Prologue and Chapter One

Ignotus wakes up to just another day... or is it?

Ignotus’ Inferno

The Stones of Power

Prologue

I open my eyes. Not because I am finished sleeping, but because something just doesn’t feel right. I look around my room, taking in everything I can in the dark. There is something with white hair on the other bed, wrapped in blankets. A stuffed animal maybe? Then I blink, and there is no white hair, or another bed for that matter. I stare for a moment, then shrug.

I’m just seeing things. I did just wake up after all.

I continue to look around, and I still don’t see anything that would have woken me up. The room begins to light up, and I can smell smoke.

Oh. The sun must be coming up. But What’s with the smoke? Is someone having a barbecue?

I check the time. Its 12:47 am.

Who is having a barbecue this early in the morning?

I roll my eyes, and turn over to go back to sleep, when something awful occurs to me.

If its nearly one o’clock in the morning, why would the sun be coming up?

It’s then that I realize something else. The light and smoke are coming from under the door to my room.

Whats going on? Is something burning? Is mom up? She knows, right? That’s probably it. She got up early to cook or something and then something caught fire. She probably putting it out now.

I get up, and slowly walk to the door. The closer I get, the more I notice. The smell of smoke getting stronger by the second. The light getting brighter and brighter. But it isn’t until I get close enough to see the scorch marks on the edge of the door that I can feel how hot it suddenly is. I try to turn around, go back to bed, because I know what is coming. But, despite all my efforts to do so, i can’t stop myself from putting my hand on the doorknob and pulling the door open.

The moment I do, the door explodes inward, throwing me back against the wall so hard it cracks. The flames that had been pacing outside flood inward greedily, leaping upon everything I owned, and setting them alight.

Fire surrounds me, grabbing me, then retreating when I scream, like it’s teasing me, anticipating the moment I will burn. Then, the flames pull back, gathering into one giant flame that crouches like a tiger about to pounce. I push myself back against the wall, trying to escape.

The fire snaps and pops, and I can’t decide if it’s laughing or growling, when it leaps and smothers me, interrupting my thoughts and throwing me into a burning abyss of pain.

***

I woke up screaming. It was always the same nightmare.

Chapter 1

I took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm my racing heart.

D****t. Every night I have that damn nightmare, and it still scares the hell out of me.

My door creaks open, and my adoptive brother Jade pokes his head in.

“That nightmare again, huh?”

I nodded, still breathing heavily.

“Are you going to be okay, Ignotus,” he asked, concerned.

I nodded again, still not ready to speak. I couldn’t. Even though I had it every night, that damn dream never ceases to terrify me. The thought of burning alive, or even being in the same room with fire terrified me.

“Okay, well, I’m going to go make breakfast. You want me to make you something?”

Jade, unlike me, was kinda short, and had dark, thick hair down past his shoulders. His eyes were extremely dark, almost black, and his skin was darker than mine. Fillipino, I think. Mom had always said that the reason she had chosen to adopt him was because she had always felt that something was missing in her life, and that having Jade fixed all of those feelings. Jade was a pretty good cook, we all were actually, and usually I’d say yes to such an attractive offer, but today I wasn’t feeling it. I just wasn’t ready to sit at the table with my little brother and my mother and have to explain to them that the therapy and meds still weren’t working.

“Well don’t forget that you need to walk with me to the school today. Show me the way, you know.”

I mentally kicked myself. I had forgotten that today was his first day of hell-- I mean, high school. Technically, classes had started last week, but Jade had gotten sick again and missed it. At least, I thought, he didn’t miss much. The first week is always just teachers laying down the same rules the everyone had heard a hundred times before, but with “my own special twist on it,” as my Algebra II teacher, Mr. Clasz (pronounced “class” as he told us), who, ironically, had no sense of class or tact. He told us how it was unabashedly, and I liked him for it.

I snapped back to reality as Jade closed the door. I sighed. Whether I was ready or not, i had to drag my happy self out of bed and face the day.

I climbed out of bed with a groan, throwing the sweat-soaked blankets across the room. I sauntered over to the bathroom on the other side of my room, nearly tripping over my own feet as I pulled a pair of jeans and a shirt on. I stared at my sweaty, pallid face in the mirror. My short, reddish blonde hair was even messier than usual, and my sapphire-colored eyes blinked back at me. I rubbed the slight stubble on my jaw, feeling the soreness there. I must have been grinding my teeth in my sleep. I went to the faucet, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair as best as I could.

After that, I went to my drawers and spent the next ten minutes searching for some darn matching socks, before admitting defeat and sulkily pulling on a knee-length sock and an ankle sock. I ended my morning routine by pulling on my backpack. I went to my door, and struggled for a moment to open the door, as I do every morning; the bottom hinge of the door was broken. It’s been broken for years, ever since I was eight. I had gotten mad over something dumb, throwing a tantrum like little kids do, and had kicked the door, hard, and it simply… gave in. Mom and I had just stared at the door, dumbfounded, before she just laughed and said that the wood was old and probably ready to give out anyway. We had been meaning to fix it for so long, but for some reason we never got around to it.

By the time I got into the kitchen, both Jade and Mom had finished eating. Mom came over to me as I came into the room and wrapped me in a hug.

“Jade told me that you’re still having that nightmare,” she said into my shoulder, which she barely reached seeing as she’s 5’ 6” and I’m 6’ 1” and growing.

I shot Jade a dirty look over my mother’s brown-haired head. He shrugged and turned back to the pan he was cleaning. I sighed, and pulled away from my mother to look her in her green eyes. She and I look nothing alike, and she has always told me that I take after my father. She is short for one, and my eyes are deep, sapphire blue. I have reddish dirty blonde hair, hers is straight brown. But the thing about her that always draws people’s eyes are the awful burns on her neck and arms that she got when our house burned down when I was three. The same fire that killed my father.

I sigh internally. Often times I would wonder what life would be like if my father hadn’t died. Any time I would ask my mother about him, she would get this faraway look in her eyes and say, smiling:

“Your father was a powerful man, in more ways than one. He had money, but he didn’t flaunt it. He was tall, and so strong. He had that reddish dark blonde hair,” she always said, rubbing my growing shoulder playfully. “Just like you. I remember, when I was pregnant with you, he used to carry me up the stairs on one arm. And after you were born, he was so happy. Called you his Little General; the way you used to scream orders for food or a changing in the middle of the night,” she would say, often followed by tears in her eyes.

“He was so brave. When he woke up and saw the fire, he picked me up and ran right out the door, setting me down on the grass, and he ran right back inside, screaming for me to stay there, that he would go get you. But then… he…”

She never had to finish. I knew what came next. He made it to my bedroom, and threw open the door, only to have the roof collapse on top of him, crushing him and blocking my escape.

“I felt it,” mom said. “I felt him… leave,” she would say, sniffling.

So, she sprinted inside, and up to my room, tearing the burning wreckage off my father, but not to save him; she knew instinctively it was too late for that. She was trying to save me, and she burned herself, badly, doing so. Somehow, I escaped without so much as a scratch.

The psychologist tells me that the memory of my house burning down is where my nightmare is coming from, and to that I say no s**t sherlock, now what do I do to stop it, but of course he only ever gave the same advice. To talk to people about it, and to take my meds.

“You know Dr. Kenler says you need to talk about it, Ignotus,” Mom said in a stern voice.

“What else is there to say, mom,” I said, moving over to the cabinet to grab a pop tart and my meds. Red pill, blue pill, green pill, purple pill; it’s like swallowing a damn rainbow every morning. Three for the dreams, and one for anger management. “I’ve been having this nightmare for over ten years, and I’ve been talking about it every morning for at least five. I’ve been over every single detail I can think of.”

“Well, it’s part of your therapy Ignotus.”

I choked down the pop tart, then the pills, then chased it down with some milk out of the fridge.

“I’m just not feeling like it today, Mom. Okay?”

Mom looked at me, then sighed.

“Okay, fine. It’s about time for you to head out anyway. Don’t forget to take Jade with you.”

“I won’t, mom.”

As i headed out of the kitchen, I felt mom grab my arm. I turned around, confused, and she wrapped me in a hug again. I was about to ask her what was wrong when she said:

“Happy sixteenth birthday, Ignotus.”

I smiled. She had remembered, of course.

Even without a dad, my mother does enough to make us happy for two parents.

“Thanks mom,” I said, wrapping my arms around her once more. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Now, take your brother to school before he hurts himself,” she said, gesturing to Jade, who was shifting impatiently near the door.

“Will do, mom,” I said, and made my way out the door, motioning for Jade to follow me. Which he did. With gusto.

As I waved goodbye and rushed out the door with Jade in tow, I wondered what my present would be. I had no way of knowing that I wouldn’t be there that evening to receive it.

I headed down the sidewalk, Jade literally skipping next to me. I groaned internally.

“Do you have to skip, man?”

“What do you mean,” he asked, like I spoke in another language.

“You’re acting like a little kid.”

“Oh, now you’re just being mean. I’ll do what I want.” He accentuated his point by skipping even faster, to the point I had to jog to keep up. His arms flailed around comically as he hopped, his hands nearly losing their ever-present black gloves, which he hastily pulled back on.

Jade had always had a big problem about his hands. I had never even seen them, that’s how bad he was about it. I had tried asking him about it, years ago, but he refused to tell me. So I questioned mom about it, and the reason she gave me was….. Messed up to say the least. Apparently, there was a really good reason he was taken away from his crap excuse for parents. They didn’t want him anymore, so they literally ran him over with their car, and crushed his hands in the process. He survived, and his “parents” are in prison now, but he’s still messed up about it; he can’t even look at his hands without freaking out. Not that I blame him…..

I am pulled out of my thoughts by the blaring of a horn, and before I can even think about it, my hand darts forward to grab Jade by the collar before the teenager behind the wheel of an ugly 80’s convertible could run him down.

“A*****E,” I shouted after him as he sped off without so much as a backwards glance.

“What are you yelling for,” Jade asked incredulously.

“Did you not just see that guy nearly run you over?!?!?!?” Jade just blinked at me.

“He wasn’t going to hit me. He would have slowed down.”

“You say that Jade, but he honked at us like we were the ones doing something wrong,” I said. Of course, Jade was the one not paying attention, but that’s not the point. “He didn’t even look back.”

“He would have stopped,” Jade said confidently.

I shake my head, flabbergasted. Jade was just too innocent sometimes.

“Come on, bro. Let’s go to school already.”

Author's Note

hey guys I uploaded this story a long time ago, but it's undergone a lot of change since then and I'm finally happy with how it's going. Let me know what y'all think; if y'all like it I'll upload a chapter every sunday if I can. Open to any and all feedback! Thank you!

Reviews

[JaneDavies]

I think this is going to turn into an interesting story. A couple of grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes and a few places you forgot to capitalize the I.
A few agents and editors have told me never to start a story with a dream or your character waking up. Red Scarf actually started with her having a dream, but I had to rewrite the entire first chapter and rearrange it. So I started Chapter 2 with the dream. I will be posting it shortly.

[Jeremiah N. Tarvin]

thank you but i perscribe to the idea of "chekov's gun", meaning every detail has a purpose, and will be used later. There is a reason this starts with a dream, and i will show why it's important later in the story.

[Jeremiah N. Tarvin]

do you think I should upload again this coming Sunday?

[JaneDavies]

I would definately like to read more, so the answer is yes.

[Jeremiah N. Tarvin]

will do then