The air was warm and there was a slight breeze. Her dark brown hair splayed out in ripples. She could feel the soft grass between her fingers. Peeking through her eyelashes she saw above her a haze of green littered with bright stars of sparkling sunlight. Thin beams were poking through the leaves and sprinkling her body with patches of light, like little candles. Leaves rustled in the breeze their gentle sound calmed her, reminding her of the sea. She stared in awe of all their different colours and shades of green: soft and light baby green, just sprouting; dark foresty green, green turning hazel; some glittering yellowy gold and even dark purple ones glowing red in the sun. Such a tree she had never seen before, tall, strong and beautiful beyond compare. Its proud branches curved lovingly around her.
Suddenly, the picture changed; she was out from under her tree. The ground underneath her was cold. She needed to get back under the safety of its branches. The air around her was growing hot. Water was rising from the ground and turning to ice, freezing the roots, slipping steadily up the bark. At the same moment the sun increased its heat and the top most leaves caught fire. The fire was working its way down. Panic filled her; panic, pain and grief. Ellena woke with a start.
Ever since she was young, she had been imprisoned behind walls. She was a slave, and hers was the barest of existences: an endless cycle of drudgery, exhaustion and dull fear. Freedom was a fantasy she gnawed obsessively in her few moments of leisure, like a bone with just a trace of meat; and like all illusions, it left her hungrier than before, only more keenly aware of how her soul starved within her, its wings wasting with the despair of disuse.
She leaned back and breathed in hard, gazing up at the distant stars, tiny points of frosty fire high over the smoking volcano. Autumn was beginning to flirt with winter brining lingering frosts.
The bell for sleep had been rung at least an hour ago but she had snuck outside to get some peace, think and try to come up with some sort of plan of escape (an idea which had long become a distant dream) after being woken up by having a disturbing nightmare that she had had twice before and had always left her heart thumping in fear. But anyone who tried to escape was killed either by the guards and their guns or ripped to shreds by the mutant dogs of hell that patrolled around the walls. If they failed, the fire wards that protected the grounds would act as burning prison bars there was no escape though many had tried. Their bodies were brought back in pieces or as ash! Even if there was a way out, there was nowhere she could go. Her home land had been burned to the ground. She was imprisoned not only by stone walls and fire wards, but by the volcano to one side and endless woods on the other reaching up and surrounding the walls and as always the freezing winds of the north. Cold bitter winds that cut and gnawed at her pale skin.
A marching clank from outside the walls broke through her wistful state and she swiftly hid in the shadows as the steel gates screeched open… Soporific heat hit her like an avalanche, as if flames were licking up her body and closing in on her throat. The foul stench of burning wafted up her nose and anger frizzed in the air. Beads of sweat seeped down her skin as she tried desperately not to choke. Opening her stinging eyes she saw a black stone crate, smoke spewing from the tiny gaps as it glowed red. The mysterious dark box was creating a muffled thumping sound as if, whatever was inside, was throwing itself against the walls. A roar of agony and frustration came stifled from within, the anguished sound made the hairs on her neck stand up and her heart cringe madly, as if to try and escape her ribcage.
The master's loud, cruel laugh echoed round the walls. The crate had been carried and placed at the master's feet. Whatever was in the glowing red and black box it was now at the mercy of the laughing shadow that was the master. At the sound, the thumping paused. The master's voice raised goosebumps on her skin -despite the unnatural heat surrounding her- as he said, "well, well, at long last, the beast has finally been captured." At this the thumping restarted with renewed energy and desperation as if the 'beast' inside knew the terrors that awaited him at the hands of the master and it was scared. The master laughed again, "It looks like our visitor needs cooling down. That won't be a problem; will it men?" The soldiers laughed, many of them sported wounds from the hunt and no doubt wanted revenge. "I hope you will enjoy your long stay in our frozen heaven" and with one last bark of laughter, he ordered the men to take the crate away. The growls and snarls gradually disappeared, along with her suffering, as the stone box was carried slowly down into the damp, cold prisons below.
She couldn't get to sleep. The cold bit into her toes but the heat was thumping in her head as her thoughts raced, twirling in a strange dance, imagining what fiery creature could have been in that black stone box. Eventually, she closed her eyes and sank into the warm dusk that separates sleep and consciousness, where reality bends and sways to the wind of thought, and where creativity blossoms in its freedom from boundaries and all things are possible.
She was out from under her tree. The ground underneath her was cold. She needed to get back under the safety of its branches. The air around her was growing hot. Water was rising from the ground and turning to ice, freezing the roots, slipping steadily up and up the bark. At the same moment the sun increased its soporific heat and the top most leaves caught fire. The fire was working its way down. They were killing it. Panic filled her; panic, pain and desperation.