.” He leaned even closer to the man. “You should be worrying about the fact that I know exactly who you are.”

The boy straightened. “But first, let’s get you off that stretcher, Araya.”

As the boy stepped towards me, the doctor on the floor screamed “Somebody stop him!”

One man who had stripped his flaming overcoat aimed a walloping kick to the boy’s head, but the boy simply raised his forearm to block it before twisting the man’s leg so that he stumbled to the ground. Several of the other doctors aimed punches and kicks at the boy before also being incapacitated. I squeezed my eyes shut as I heard the slams, crashes, and grunts of the fight.

Then it all went silent.

“It’s alright, Araya,” the boy’s voice finally said. “It’s all over.”

I felt a small heat on my wrists and ankles and could feel the cuffs fall away as if a controlled flame had burned them right off.  When I opened my eyes, I saw his face. The roaring flame, which had consumed most of the room, cast twisted shadows upon it. He was still smiling. But it wasn’t his smile that transfixed me. It was his eyes.

He had beautiful slanted eyes that perfectly reflected the wild flames. As I gazed into them, I felt a sort of heat rising in me, as though the flames all around me had spread to within my body as well. It was a very warm and comforting feeling somehow.

He had been leaning over me slightly, but now he straightened. As he did, I panicked and reached out to snatch his wrist. “Don’t leave me!”

He looked at me in surprise. “I’m not gonna leave you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as smoke from the flaming room stung them. “I wanna go home,” I whispered to him.

There was a pause before he said “Alright. I think I can help you with that. Just keep your eyes closed for me, ok?”

I was obedient as his hand squeezed mine back. Slowly, the heat and sounds all faded away till all I sensed was the warmth inside me.

 

I woke up to my mom shaking me awake near where I had started in the park, then preceding to look me over for injuries while my little sister laughed that I was too old to be crawling up and falling asleep under bushes. I remember staring around intently to see if there was anyone else nearby besides my family. There wasn’t. There were no crazy doctors. There was no mysterious hero. It was like the whole incident had never happened.

But I know better than that. Eight years have passed since that day. And by now I know that I really am some kind of freak.

You see, the crazy doctors were right. I really can light fires. With my mind.

And that’s just the beginning.