Chapter 1: A. I. A.
167 Years Later
On the outskirts of a small town, the sounds of fire crackled inthe air. A house wasalitwith fire, burning with such great strength that the fierce storm raging around it failedtoquench the flames. The winds blew so heavily no one seemed to notice the poor family's home. Nor did they heartheirscreams.
A tall man stood just outside the burning home, yet he was not sad. Instead, he held a sadistic smile on his face, likea snake watching the life fade from the eyesitsprey. As he admired his work, he began laughing maniacally over the muffled cries from the house. He held one large sack in his hand, filled to thebrimwiththestolenmerchandise from inside the broken home. The man stood there, obviously proud of what he had done, believing he would get away clean…He should've left while he had the chance.
Within the flames the sounds of crying seemed to get louder as the house caves in, which seemed to only fuel this deranged man's ego, causing him to laugh harder. Until he suddenly noticed there was something oddly wrong with his flames. The flames started to act uncontrolled by his will, converging to the spot where the crying was originating. His jaw dropped as he stared in shock and awe unable to turn away. The man wondered to himself if this wasGoD'sjudgment for all his deeds.
An explosive amount of energy and will suddenly makeshis ownflames shoot out of the burning house, as ifthe underworlditself had reached out to grab him. With barely enough time to think, he used his will to direct the flames from hisbody, barely able to push away those just in front of him. Theman watches with a wide-eyed expression now plastering his face. All he could do was stare at this 'child abomination' sitting in the middle of the burnt home, unscathed, and onlyrevealed by the extinguished flamesand collapsed debris.
He heard something that sounded like whirling behind him and turned around in quick haste. Seeing that the flames had formed a crescent moon shape enveloping this man's only escape route, he turned to the child before him. "What… What manner of being are you! Able to control flames that are not even your own. Not possible… I will not be fooled by you demon! I will get out of here, and it looks like you want me to go through you. I'm glad to accept your challenge demon spawn!" While saying this, the man rushes forward towards the young child sitting in a pool of her own tears.
The little girl's eyes lit up, like the rare green flash 'Julious' right before the evening sun, as she screamed out loud.
The man looked into her eyes as she screamed and saw the eyes of the devil. She manipulates the flames, transforming the flames behind him intoraggedblades,hurlingthem towards the man. Finally able to break his gaze, He steps away from the blades as they whirl past him, barely able to avoid being impaled, but one catches his hand as he dashes away from another and slices through his wrist,severinghis hand like hot butter.
Slowly he looks down at his wrist in concern, but smirks back up at the girl noticing no apparent damage. The girl watches as his hand slowly slides from the base of his wrist fall with a sickening thud to the ground from the weight of the bag. Her eyes widen in shock and horror as she point to his dismembered limb. He watches her eyes and for a single moment everything is quiet before he yells out in anger.
The man then forms a fiery salamander with the energy from his new found anger and sends it rampaging towards her. The girl waves her hand and redirects the fire back to the man's feet causing the salamander to slam into the ground, as the man jumps into the air to escape its flames.
The man seemed to pause in mid-air for what felt like a lifetime to him. As he looked down at himself, he watched in slow motion pieces of his clothes and flesh tearing off his own. The child floats lightly off the ground with energy swirling around her, eyes bloodshot from crying, yet still shone with the same brightness as before.
Every piece of flesh rips away from him feeling so horrid, yet still no blood came from his wounds. He noticed that the flames around him were almost stopped. He looks back up into her eyes, noticing that they are now red.This… this child,She controls!Before he could even finish his thoughts, his body was completely shredded to pieces, leaving onlysome body parts and smallblood pools splattering the area.
The little girl waslightly sprayed with bloodfrom head to toe. Her eyes were red from the tears, and her voice had gone from too much crying. She looked around at her house stopping at both of her parents corpses', unable to think straight at all. She starts trying to walk towards town seeing if she could find... Anyone.
The rain started pouring down out of nowhere seeming to douse out the fire. The only thing that remained of the poor girls home was in the bag she had taken back from 'that man`. She sat, lonely and cold in the back corner of the small town not far from her home. She looked down at her body, seeing it soaked in the blood of the man she had just killed, trying to recall all the happened and how she was able to do that. This young girl stayed in that spot for over twenty hours, unable to speak or move due to shock. The storm raged on for the whole time, yet the blood upon her never seemed to completely wash off. She gave up scrubbing and just sat there holding onto herself, trying to put together everything that happened.
"Sara…" A loud voice starts calling out in the distance. "Sara!" there it was again, this time closer. What is that noise? Nothing sounded very clear with all the rain and thunder. "SARA!" ~Oh no. That noise is getting louder. People must be coming closer. They might be looking for me because of what I had done! I have to get out of here fast!~ "SARA!" ~It's no good. My body won't listen to me. Of course they know what I did, I'm covered in blood! I can't move at all, I'll just have to sit here as quiet as possible and hope that nobody sees me…~
Just as she finishes her thought, a bright light shines towards her accompanied by a voice. "Hey, Get over here quick! There's a body of a young girl over here!" The older man tries grabbing her arm which makes her quickly retract her arm as she tries shifting away. "Oh! Thank goodness you're alive. With all the blood on you I was afraid you'd been killed. What happened to you, are you alright? Who
class="s6" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"did this to you, and where are your parents, child?" All she could do was shake her head and lower her gaze while trying to slowly slide away from the strange man.
"Oh, who's this?" An older woman comes up asking the older man, "And why is she covered in... is that, Blood? Oh My Goodness! What happened to you young one! Are you alright!?" This caused the girl to get scared again and start trying to back away a little more, only to stop for a second and nod her head, hoping this would cause them to leave. "Why not come with me child," the older woman says reaching out her hand, "I'll help you get cleaned up and taken care of. What is your name child?" The young girl was too tired, too scared, and too confused to refuse the lady's inviting hand and ended up taking it. Just as she did, she fainted from exhaustion. "Oh my, I'll take care of this little one dear. You need to go find Sara. This storm is getting bad. If she stays out any longer, then she might not live through this…"
'Meow'.
"Oh, Sara! Is this where you've been? We've been looking everywhere for you girl!" The older lady says to the cat while leaning over with the little girl still in her arms. As she leans over, the cat jumps up onto the little girl and lies on top of her. The woman just smiles and says, "Oh, so you were worried about this little one, where you Sara. Well, she'll be alright now. We'll be sure to see to that." The older man just smiles as he sees their little cat and the girl sleeping in the arms of the older lady. The older lady speaks up, "Come on Dear; let us get these little ones out of this storm." The older man just looks at his wife and nods happily.
Two Days Pass
"Oh my, there really seems to be no end in sight to this storm, does there." Just as the older lady speaks, as if she had heard, the little girl starts to come too. "Oh Dear, we have such wonderful news! Are little guest has started to come to!" The little girl's eyes flashed open quickly as the unfamiliar voices caught her ears. She quickly realized she was not in her bed, nor even in her own house. She sat up quickly only to be held back down by an older women. "Calm yourself child. You've been a sleep nearly two days already. If you get up to fast, you'll only hurt yourself. Do you remember what had happenedto you dearie, or where your parents might be? I could guess they're worried sick about you right now." As soon she said this, she had regretted it completely. The child's face had gone white, skin cold, and her eyes drained of life. Her husband had walked down just then and the child's face went from cold to horrified. She quickly grabbed the blanket covered herself up in it and hide in the corner of the bed since it was sitting up against the side of the house.
This caused the older man to stop in his tracks with a puzzling expression on his face. The older lady quickly makes the connection and assumes that a man must have killed the young girl's parent's right in front of her. "Dearie, you're safe here, alright? Look closely. That man up there is my husband. I know he can look a little scary at times," Earning her a very light hearted stare from her husband, "but that man over there is very nice and extremely kind. Please don't fear him child." The older lady tries saying in the most kind-hearted voice she could muster. While she said this the older man cracked a light smile.
The little girl did not miss it though the older lady had. Seeing the kind expression on the man's face relaxed the little girl and as she relaxed, she broke out, crying heavy tears into the older lady's chest. Surprised at first by the little girl's reaction, the older lady smiled then placed her hand atop the little girls head. "Therethere, little one. Everything will be alright now, we're here for you." The older man had made his way fully down the stairs and pulled up a chair to the bed where these two ladies were sitting. "Now little one, would you besokind as to bestow us with your name? We cannot just go on continuing to call you 'little one' all your life, can we?" The older lady says in a joking manner, but received a resounding rejection from the little girl as she shook her head back and forth. "Well, to make it easier for you, my name is Maria. Maria Ann TillSolvas. And this is my husband, Frank LocusVellSolvas. We're very pleased to make your acquaintance." Maria says as she and her husband smile gently to her.
The little girl opens her eyes wide revealing two jade like iris' glistening with fresh tears, which nearly entranced the Maria just by seeing them. "A…Adia. My name…Adia." The little girl is finally able to stammer out. The older lady gets set free from her entrancement by the adorable voice resonating in her head. She looks again into the little girl's eyes noticing that as the tears cleared up,Adia'sirises changed as well, to adeep illuminating browncolor.
"Do you not have a last nameAdia?" Maria asks hoping to at least be able to find any relatives of the poor girl if nothing else.
"I… Idunno…Mama and Papa, but…." Adia starts crying again until she's cooed by Maria once more and begins speaking again in a lower tone. "All this one knows, is her nameAdia."Adia says,not sure if she'd done something bad or not. Maria holdsAdiain her arms again as tears start to well up within the young girls strange eyes. Maria looks to her husband with nearly pleading eyes asking if this was alright. Her husband just smiled gently and nodded his head in approval.
"Hmm, wellAdia. Do you happen to mind if I give you a full name? We may not have much here, but we'll do what we can to take care of you and give you what you need. Will that be well with you dearie?" Maria asks softly to the broken heartedAdia, only to get a soft whimper then a slow nod as areturn. After seeing the nod, Maria notices the sounds of the storm had quieted. Frank got up to check outside and was instantly stunned.
"Maria, you've got to see this…" was all Frank could say as he stared up into the night sky.
"What is ithunny?" Maria asks as she gets up withAdiain her arms. She looks into the sky and is greeted, not with the passing of storm clouds, but with a full array of beautiful aurora lights shining with blue and up into the sky and reveals an excited expression as she views the lights dancing in the sky. Maria catches a slight glimmer inAdia'seyes again as this time her eyes glowed with a slivery shine. Maria just smiles and says out loud "AdiaIris Aurora, I think that's a wonderful name for you. The three most beautiful things I've seen this night: you, your eyes, and this sky. How's that sound to you,AIA?" Just asAdiahears this, she turns her head to meet Maria's gaze and gives the biggest smile she could. She proceeds to hug Maria tightly, "Thank you, for everything you both have done. I promise I'll behave every day!"
Maria laughs out loud, "NowAia, there's no need for that kind of promise child. We had a child of our own a long time ago. Kids aren't going to always behave how we want them to and we know this. You just be the strongest and smartest little girl you know how to be. We won't ask for anything more than that of you." Maria smiles toAiaknowing she had said the right thing.
Aiajust gives a saddened expression, "But, that sounds really hard…" she pouts out loud. "Can't I just promise to be good?"Aiastarts to plead, thinking if she didn't, she might be working herself really hard these years to come to make them beyond proud of her.
Maria's seen these eyes before and knew she was worried about what was just said, and begins to chuckle lightly, "You just be who you are, okayAia? We both know you'll be perfect. Because those who are who they are, will always be right where they want to be." Hearing this madeAiasmile brightly again while, at the same time, the aurora lights opened up brighter than before with an even greater array of colors. Maria thought to herself, that the skies must be dancing with joy, because their light was given a new home. Eighteenyears pass…