The first fire took an abandoned elementary school in the downtown core. The second, a small mom and pop shop by the hospital, the third and fourth devoured family homes and the fifth destroyed a run down mall and claimed four innocent lives. The worst of them, though, was the last.
Summer was over and the dry heat was replaced with a bitter cold wind and sheets of rain. The fire started late in the morning, at a popular gas station and convenience store and took with it a dozen homes. It started small and spread from one corner of the store to the other in minutes.
Sarah had been running late that day and stopped at the gas station to fill her car when the fire started. She had barely enough time to register the sudden screams and distinct smell of smoke before an ear splitting bang sent her flying back through the air.
The fire had managed to jump from the building to the gas pumps and in a single fell swoop sent the whole lot ablaze. The fire roared like some kind of untamed beast and black smoke billowed down the streets.
A small crowd had formed on the opposite side of the street, where witnesses watched Sarah's body get thrown back twenty feet and land in a pile on the grass, her head smacking onto the pavement on the way. The next several minutes seemed to pass in a blur as the crowd cinched together and staunched the blood coming from Sarah's scalp.
Then she breathed, gasped and took in a lungful of cold air and Sarah opened her eyes to a blurry sky and stranger's faces. Another loud bang rent the air and people screamed as the last gas tank went up in a pillar of smoke. Armored trucks barreled down the street and soldiers filed out, their backs stamped D.U.P. The crowd around Sarah dispersed as a dozen soldiers marched down the street and started to lock down the block.
Sarah sat up and blinked away the fog in her eyes to the smoke of the fire across the street. There, not even five feet from the blaze, was a boy, a kid. He couldn't have been older than twelve, with mousy hair and pale eyes. His arms, they were – they were on fire.
Hands, gloved and rough, grabbed at Sarah's arms and pulled her away from the fire, but not before Sarah caught sight of concrete peaks crawling up the boy's legs and him screaming and writhing about. A flurry of movement momentarily shielded Sarah from the horror before her and when the boy slid back into her view, there stood a five foot high pillar of jagged grey concrete. The flames that had burned into the sky were reduced down to smoldering embers and the rock pillar was dragged away to a nearby truck.
Sarah got to her feet and as she shook dirt and ash from her hair, a woman approached her. She looked to be in her 40s, her face aged from years of trauma and she held herself in a manner of power. Sarah knew immediately that she was dealing with the person in charge of the D.U.P.
"Hello."
The woman wore a warm smile and Sarah managed a weak greeting back. There was something about the woman that made Sarah uncomfortable.
"I trust you have some questions, about what you have seen?" The woman asked, gently leading Sarah away from the ruined gas station.
Sarah's discomfort rose as the woman's hand tightening on her elbow. She was leading her toward another of the armored trucks. The woman looked expectantly at Sarah, waiting for an answer. Acting on instinct, Sarah wrinkled her brow into what she hoped to be an expression of concern and played stupid.
"The fire?" Sarah asked quietly, "I've never seen a fire up close like that before."
The corner of the older woman's mouth twitched, "yes, it can be quite frightening," she stopped in front of the truck and put her hands on Sarah's shoulders. "Now, tell me, what else did you see?"
"What do you mean?" Sarah asked slowly, "The gas station blew up. That's all I saw."
"Come now, let's be honest with each other," the woman said, "I know what you saw and you know what you saw. Tell me what it was."
"Uh…uhm," Sarah felt her throat start to close up. She didn't react well to pressure and it felt like a vice was squeezing her chest. The woman towered over her, waiting for an answer, for something, but all Sarah could do was stand there and fumble with her words.
"Let me help you," the woman said, "what you witnessed was an act of bioterrorism, you're familiar with the bioterrorist threat, I presume? Miss. Keyes?"
"I –" Sarah frowned at the woman, "how do you know my name?"
The woman smiled widely, "I know a lot about you, Sarah," the woman replied.
"Who are you?" Sarah asked, panic ringing in her ears.
"Brooke Augustine, founder of the Department of Unified Protection."
Augustine smiled and a strange sensation started crawling up Sarah's legs, from her ankles to her knees. She looked down and horror clung to her chest as chunks of concrete built up around her body, encasing her. Sarah looked up into the older woman's face and she felt her skin begin to prickle and crawl.
"I think you have something to tell me," Augestine said, her gaze never leaving Sarah's. "I think you've been hiding for a long time now, Sarah, but no normal person would still be standing after that tumble you took. Let me help you."
The concrete was crawling up past Sarah's knees and inching around her waist. No, no, no, no, Sarah thought and a cold sweat broke out over her brow as the tingling grew into a steady burn. It crawled down her arms, across her neck and scalp and into her fingers. She felt the ink in her skin shift and knew she couldn't control it for much longer.
Sarah screamed as the burning grew unbearable and the concrete that gripped her body cracked and broke apart in a blast that tossed the older woman aside like a rag doll. The ground around Sarah had buckled and she stood in a cloud of dust, her skin rippling as a green scaled reptile pulled itself from her back. The ink of Sarah's tattoos leeched out from her skin and a dragon, twenty feet tall, opened its jaw and let out an ear splitting roar as the tip of its horned tail fell away from Sarah's now ink-free body. She could feel the heat of the beast that surrounded her, the familiarity of it and before she knew what she was doing, before the D.U.P could react, Sarah hoisted herself up onto the dragon's back.
"Go, go, go!" Sarah screamed and in a streak of dust and green scales, Sarah was amongst the clouds.
Brooke Augestine wiped dust from her jacket and watched as the ribbon of green dispersed into the horizon, a small smile on her face.