Five minutes before
When the FAYZ came down, Ellen found it funny in a morbid way that it came down in a burst of fire.
She watched from the window of her apartment as great clouds of red and grey rushed in from the Stefano Rey. Even though her window was barely open, Ellen let out a slight cough. The death cough and the fires had done damage not even Lana could remove.
"Wonder if they'll make me deal with it when it hits the town," she said wryly. Her stomach twinged with hunger, but there was nothing to be done about it. Not when the Gaiaphage was murdering kids left, right, and centre. "Wouldn't that be great."
"She's lying." Ellen rolled her eyes at the boy with the long hair who was perching on the edge of the bed, eyes wide and distant. "She does it a lot when she's scared, Spidey."
"Sarcasm still setting off your lie-detector?" Ellen asked. She'd found Toto yesterday morning, wandering the streets of Perdido Beach in the wake of Gaia's vicious assault on the lake.
Her friend Sara hadn't been with the survivors that dragged themselves into town later on. Just another loss to add to the pile.
Kids still called her Fire Chief Ellen even though Ellen had watched the rest of the fire team get devoured by those insects. She hadn't put out a fire in months. Not that there had been any fires in that time, until the dome went dark and desperation threatened to raze everything they had worked for.
Not that it mattered. Gaia had single-handedly killed half the FAYZ over three days. The creature the Healer referred to as the Darkness would finish the job soon enough.
Ellen found herself indifferent to the thought of her imminent death. Everyone had done all they could, endured so much loss and grown stronger as people, only for it to be cruelly snatched away at the final moment.
It wasn't surprising that fate would screw them all over one last time. Besides, at least it would finally put an end to everything.
One way or another, the endgame would conclude before the sun went down.
There was a sudden loud bang that sounded suspiciously like a bomb going off.
Ellen was still looking out of the window as the FAYZ wall went a blinding shade of white and thunderbolts of fire rained down from the sky. The explosive noise was a change from the sounds of children screaming at least.
When the glow faded and the explosions stopped and Ellen could see the horizon again, there was a sudden blast of air that forced the window wide open and brought the smell of smoke into the room that masked the stench of her makeshift bedpan that was due an emptying.
"Swell," Ellen said dryly, expectantly turning to Toto for his objection.
The boy remained silent and looked at Ellen in bewilderment. "Yes?" he asked.
A weird feeling came over Ellen that was equal parts fear and hope. "I just lied," she said. "And you didn't do anything?"
"I didn't?" Toto echoed. He looked at a space only he could see. "Spidey thinks it would be good if you lied again."
"Fine," Ellen said. "Uh... I'm a fifty-year-old man married to a flightless bird." It was the most blatant, most ridiculous lie, but hopefully it would do.
"I know it's a lie," Toto said. "But I wasn't told it was a lie." He did a weird, disjointed laugh. "Is the Truth Teller no more?" Toto fell off the bed as he laughed and laughed and laughed.
Ellen looked out of the window again. She couldn't see any kids below in the streets, but she had grimly expected this. What caught her surprise was that the smoke had changed direction.
It was now blowing to the north.
Beyond the FAYZ barrier.
"Oh my God," Ellen said, and then there was the sound of sirens and the sight of emergency vehicles speeding up the highway.
When the paramedic burst into the room ten minutes later, Ellen couldn't stop crying.
Three days after
Ellen woke to a sterile smell and the sensation of someone holding her tightly.
Reflexively she went to grab the hunting dagger behind her pillow before she had even opened her eyes.
When her hand rested on a smooth bed sheet Ellen realised something wasn't right.
She opened her eyes to see her older sister Katrina hugging her with tears dripping from the young woman's face onto the blanket.
Ellen blinked in bewilderment. Her mom and dad stood a few feet away from the bed. They were crying, too.
Her first thought was: Am I in heaven?
And then Ellen realised.
She began to cry again until her throat burned and she passed out.
One week after
She soon found out that she was in a hospital in Santa Barbara along with Dekka Talent and Elwood Booker. They were only an hour away from Diana Ladris and Astrid Ellison. The other FAYZ survivors were distributed throughout several other hospitals ranging from Sacramento to LA. The Brattle-Chance kids were being tended to in some cushy hospital over in New York. One kid had been sent way up north to Seattle.
Every minute Ellen reeled with the simple fact that it was over. The FAYZ was gone. It was finally done with.
The FAYZ had left her with some kind of lung problem that meant she would have to use an inhaler from now on.
"They're thinking you burned your lungs out by smoking," Dekka had said after Ellen had come back from her review.
Ellen had laughed at the absurdity of it. She was the last person who would have been subjected to that.
Elwood didn't say much. He mostly just sat on his bed and stared off into space in a way that reminded Ellen of Toto in that apartment on the final day of the FAYZ. Elwood came and went as doctors and psychiatrists took him, and sometimes he just cried for hours on end.
Dekka called it PTSD before any medical professional could.
When the FAYZ had come down, the mutant powers vanished along with it. Apparently Sam Temple was reeling with severe burns that, without Lana's healing power, would scar him forever.
Sometimes Ellen found herself waking up in the early hours with the taste of smoke in her mouth and tears soaking her pillow. She didn't like to think about it.
Dekka, too, wept when she thought nobody could see her. But she managed to put herself together the rest of the time. Enough to sneak out of the hospital and gather information on what was going on out there.
Enough to remind Ellen that life was going on in a world beyond the FAYZ. And that she was part of it.
Eight days after
"Just... just go fuck yourself, all right?"
Dekka Talent stormed through the doors into the hospital ward with murder on her face and tears in her eyes. Ellen was out of her bed and rushing up to her side before she could think.
"What happened?" she asked. Dekka stopped and balled her fists up. She looked like she was ready to punch a hole through the wall.
"Therapy," she said through gritted teeth. "They brought up Breeze. Thought they could help me move on."
That was all Dekka could say before her anger was washed away by grief. This was the first time Dekka had cried in front of anyone since the FAYZ came down.
Ellen felt sympathy with Dekka. These therapists would never understand, truly, what it was like to feel what they felt. They couldn't. They hadn't lived through the FAYZ.
She wrapped her arms around Dekka and let the older girl sob onto her brand new shirt until there were no tears left.
Nine days after
They stopped receiving news from the outside world. Dekka had asked, and the nurse had said it was due to "legal matters."
It was what Ellen had begun to fear as the FAYZ drew to a close. People wanted to take legal action against the survivors.
"They're gonna try and put kids in adult jails," Dekka had said the moment she realised the ramifications of being cut off from outside information. "Or scapegoats at least. Kids who had power. Kids who did something. Kids who can easily be profiled as a criminal. Kids who can be locked up without anyone caring. Kids like you and me."
When Ellen had asked what Dekka had meant, the girl had merely scoffed. "Look at us," she had said venomously. "The cops'll try and take us down because we're not white before they even review our cases."
Ellen had never really thought about her brown skin and Native American heritage before. Not until now, at least.
"If you thought racism was dead," Dekka said, "you won't do when this is all through."
A few hours later, a man in a suit with an angular jaw and grey hair entered the ward and approached Ellen's bed.
"Helena Wilson," he said in an accent that immediately made Ellen think he came from a rich background. "You're coming with me to answer some questions."
"Don't worry. She's no savage thug," Dekka called out with poison on her tongue as the man forced Ellen to her her feet. The man looked at Ellen and Dekka like they were dirt ground into his spotless shoes.
"I want my mom," Ellen said.
Ten days after
None of them were allowed to get in touch with their parents. Supposedly it was because they were under suspicion.
Elwood had been allowed a ten minute phone call to his dad. It was the most coherent he had been.
Ellen and Dekka were given nothing. Just a look of power and dominance that tried to put them in their place.
The police wanted to stop the therapy and support for the kids. Suspected felons shouldn't be allowed the privilege, they had said.
The hospitals had ignored this at first, saying their duty to care for the kids took priority over anything.
Still, it was clearly no coincidence that Dekka's therapy had stopped after she had told them she was gay.
Ellen was on some waiting list that was questionably real. If Toto were here and with his power, Ellen imagined what he would say.
"Bullshit," Dekka said, sitting on one of the couches in the room. They were all wearing new clothes that some high-end fashion company had donated to them. Even the extra-small size felt baggy on Ellen's frame. "There's no other way about it. It's not about justice; it's about a bunch of rich pricks using what happened in the FAYZ to make their fat pockets even fatter."
"It's beyond messed up," Elwood said, more lucid than he had been. Before his therapy had been dropped, he had been given a container of pills that made him feel better. Ellen couldn't lay eyes on the drugs without thinking of Mary Terrafino and how if only this had been available in there, she would have survived. "They're treating me terribly, but they talk about you like you're worth less than crap."
"I wouldn't say that to them," Dekka said bitterly. "They'll drag you down along with us if you're seen sympathising with those who oppose the rich white men in power."
"I'd rather do that than betray you," Elwood said. "Dahra..." And he shut down.
It had been common knowledge that Elwood and Dahra had broken up during the death cough. It had all gotten too much for Dahra and both had agreed they had needed some space.
The end of their relationship hadn't meant that they had stopped caring about one another. Dahra's death was the hardest part for Elwood. It was her name he would wake up screaming at three in the morning when everything was still and quiet.
The drugs had made things like sudden noises and the visits from the cops and the FBI manageable. They hadn't managed to dent the damage Dahra's death had done in Elwood's mind.
"We don't even know the first thing about the law," Ellen added when Elwood began to clench his fists and cry silently. "How can they expect us to even understand what's going on?"
"You think they care?" Dekka said. "Hate is hate. Hate didn't die with Zil Sperry. It didn't die with Drake Merwin. And it sure as hell won't die with these bastards."
Twelve days after
Wilful destruction of government and private property, theft, trespassing, arson, and physical assault. These were the crimes Ellen would be tried for.
Dekka was to be charged for the murder of Zil Sperry on top of all that.
Zil Sperry. A scrawny, hateful bigot whose stupidity would have destroyed the fragile society maintained in the FAYZ.
"Of course it would be him," Dekka scoffed as she tore her pillow apart along the seams. "They probably felt it was an attack on their kin." She threw the pillow across the room. It hit the wall and pulled down a poster about breast cancer screenings.
Because Elwood had assisted with tending kids in the makeshift infirmary, each death that occurred would be counted as an individual charge of manslaughter. He had something stupid like fifty counts of manslaughter to answer for, as well as the basic crimes every kid had inadvertently committed.
Even four-year-olds were looking at thirty years minimum.
The trials were due to start in the new year. Halloween was in two weeks. In two months, every last one of the hundred and ninety-six would be put through a whole new hell: the corrupt legal system.
Ellen's interrogators had told her some were clamouring for the death penalty.
"You'd better hope to God that your folks can get a miracle worker for a lawyer, Fire Chief," one of the FBI agents had told her with malice.
A nurse had told them of a legal defence fund that served to protect the survivors from the cruelty of the law. Connie Temple and Abana Baidoo were spending every waking moment campaigning for all charges to be dropped. The young man hadn't been seen the following day.
Ellen asked about it in her next interrogation session.
"It might work for some," the man speaking to her said. "But for those like the illegal Mexican immigrant and that Muslim boy who's clearly a terror threat? It won't work. Justice will be dealt."
Two weeks after
Ellen was beginning to go stir crazy.
She, Dekka, and Elwood were confined to the hospital until further notice. The people in power wanted the kids under constant monitoring until the trials. They called it extended medical support.
Ellen wasn't sure if anyone really believed that.
She quickly fell into a routine which consisted of interrogation, discussing the injustice with Dekka, keeping Elwood grounded in reality, and waking up at night drenched in sweat and tears following nightmares of searing flames and suffocating smoke.
One month after
The legal defence movement had worked. The Supreme Court had ruled that all charges were to be dropped.
It had been a note written by Caine Soren hours before his death that had saved every last FAYZ survivor. Supposedly he had a second power that made the kids commit every last evil act.
Dekka nearly choked on her glass of water when the news was broken. "Well I'll be damned," she said before crying.
Their parents were allowed to see them again the next day. They still weren't being given any therapy, but at least they weren't viewed as criminals any longer.
Elwood's parents had come in a whisk of hugs, kisses, and tears. Dekka's family had been frosty but caring. Their reunions stirred something inside Ellen. It made her want to destroy the floodgates that kept her emotions in check.
When those doors opened for the third time and her family walked through the door, tears spilled out of Ellen's eyes and her heart threatened to turn to liquid as she ran across the room and into the best embrace of her life.
"Mom."
Thirty-three days after
Ellen's family had moved to a small suburb in Santa Barbara. It was familiar enough that it gave Ellen a sense of reassurance without dredging up terrible memories.
The house was much larger than she had been used to. She had cried when she had taken her first shower in months.
When Ellen first stepped out of her car and onto the driveway of her house, there had been a neighbour waiting for them. An old man dressed in a military uniform. A Vietnam veteran who had come to pay his respects.
The small salute and solemn look he gave her meant more to Ellen than anything after the FAYZ had so far.
Two months after
On Thursdays Ellen attended group therapy at the local mental hospital. Elwood was there. And, most surprisingly, Toto. When he was stable enough.
The other kids always sat away from them, and looked at them in reverence and fear. It was at this point that Ellen realised that she would never truly be one of them. She had never received a mutation, but the FAYZ had deeply changed her nonetheless.
She mostly spoke of her experiences in the FAYZ and her nightmares. The therapists concluded that she had developed pyrophobia as a result of her trauma.
Only Elwood understood when Ellen began to laugh and then cry.
"It's stupid," he told her as she cried into his arms. "It's stupid how screwed-up we all are."
Elwood had seen Abana Baidoo. He told her all about Dahra's heroics and how many lives she had saved. Ellen had never seen him cry like it. But they were tears of catharsis, not tears of grief.
Slowly, piece by piece, they would rebuild themselves.
It might be tomorrow. It might be a decade from now. But it would happen.
Two and a half months after
There was a horribly violent storm pouring down from the sky as Ellen stood in the church next to Elwood. Every time she looked at something, she would just begin to cry.
Toto had killed himself three days ago. He'd hanged himself in the bathroom using his bedsheets after writing im Sorry spidey on the wall with a green crayon. The worst part was that, despite her grief and sorrow, Ellen wasn't surprised.
Toto had been damaged long before the FAYZ. It had only ever been a matter of time before he truly lost it.
Ellen had been invited to the funeral because she had saved his life on the last day of the FAYZ. She had brought Elwood along for support. She needed someone with her who truly knew what the FAYZ was like.
She'd found out that Elwood only lived a half hour away from her. Both of them would be going to the same high school next year.
School. That was a weird thing to think about. It was so docile. So benign. So normal.
But maybe normal wasn't a bad thing. Ellen had seen first-hand what the alternative to normal was.
She would never call any aspect of daily life boring. She had cried in a Pizza Hut last night the instant she saw the menu. None of it would ever get boring. Never.
"Please join us in prayer if you can." Ellen tuned back in as a silence fell over the church. She bowed her head and closed her eyes and tried to ignore how her tears kept dripping onto the floor like the rain onto the roof.
God, if You're truly there, please give Toto peace wherever his soul has gone. The boy has suffered more than anyone should ever know. At the very least, let him find happiness in death.
When the body was taken to be cremated, Ellen tried to fight back the panic that flooded her senses at the thought of the body being taken by the flames and smoke. Elwood kept her grounded like she had done for him in the hospital.
She may have feared fire, but Ellen was quickly learning that water led to tears and drowning and could be just as harmful. Maybe what she really needed to do was focus on the ashes left behind by the fire and build anew from the fertile land they created.
Not quite like a phoenix. No; Ellen would be the ashes themselves. Ruined by fire, but still able to create a new life in the wake of terrible destruction. Slowly but surely, she would rebuild.
It would be neither drowning nor burning. It wouldn't be destruction. It would be stability.
It would be hope.
Three months after
Ellen had accepted the invitation to the Perdido Beach memorial. Elwood had chosen to come with her. Her sister Katrina had driven them.
They were forced to stop when Ellen got one look at the scorched remains of the Stefano Rey and found herself feeling the flames licking against her skin and tasting the smoke on her tongue and realised that she would never be able to return to Perdido Beach.
Elwood took her out of the car and walked with her for an hour until she eventually collapsed by the roadside and began to cry again. They held on to each other until they could once again breathe.
Ellen didn't berate herself for this moment of weakness. Even the most fertile of soil needs to be watered for anything strong to grow.
Eight months after
Ellen sat on the beach and stared out at the ocean as the sun hung just above the horizon. Fire and water coming together to make something beautiful.
Elwood waded in the water a little further ahead, looking the most relaxed he had ever done.
She scooped a handful of sand and watched the grains slide through her fingers. A beach was made of billion of shattered fragments that somehow gained strength from their unity.
It was all around her. All Ellen needed to do was amass as many fragile pieces to rebuild and grow strong and stable and secure.
A little later, when she and Elwood shared that kiss on the sand, Ellen knew that they would only ever gain that strength and security together.
A broken piece could only ever be fixed when put together with another broken piece. When that happened, something truly beautiful and strong would emerge.
Eleven months after
By the time school started up, Ellen had done her best to put the two broken pieces together. It wasn't perfect, but she and Elwood were recovering and healing.
Even with the therapy, and even with Elwood, the nightmares made up of flames persisted in haunting Ellen. She would dream that she was back in the FAYZ, and she would see Perdido Beach burn and take the lives of all the kids with it, before she was finally consumed by the flames herself. And Elwood would still wake up screaming the name of someone whose death he felt responsible for. Sometimes Ellen knew the names. Sometimes she didn't.
Ellen very nearly began to cry when she saw a boy her age light a cigarette in the bus stop. Elwood had held her hand tightly until she was able to focus on anything other than the flame and smoke in front of her. It was incredibly difficult, but she had managed to arrive at school with only a few hitched breaths.
"See?" Elwood said as they stepped off the bus. "We can do it. We can do it."
As they walked through the hallway, kids around them parted out of reverence. Ellen heard whispers of, "They're the ones. The survivors." The survivors. They made it sound like it was a symbol of status. They were all so naïve.
"Hey. What the fuck's going on?" Ellen turned around to see a group of four or five older girls standing in the hallway. The tall one with bleach-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes stared her down challengingly. "Who the fuck are you?"
Despite the weight Ellen had gained over the past few months, she was still half the size of the girl in front of her. She felt like a skeleton.
Elwood stiffened by Ellen's side. The solidarity felt good.
"Aren't they from Perdido Beach?" a voice said. "The survivors?"
"Huh?" the girl said. It hurt Ellen to see how much someone could buy into the high-school bitch archetype so completely. "Oh yeah. What was it: Fire Chief Ellen? You like playing with fire?"
It was an automatic reflex.
Ellen launched herself away from Elwood and before she knew what she was doing, had clocked the girl around the jaw. The taller girl spiralled to the floor and let out a piercing shriek as a stream of blood poured from her nose.
"Oh my God," Ellen said. She covered her mouth with a hand to stifle her sobs. "Oh my God." It felt like someone had dangled a match over her ashes, threatening to burn her to nothing. Fear gripped her so tightly she felt like she would vomit. She tried to ignore the trembling. Tried to remain stable and solid and whole.
She had forgotten.
There would always be a rift between her and her peers marked by the scars the FAYZ left on her mind. She would never be a teenage girl. She would always be just a survivor.
Ellen had seen documentaries on war veterans and what they had gone through when returning to the real world.
She wondered, and not for the first time, if this was how they felt.
Eighteen months after
Attending prom as a survivor and not as a regular high-school student was the oddest thing for Ellen to wrap her head around.
When she was putting on her dress and doing her make-up, she wasn't thinking of slow dances and stealing kisses from Elwood.
Instead, she was fourteen again and struggling to drive a fire truck down Alameda Avenue to attempt to combat the burning suburbs caused by Zil Sperry. As she applied her eyeliner, she was gagging on the smoke as she helped Edilio pull a six-year-old out of a burning house as the child wailed about his older sister caught in a collapsed room. As she put her headphones in, she was dragging a hose blindly through thick black clouds, knowing that she had already failed to save so many lives.
Ellen stood up and swallowed two pills dry. They helped keep the nightmares and flashbacks at bay, if only a little bit.
When she left her room, Katrina fawned over Ellen's ensemble. "You look stunning," she said, planting a kiss on Ellen's cheek. Ignoring how their mom had to modify the dress to make it fit Ellen's tiny frame and how careful they had been with her brittle hair that was still regaining its strength.
It was an attempt at what could have been, if the FAYZ hadn't happened. If Ellen hadn't been put through hell. If she hadn't deliberately avoided sleep for days on end for fear of her own nightmares.
It would never truly compare to the genuine prom experience of Ellen's classmates. But it was her version of reality. And that was good enough.
Ellen couldn't help but blush when she found Elwood standing in her doorstep dressed in a tuxedo with his hair styled up neatly. There was a limo in her driveway.
"You didn't," Ellen said, leaning in for a kiss that tasted of her lipstick and breath mints.
"Figured I might as well make some use of our survivors' money," Elwood said with a wry sense of humour: a reminder of the old Elwood, before the horrors of the FAYZ reduced him to a shell. More and more of his old self was bleeding through. They were mending.
Elwood took Ellen's hand. "Care to join me?" And he gave her a smile that made Ellen's heart go to mush
"With pleasure," she replied, smiling wider than she had done for a long, long time.
Prom itself consisted of the two of them gorging themselves on soft drinks and singing along to the current pop hits hand-in-hand. They partook in the obligatory slow dance that made Ellen feel lighter than air and kissed each other as their photo was taken. They were together and happy and living.
"I want to feel like this forever," Ellen whispered as she pulled in for another kiss.
And later that night, when the rest of the world was sleeping except for the two of them, that feeling paled in comparison to what they felt as they came together in the most intimate of ways and they became one as they lost themselves in passion and reverie.
Two years after
When the FAYZ movie finally came out, Ellen was too young to view it. They argued that the content would be too distressing for under-eighteens to view.
Ellen told them in blatant terms who she was. They still said she was too young to see the watered-down version of events she had lived through.
She didn't even know why she wanted to see it. Perhaps she was seeking a sense of closure and catharsis. In her mind, making peace with what went down in the FAYZ would be the most important step on her road to recovery and healing.
She had come a long way from those days she spent in the hospital with a jaded Dekka and a broken Elwood, but she wasn't there yet. Not until she could go a week without mentally returning to Perdido Beach and the traumatic occurrences that took place. The only left to do was to tie up all the loose ends. Or, as her drama studies teacher would put it, a dénouement.
Maybe Ellen needed her own dénouement before she could truly lay everything to rest. Maybe that was it
Elwood objected to it at first, but upon seeing how much Ellen needed it, got his cousin to get them in.
They sat at the back, holding each other's hand tightly, when the movie began.
Ellen had been expecting a respectful, sensitive adaptation of what she had been through.
Instead, she was subjected to a three hour bastardisation of the events of the FAYZ.
Sam Temple was a brooding hero with a troubled past who worked to defend the town from the evil Gaiaphage again and again and again. Caine was a misguided anti-hero who turned evil after contact with the Gaiaphage. Diana was his loyal girlfriend who only existed to provide unnecessary sex scenes. There was no mention of Zil Sperry or the Human Crew. No mention of Mother Mary and her tragic struggles. No Drake Merwin.
Elwood nearly threw his drink at the screen when he saw that they had cast some blonde-haired, blue-eyed Disney Channel star with the acting skills of a piece of cardboard to play Dahra. Or as she was referred to in the movie, 'Delia Bolton'.
Brianna was reduced to a bunch of cocky one-liners and her only defining moment was when she had her neck snapped by the Gaiaphage.
There was no Gaia. Only a green mass of slime that obliterated everything it touched like a cheap 80's monster. The climax resulted in Caine Soren turning against his master in a forced fit of redemption and sacrificing himself to bring down the dome. The audience applauded when the end credits rolled.
Ellen and Elwood stormed out of the theatre boiling with rage.
He drove them up to a secluded lookout point that provided a beautiful view of the ocean. Ellen got out of the car and punched a tree and screamed until her fury no longer caused her to shake and cry.
It felt like her struggles had been exploited for a cheap Hollywood thrill. She felt like she had been robbed of her dénouement.
"I was stupid to think there would ever be a respectful adaptation of what happened in there," she said to Elwood later that evening as she angrily batted away her tears and took her medication an hour early. "Nobody will see the FAYZ for anything but an entertainment sensation to exploit."
Three years after
Ellen let herself cry tears of joy as she held Elwood tight. She let the rivulets of water wash over the land born from ash; she let the small structures she had built drink up the hope and joy.
Both had been accepted into the University of California. Not due to special circumstances surrounding their psychological issues, and certainly not due to their status as Perdido Beach survivors.
They had both carved out this next chapter of their lives on their own. It was testament to how much they had grown and moved on from the frightened, damaged children that the FAYZ had produced.
They were now legally adults. Ellen may have only been eighteen for a matter of weeks, but the fact still stood that her childhood was now officially behind her.
She'd also moved on from a child therapist to an actual therapist qualified to deal with adults suffering from post-traumatic stress. She could talk more freely about her experiences without feeling patronised and like they were speaking down to her.
They hoped to get her off her medication within a year's time.
As she immersed herself into the life of a college student, Ellen felt like a new person. For days at a time she wouldn't have flashbacks. And only at her lowest, darkest moments would the nightmares come.
Her pyrophobia was also being managed. She could now stand to have a lit fireplace, so long as she could keep a close eye on it and there was a means of quickly extinguishing it on hand.
One night, as they lay together, Ellen looked Elwood tenderly in the eyes and let his warm smile consume her entire being. The blissful feeling could not be compared.
"I feel good," Ellen said when they were done.
"Well, yeah," Elwood said teasingly. "We just—"
"Not that," Ellen replied, playfully punching his shoulder. "I mean, generally. It's like... it's almost like we're finally moving on from the past."
"Well then: here's to the future," Elwood said. He planted a kiss on Ellen's lips and they lost themselves to the love once again.
Five years after
Ellen finally got her dénouement when Astrid Temple (née Ellison) had her creative project come to fruition.
All at once, Astrid published a six-part book series chronicling the bad, the ugly, and the horrifying experience of the FAYZ. It was true to life, and not one detail was glossed over.
The Gone Series was an overnight bestselling hit that made everyone forget about the putrid Hollywood bastardisation of the FAYZ.
Astrid wrote with respect, sensitivity, and poignancy far beyond her years.
After each book, Ellen found herself holding on to Elwood as tears of catharsis washed over her soul. By the time she finished the final book, Light, it felt like all the ashes had been blown away, leaving a rich, lush, alive green field to be filled with new life, free from the shadows and the ugliness of the past.
She ended up rereading the series a total of fifteen times, smiling and crying and revelling in closure each time.
When Ellen put the series down for the last time, it felt like she was letting go of her own story of suffering and tragedy along with the books.
The dénouement had been the final component needed to piece Ellen and Elwood back together. For the first time, they could say they both felt whole.
It was finally time to move on.
Ten years after
After finishing up at university, Ellen and Elwood relocated to Florida, where they could enjoy a peaceful, sunny life without the emotional baggage of California weighing them down.
Ellen became a relief worker who went out to help kids living through war zones and natural disasters cope with their trauma and move on like she did. They always listened in wonder and awe as she told the story of how she had survived the FAYZ at fourteen and how she had put herself back together afterwards. Whenever they were inspired enough to say that they wanted to be strong like her, Ellen couldn't help but be overcome with joy. Hopefully all these kids would one day get their dénouement like she did.
Her crowning achievement was when a kid she helped as an undergraduate sent her an email five years on, thanking her for giving him the strength to gather all the pieces and rebuild his life. He named his first daughter Ellen after her.
Ellen read the message time and time again, never quite able to finish it without choking up.
She returned home from an aid mission helping out children from China who had lost their families and communities after a particularly violent earthquake to find Elwood standing in the driveway, smiling that goofy smile she had grown to be smitten with.
"Welcome home," he said, wrapping his arms around her in an embrace that made Ellen feel warm and safe. "I've missed you."
"Missed you too," Ellen said, giving him a quick kiss. Elwood kept smiling at her; Ellen got the impression that there was more to be said. "Elwood, I know you've got something to say. So spit it out already; I'd like to bring the luggage in before sunset."
"Uh, yeah!" Elwood said clumsily. "Ellen, you see... I love you. I love you so, so much."
"Yeah?" Ellen replied, raising an eyebrow.
"So... God, why is this so difficult?" Elwood said.
"Elwood..." Ellen began, feeling a strange feeling stirring inside that she hadn't felt since that night after prom. Her heart felt like a balloon being pumped full of helium; one slight gust, and she would float up onto cloud nine.
"Just..." Elwood reached into his pocket, and placed a small ring in the palm of Ellen's hand.
"Oh my God," Ellen gasped, feeling a stupidly wide smile cross her face and tears of joy spill down her cheeks.
Elwood returned an equally as wide smile. "So... will you marry me?"
Fifteen years after
They ended up having three kids together. The first was an inquisitive young girl named Bethany Dahra Booker who loved to play with Disney Princesses and who could read and write fluently by age four.
Then came the twins two years later: two boys, Thomas and Blake. Thomas was convinced he would be the President by the time he was sixteen, and Blake had the singing voice of an angel.
After starting a family, Ellen stopped travelling abroad, and instead focused her energy on helping secure a future for the local homeless youth who had been rejected by their bigoted, insular families. Ellen was proud to say she was responsible for the building of four youth shelters in the Tampa area alone. More than three thousand kids had been given a future because of her.
She and Elwood still grieved over the FAYZ. Ellen had finished therapy ten years ago and hadn't touched any medication in even longer, but she would still sometimes wake up after returning to the scene of a burning Perdido Beach. Elwood would still lie awake until three in the morning and weep about Dahra Baidoo. But they had each other to smooth over the cracks and keep going strong.
That was the thing about fire, Ellen realised. Whilst it could be destructive and burn everything to the ground, with the right resources and support, the ashes could be cultivated to produce something new.
Something better.
Something beautiful.