Whoever made the phrase, "Life's a breeze," ought to be shut up in a rubber room. Seriously. Life has been, it is, and always will be hell. End of story.

I was dragged into the Keep. An empty, steel-enforced room, with odd mechanics lined up on the sides. I didn't even want to know what they were for. On one wall was a large window, where diabolic scientists sat and watched in the next room. Cold eyes bored into my skin, as if they could see everything I did, all my thoughts, my abilities...

The steel floor was slippery, covered with some oily gel. I stumbled, not quite falling, but the giant whitecoat growled, "Stay on your feet!" Screw him.

He walked me over to the center of the room, and quickly hurried out again. Sometimes, there was a metal surgery table there, but not this time. I stood there awkwardly, waiting for my nightmares to begin.

Nothing happened. Frowning, I looked at the whitecoats through the window. Most of their eyes were trained at another whitecoat who was staring at me intently. Obviously he was the head, the big kahuna. He was standing up, his body leaned towards the thick plexiglass. And his eyes... Just plain creepy. The sharp blue orbs were watching, always watching...

I shuddered and looked away, only to glance back again. The machinery had started humming ominously, getting ready for something nasty. The whitecoat was back in his seat now, observing with a slightly amused expression. Amused? Amused? I'd show him amused, that fucking son of a b–

I screamed. Huge pipes had turned toward me, shooting jets of fire. The gel on the floor ignited instantly, but instead of engulfing me in flames, it crept toward me slowly, like a hunter and its prey. And the prey was me.

How had poor Tavian survived this? I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see my slow torture, my death, no thank you.

The seconds ticked by. What was taking so long? Not that I wanted to die, but hey, shouldn't I be on fire right now?

I slowly opened my eyes a fraction, peeking at the flames. What I saw was... amazing. Indescribable. But I'll try to describe it anyway :)

What can I say? It was like one of those firework shows I'd heard about before. The fire wasn't my enemy, it was a playful friend, its flames licking at my arm and legs. There was no heat, only a slight whispering breeze every time I was touched by fire. The orange and red were entrancing, mesmerizing. A genuine smile slipped onto my face. This was fun. This was great!

And suddenly, it all stopped. For a moment, I looked funny, my arm outstretched to stroke a now nonexistent tendril of blaze. I quickly dropped my arm, reddening, not that the whitecoats cared.

I was afraid to look at the whitecoats. Obviously this was an unusual skill. I mean, can you say that you have the ability to not get burnt by fire? I think not! Of course I was happy I'd survived without a scratch, but then that meant that the experiment was successful. As in, they would do more tests on me, because of this new power. Oh joy.

Sometimes I think I'd just be better off dead. Really.

The door creaked open, and the gi-normous whitecoat from before scurried in. He cleared his throat and ahem-ed a couple of times. Finally, he just beckoned me towards him. A mischievous grin found its way onto my face. Was he... scared? Of me? How nice.

I walked toward him with a blank expression on my face. Pretending to slip again, I reached out to grab the man for support. At the slightest touch, he jerked away from me. Definitely scared.

I was led away from the Keep and into the Hold (sounds like a freaking dungeon & castle), where, after getting the shackles taken off, I was practically shoved into my dog crate. The metal door slammed shut in my face.

The second the burly man was out, I was crowded with questions.

"Sare! What happened?"

"Omigosh, they said there was fire today! Are you okay?"

"There's not a mark on her, you idiot, course she's fine! What'd they do t'you anyway?"

"Ha, why'd Mr. Butt-Ugly look so freaked out? You work your magic again?"

"What happened, Sare?"

The last question came out as a dry whisper from Tav. He looked much worse than before, or maybe that was because I now knew what exactly he had gone through.

I simply said, "They found out."

The others knew what I was talking about. My "fireproof-ness" had been discovered when we had been playing with matches and a lighter that a whitecoat had carelessly dropped near us. It had always been a secret-weapon type thing, just in case we one day broke out of the Institute with a bang. But I had never thought that I could survive in a whole flaming room. That was just insane. But, hey, I did it!

Oh well.

At that moment, Kar raised his head a fraction. He tilted head towards the door, saying, "Someone's coming." We all became silent immediately, melting away into the back of our dog crates. Don't pick us... Don't pick us... They picked the other experiments, the failed ones, or the more "interesting" ones, usually. Usually. Don't pick us...

The man who came in towered above our lowly cages. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see who was next. All was quiet, but it was like the calm before a storm.

When the door of my cage creaked, my eyes cracked open a bit. Then I blinked. In front of me was the head whitecoat from the Keep. Sharp, blue eyes gazed penetratingly at me. I shuddered.

"Hello, Sare," he said. His voice was alluring, using a light tone, hiding the deceit and lies I would later discover. But at that moment, all I could think of was that how nice he sounded, and how nice he looked. He had me totally captivated. I didn't even wonder how he knew my name.

Smiling slightly, the man continued. "Please follow me." As he stepped away, I snapped out of my trance. I scowled. But this had been coming to me anyway, right? Once the whitecoats found out about my power, of course they would want to torment me more. Of course.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, if I may say. Good thing I'm fireproof.

A/N: Well, this has got to be a first. I udated two chapters in the same week! I mean, I did, right?... Whatever, well, this was kinda like a filler chapter, but what happened was pretty important, I think. And now, I need to do the homework I skipped because of writing this chapter...