A small young girl lay in the midst of a burnt house. Her skin was pale,
and remarkably unburnt, and her deep brown hair was caked in mud and grime.
She was thin, almost too much so, and her cheeks were hollow from lack of
food. Her face was almost godlike in its appearance, but the sadness and
loneliness in the emerald green eyes showed a pain no god or mortal should
know. She awoke to the harsh taste of cinders on her tongue and ashes all
around her. The burning logs still left smoke in the air, and the sound of
people running toward the area was the only noise besides the cracking of
the splinters as she shifted her weight. Her dirty brown hair was matted
with mud and twigs, the ends burnt and singed. Her sack-like dress hung
about her, engulfing her thin frame. Ashes were smudged on her arms and
face, but she wasn't hurt, aside from the throbbing ache in her head. She
sat up slowly, holding her ribs, the nausea far outweighing the urgent and
unexplained need to run, and hide. She looked around, her emerald green
eyes dull, and lifeless. Why couldn't she remember? The vision came upon
her, with no time to for a reaction. She was standing in a burning house.
The rain was pouring down, the wind swirling her dirty brown dress about
her legs. Her arms were upraised, and her hair was a vibrant red, her curls
glittering as if part of the fire themselves. She was looking toward the
sky, almost bursting with light and thunder. She lowered her head and
laughed at the screams coming from the fire. Her head turned, and her eyes
gazed upon her other self, caught in the tortuous passion of the Sight, and
they were black as a midnight with no moon, black as coal embedded in the
walls of a deep abandoned mine. Then she laughed again, a horrible witch-
like cackle, and the sky lit up behind her. Finally she escaped the
clutches of the vision, her chest heaving, her eyes tearing. There had been
no evidence in the vision that that woman could possibly be her, but it had
come to her, as knowledge, that the evil one who had caused the flames was
her, and yet not. She had caused the fire. She had destroyed the lives of
innocents. She sprang to her feet, then almost fell again with the abrupt
reminder of the pain in her head, then hurriedly ran in the opposite
direction from which came the voices, drawing ever closer.
