Edited 5.19.13


The first thing I can remember is pain.

It was a searing pain, the type that begins in the extremities and slowly creeps its way toward the heart. The type of pain so hot it nearly feels cold, like picking up a copper pipe that's been lying in the sun on a hot summer day.

Only this time, I couldn't drop the pipe once the pain registered.

The second thing I can remember is blinding light, light so bright it washed everything out to a brilliant white color. I had no clue where I was or what had happened. I had no idea, even, of who I was.

Slowly, the light began to dim until I realized my eyes were actually closed. Groaning, I lifted the lids slowly, allowing little slivers of light into my eyes. Thankfully, it wasn't nearly as bright as the painful whiteness I had encountered mere moments before. As I gained my bearings, I slowly pushed myself to a seated position.

No, I realized as my senses returned to me, the light wasn't white. It was orange. It was Orange and red and the color of burnt umber. The heat I had felt hadn't gone away- if anything it was hotter than ever. How I was even conscious, I didn't know, for I was lying on the floor of a rapidly burning building.

My memories of what happened returned to me in a flash, and I gasped. I should have felt pain from inhaling the smoke-filled air, but I felt nothing. I got to my feet rapidly, causing me to lose my balance. My hand shot out and braced against the nearest object- a burning rafter.

The very same rafter I remembered had fallen on me but a few minutes ago.

It was all rushing back to me now. A celebration. A distraction. A hearth untended and forgotten. An ember. A spark, a blaze of wild abandon. Panic. Fear. Chaos.

"Abellona!" It begins with a cry, "Get Charis outside, now!"

The man who yells is Lysander, who has been my best friend since we were old enough to talk. It's the sound of the person who I cared for the most trying to make sure his little sister got out of the apartment complex safe.

"What about you?"

I'm yelling as well, and the smoke from the growing blaze is getting into my lungs and eyes. I'm tearing up, and my diaphragm is threatening to go into convulsions. And yet, I don't want to leave. Not if he isn't.

"There are a couple kids stuck back there!" he exclaims, "I need to see if I can get them out. I'll be right down! Go, Abellona, Run!"

Tears stream from my eyes, obscuring my vision. Whether it is from the smoke or something else entirely different, I don't know. I tear my hazel eyes from his own dark brown ones as I turn my back to him. Blinking hard, I reach down to where Charis sits curled up in a ball.

I tug at the little five year old's hand to get her attention before hauling her off her feet. Ducking my head to the chaos and pain around me, I sprint my way to the entrance of the building as fast as I could.

The street outside the apartment is just as chaotic as the inside. Tucking Charis to my chest, I dodge and avoid the items that are being tossed out the windows of the complex. I narrowly avoid being smothered in someone's falling clothing before I manage to get to the outskirts of the crowd. Looking around, I place Charis down on the side of the road.

"Charis," I say just loud enough for her to hear me, "whatever happens, stay here. Do you understand? Look at me," I command her. When I know I have her attention, I continue. "Everything is going to be okay. I promise. Just … if something does happen to me, or if I'm needed elsewhere to help, you stay right in this spot and do not move. Okay?"

Charis nods fearfully. "Yes, Bella," she replies shakily.

We watch in horrified fascination at the operation that is being conducted around us. Men and women are throwing belongings from each window, desperate to save their possessions from the blaze. Every now and then, a child is carefully tossed down to waiting arms by a parent. The children are always the priority.

A shout by an all-too-familiar voice fills the air. I look up in alarm as Lysander appears in one of the windows with two young children – no more than three years of age – beside him. I watch in admiration and pride as they're carefully brought down to the street below. The warm feelings quickly turn ice cold as I watch him take a few hacking coughs before his blond head vanishes from sight once more. I know I have to do something. No one else will, and there is no way I am letting him perish in the fire.

No. Not my Lysander. If he dies, I won't be able to keep living, myself.

"Charis, stay here. I'm going to get that dolt of a brother you have back. I won't be long, promise."

"Promise?"

"I haven't broken one yet, have I?" I try to force a grin, try to convince Charis I'm joking around with her, like there's nothing to worry about. Because there isn't.

With that, I'm off. Thoughts turn in my head as I run, my long brownish curls flying out behind me. What am I doing? My actions were practically unheard of. A woman doesn't save other people. A woman doesn't run into burning buildings. A woman isn't a hero. A woman chooses which way to fix her hair and what is for dinner that night.

Well, I decide as I hike my long skirts up past what is deemed to be publicly acceptable, perhaps society is wrong. Because I know I am right. I know it, somewhere deep within my heart. Somehow, I know I am doing the right thing.

I rudely push past the people that crowd the door. I keep my head down, hoping no one will recognize me and call attention to it. I don't want to shame my parents in taking this risk. While my parents aren't as orthodox as the majority of Athens, something this out of line would definitely displease them. Not to mention the comments they would receive from the other citizens. It would be easier if I am just not recognized.

I race into the building, climbing up the set of stairs I had descended with Charis just minutes before. The smoke burns my lungs and stings my eyes once more. Desperate for cleaner air, I tug the top of my dress up to cover my nose and mouth. It helps a little, but I still need to make this quick.

When I reach the place I could have sworn I had last seen Lysander, I look about desperately. My smoke-filled eyes scan the room once. Twice. Three times. Four. I am losing hope on the fifth sweep, but I see him- a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn, and there he is. He sags against a part of the wall that has not yet burnt, trying to keep himself upright as he stumbles toward the exit. He is hacking terribly, something I had missed over the roaring blaze of the fire.

"LYSANDER!" I scream with all the air I still have left in my lungs. His beautiful chocolate brown eyes lock with mine, and my stomach lurches as I see the fear he holds within them. Lysander is never scared. He glances fearfully up at the ceiling, and at that moment I hear an ominous crack.

No, I think. No, this can't be happening. Not to me, not to us. "Lysander," I call again, this time a little softer. My voice betrays all the pain I'm in at seeing what looks to be the end. It wavers and cracks with the feelings I have been forced to leave unsaid over the years. It's a hello and a goodbye and a 'haven't the times been great?' It's a promise kept and a promise broken and a promise never made.

"Come on Lysander, we're gonna get you out of here. We're both gonna live. Together, like always. Lysander, please. I promised Charis. I never break my promises." There's a pleading in my voice, covered by the ruse of a confident urging.

"Abellona." It's a whisper, but I hear it. He stumbles forward, trying to make it to the exit. I run forward myself, trying to make it to him so I can assist. We almost make it, too.

One more crack, and a large flaming rafter falls between us. Seconds later, another follows. Fire. Burning. Pain. A scream- whether it is mine or his, I will never know. Seconds of fiery hot agony … and then blissful unconscious blackness.

The first thing I can remember is pain.

But now, oddly enough, I felt none.

The fire raged on around me, yet I felt as if it did not affect me at all. The air was full of more smoke than air- I shouldn't have been able to breathe, and yet I wasn't having any issues. My lungs and eyes, though they had been affected before, now felt as if I had been breathing fresh air this entire time.

Lysander, I remembered. I screamed his name once more, but there was no response. There was another cracking noise, and another flaming portion of the building fell. It landed so close to me that I should have been charred, but I felt nothing past the breeze it generated. Curious at this anomaly, I reached out to the flames. Nothing. It was warm, but not scalding. Biting my tongue, I gingerly stuck my hand into the flame.

It tickled. The flame tickled, and felt rather like water flowing around my hand. I quickly jerked it back, my mouth opening and closing pointlessly as I tried to make sense of what was happening.

I was dead. There was no other explanation. I had died, and Hades had rejected me. What had I done wrong? Was it punishment for doing something beyond what was expected of women? For going beyond my place in society?

I was only of sixteen years. I wasn't supposed to die, not yet!

A soft groan distracted me from my troubling thoughts, and my senses honed in to one thing and one thing only. Lysander.

I tried walking through the beam that stood between us only to learn that ghosts couldn't actually walk through things. Interesting. Instead, I vaulted over it like I had seen the boys of the city leap over fences. I felt the tickling sensation once more as I planted my hands in the middle of the flames to assist my leap. I landed on the other side and stopped short.

Lysander lay, burnt and nearing the brink of exhaustion, against what little bit of wall there was left. His face was charred and smeared with soot and ash, yet he was still beautiful. Gods, he was beautiful.

I couldn't stop the tears welling up in my eyes, instead letting them spill over at the state my best friend was in. I ran over, ignoring the flames and the smoke lapping harmlessly at my clothing and skin.

"Lysander, oh, Lysander," I murmured as I came to kneel beside him. "Come on, get up. It's too late for me. It's too late. But you, you could be so much more. Get up Lysander, please. Charis needs you. I need you to live. I can't have sacrificed everything to get nothing in return! It doesn't work that way- Lysander! Open your eyes – look at me – please! You need to get up!"

I went to tug on his arm, but my hands went straight through him. I sobbed loudly as I realized he couldn't see me, couldn't hear me … and that I'd never be able to feel him again. I kneeled in front of him, my head bowed as great convulsions wracked their way through my body as I sobbed.

"Lysander …"

"Abellona …" A labored breath escaped as his lips formed my name. I looked up in surprise, my vision blurred by my tears. Had he heard me?

"… I'm sorry. I got you killed. It's my fault, I'm so sorry," he murmured, "for everything."

I wanted to slap him. I wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault, it was my own. He was just doing what he was supposed to do. I wanted there to be a way to cry harder, because what I was doing now wasn't enough to express the magnitude of the hurt I was in.

He continued to murmur as his breathing became more labored. He apologized to Charis, his mother, his father. He prayed to the Gods for a peaceful afterlife. Never once did he beg or plead or attempt to bargain.

As the light faded from his eyes, I couldn't hold back any more. I leaned forward, cupping the side of his face as well as I could. I looked deep into his eyes, still beautiful even as he lay dying. As the tears ran down my face, I leaned in and did the one thing I had wanted to do for the past four years.

I kissed him. There was no pressure as I placed my lips against his bluing ones, but I could pretend. Oh, how I could pretend. I had loved him for the past four years, since I was twelve and he was thirteen and we had started to notice such things. For four years I kept it hidden away beneath the surface, knowing that my father would just arrange a marriage for me, most likely he already had. For four years I'd had feelings for him and his serious way of looking at life, with nothing more than friendship and teasing remarks in return. But now- none of that mattered.

"Abellona …" he said as the last remnants of breath escaped his lips. His eyes focused suddenly, as if for one second he could see me there in front of him. His eyes searched mine desperately and I smiled despite my tears. Oh, how I could pretend.

"I love you," I whispered, and the light faded from his eyes as they closed for the last time.

Bawling both uncontrollably and uncaringly, I moved so I could curl up into his side as much as I could without falling through him. I hugged my knees as the tears fell down my face, creating little rivers of salt water.

How long I stayed there, I do not know.

I was so out of sync with the rest of the world that I sat there among the flames for the rest of the day. When the fire had encroached upon the place where I sat with Lysander, I got so furious with it that I blasted it back, forming a perfect charred semicircle around our feet. I didn't know how I did it, nor did I really register what I had done. After that, I slid back into my comatose state for who knows how long.

When I returned to the real world again, the moon shone brightly though the open ceiling of the collapsed building. A faint whispering filled the back of my head, and I looked up into the white light and deep blue sky- the first color other than shades of brown or orange I had seen in what seemed like eternity. The moon hung in the sky as a full white circle. The light shone down on the two of us like a spotlight, glinting off the blond of Lysander's hair. I cursed Artemis for allowing the moon to be so beautiful on a night that was anything but.

Beside me, something glowing gold in Lysander's pocket caught my attention. The whispering in the back of my head urged me to take it. I tentatively stuck my hand in between the folds of the fabric, and it closed around a small coin- the drachma he carried to pay his way across the River Styx in the Underworld.

"I can't take it," I whispered to no one. I couldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't leave him stranded on the banks of the Styx when he deserved a place in Elysium for all he had done.

The voice in my head insisted, promising that Lysander would be all right. Despite the fact it went against all my beliefs, I found my fingers closing around the small coin.

I drew it out of the fabric, opening my hand as I brought it toward me. The thing glowed a bright gold, though it dimmed slightly as I gazed upon it. As I watched, it grew until it was about the size of my palm before shrinking back down to its previous size.

"How?" I asked to no one in particular. My voice cracked as I brought it above a whisper for the first time in hours. Silently, I willed the thing to grow again. Although this time I was controlling its change, I still couldn't believe it. Everything just seemed so surreal. The apartment fire, my death, my coming back as a ghost, watching Lysander die, and now this.

I shrunk the drachma back down to its normal size and held it tight within my fist. I wasn't going to be able to sit with Lysander for the rest of eternity, I knew that, but I could keep this one last reminder of him always.

I took a deep breath and finally – reluctantly – moved from my position next to Lysander. I stood shakily, keeping my gaze locked on the luminescent orb above me. Somewhere along the line, I had connected the voice in my head with the celestial body. Now, I listened to what it had to say. I was lost, confused, and had nowhere to go.

I listened to the moon, and it guided me.