Fire's Child
Chapter 12 – Fire's Demon

"But I thought that Jaria-Kai died. At least a year ago."

Ezra had followed Jay back to the Lunari. He requested for a job at her insistence and was now a technician. He and Jay were now making a routine check of the overhead lights. Since the only technicians were Jay, and now Ezra, it was very private up in the high scaffolding.

"No. I just wanted everyone to think that. No-one's going to be looking for a dead person." Jay answered. "But I've gone by the alibi that I was banished for so long that sometimes I forget that I faked my own death."

Ezra rubbed his temple.

"Well, what about that overdose rumour?"

"No rumour. They overloaded me. I was out for weeks, and when I finally came to I was in pain for days afterwards."

"But Jaria-Kai was a blond."

"Yeah, and normal people don't have green skin."

Ezra looked at the back of his hand. Streaks of green ran through his skin. It was all over him. Even on his face, but those were just two streaks on either side.

"Eco does strange things to a person. Tyr was a scrawny little thing. Now he's all buff. Dreal, well he's kinda weird. For some reason the Blue Eco has had a reverse effect and now he's all slow. But he can still go fully sick when he wants to. I think the slowness is to counter the extreme speed. Now-one can stand that amount of G-forces for so long, with stoping and starting. And I got red hair and grey eyes."

"And the name?"

Jay looked up from the light she was examining and smiled.

"Is it that hard to believe that I am Jaria-Kai?" She asked.

"Yes." Ezra smiled back.

He had misjudged her by far. She was nice enough to offer him a job, using the excuse that she needed help. He admired her outlook on life, especially after what she had been through. Ezra could not relate late to the horror she might have lived through, but he knew the lengths all the experiments had to go through to protect themselves.

"My name is actually Jaria-Kai, but no-one calls me that. Even before it was always 'Jay', never 'Jaria-Kai'. The only one's how ever called me that were my mother, when she was angry, and the Baron, coz that was the name on my birth certificate. An awful name, too."

Ezra gave a chuckle. Personally, he didn't think Jaria-Kai was a bad name, although it was slightly strange.

"So, how'd you come by technician-ism?" Jay asked, wondering.

"I was a techie back when I was younger, to help out my parents."

Jay blinked. "What were you, like, seven?"

Ezra looked at her shocked expression. He sometimes forgot how young he was. He was barely nineteen, and by his account, Jay was one or two years younger and by far the youngest of the Experiments. Although, technically, Ezra was not an Experiment he sure felt like one sometimes.

Ezra's mood turned sombre. "How old were you?"

Jay was once again taken aback. "I beg your pardon?"

"How old were you?" he repeated, inquiring as to her age when she was taken away for the Experiment.

"Old enough, apparently." Jay said darkly, her moods also changing.

"Aren't you even a bit angry?"

Jay had gone back to the job at hand, focusing all her attention onto the light.

Ezra was surprised. If it had been him, he would be furious. To him, being the way he was, he already felt as if a part of him had been taken away. A childhood of some sort that he would never again have was taken away from him at the moment of his conception, all because of one man stupid ambitions. But at least he had people who were like him, who could tell him how to normalize his life, in the form of his parents, also freaks of nature. Jay, however, had no-one. She was alone in the world. Many people had told him what a failure the Yellow Eco Project was. All Experiments had perished some time after the Exposure. It was a miracle someone like Jay even survived.

Ezra grabbed her face and made her look at him.

"You were fourteen!" he whispered.

He heard Jay's breath intake sharply.

"How did you know?"

"There were stories about you." He told her. "'A young girl of fourteen was reported missing, two months after the death of her mother,' is what they told me. Right about the time the Flame Warrior Project was about to start. It doesn't take a genius, Jay, to put the pieces together."

Jay looked down and bit the inside of her cheek. Then she shifted her position on the scaffolding to get more comfortable.

"They took me away." She barely whispered.

Ezra leaned in closer, willing her to tell her own tragic story, just as he had revealed his own story.

And tell him she did…

"I was fourteen. My mother had been dead less than two months. I was grieving, I had a brother who was so pathetically dependent on me that he had practically grown attached to my hip and I lived in the poorest excuse of a house in some rat's hole in the slums.

"I was slowly falling apart. All I ever had was my mother. Sure, we didn't have the best life, but she loved me, and my brother. She put her life on the line for me, trying to give me the best possible chance at life. I never met my father. I was broken when this bastard drunk bashed her head in. They didn't even give her a descent funeral!

"It was hard to go on without her. I did a horrible job. I lost the house, there was no income. I could barely look after Jak. He kept getting away from me.

"I remember we were at the bazaar once. I was hoping I could get a job ripping off wealthy customers with crap merchandise. Anything to get me somewhere.

"The Krimson Guards came out of nowhere. I didn't do anything, so I saw no reason to run away. They asked for me, they were looking for me. I got scared then. It was not just one guy, it was an army. It was like they expected me to do something dangerous. But I was weak and malnourished. I had a child to protect. I couldn't be expected to go fully sick and fight my way to freedom.

"I did try to run. I didn't get very far. I was more focused on getting Jak out of there.

"So they took me to the prison. I screamed for help, but no one came. All they did was watch as they dragged me away. I would spend the next two years or so of my life in the prison. It was a horrible place. It was cold, dark. There was no life in this place. People looked at me from their cells with pity. I still had no idea what was going on. I kept hoping that it was all some mistake, or maybe even a cruel joke. But it wasn't.

"They kept me in a cell which vented in Yellow Eco. I though there was something wrong with the heating system. It was boiling in the cell. More than once I passed out from the heat. They kept me there for two weeks before they began the injections.

"I don't really remember many of the injections, but I remember my first. It was so painful. It felt as though my blood was burning. It was such an intense heat, all concentrated, making it even hotter. I honestly thought I was going to die then. Then it stoped. It was a moment of pure relief for me. That was until they started up again.

"I screamed for them to stop, but they didn't. They kept going. They kept going for two years. Two years of painful torture.

"They time that I wasn't with the machine they kept in my cell. No longer did they vent in Yellow Eco. It was cold. There was nothing to keep me warm. I conversed with some fellow prisoners. I desperately tried to keep my sanity. That is where I met Tyr. We would talk of our lives. He had a young family then. I would in turn tell him about my family, of strange little things that Jak would do, like that time he couldn't use the spoon so he just buried his face in the porridge and ate with his face in the bowl.

"After a while we began to talk of our experiences. Where as I was burning up inside, Tyr felt as though all his muscles shifted and contorted with every zap. We would comfort each other after the injections. He was my rock.

"At the end of the first year Tyr left. They said that they had finished with him and were taking him to another stage. Before he left he told me, 'Stay strong, Jay. They may have altered you to their specifications, but your mind is your own. Use what you know and get out.' I was glad to here that not long after, the Red Eco Experiment had escaped. It gave me hope.

"Not long after they had a new addition to the Experiments. They started on the Dark Warrior Project. I saw them carry in the unconscious body to his cell.

"The screams could be heard all throughout the prison complex. I could hardly believe that anything could be more painful than what I was going through. Every other day the scream would echo through the prison. After a while they seemed to die down. I found myself wondering if my screams were as loud.

"My overload started out just as a normal day, in whatever way normal applies in this case. I had been thinking about what Tyr had said to me a year ago. 'Use what you know.' All I knew was that they were injection me with Yellow Eco. My appearance had changed. I kept getting fevers.

"I knew Yellow Eco was the Eco of fire and heat. I thought maybe I could use that to my advantage. I didn't know how. I was dreading the Injection, it was just wishful thinking.

"All went along as it normally does. I was taken from my cell to the Experimental ward, strapped in and prepared for the injection. I over heard the Baron tell my assigned Guard that that they would up the dosage. Erol, my Guard, seemed a bit sceptical, but went ahead with it anyway.

"Erol, despite being on their side, was rather kind to me. I enjoyed his company. He spoke little, never abused me and sometimes brought me extra food.

"It was the most pain I had ever endured. Every fibre in my body burned. I screamed and screamed, begging them to stop. But unlike any of the other times, I did not black out. I did not retreat into myself.

"I kept my mind. I knew exactly what was going on. I let the Eco in my body take form, my anger shaping it, my fear intensifying it, and my will power controlling it.

"The machine exploded. The sudden malfunction caused even more Eco to be forced into me. With such a gross overdose my body couldn't take it. The Eco needed somewhere to go and my body was too small.

"I don't know what happened, really, but I think that it ripped through my skin and caused havoc, uncontrolled intense heat. That is why my left arm is so disgusting, that is where it escaped from.

"I remember me screaming an awful scream. It was alien. Fire burst from my hands, melting machinery. Weapons exploded in the hands of the Guards. There was so much chaos; I saw my chance to get out. I burned a female Guard until she was nothing be a pile of ashes. There was my alibi. They would think that the Eco had burned me to nothing.

"I ran to the outskirt of the city where I collapsed. Like I said before, I was out for weeks. When I finally came to arm ached, my head was sore and I had a terrible fever. My arm took ages to heal. I left before it was completely healed, never thanking those who took care of me.

"I wandered around, and eventually wound up at the Lunari.

"But I think the biggest blow was when I found that Jak, my baby brother, was part of some horrible conspiracy-like prophecy. He had travel through time and is now the Dark Warrior.

"I have no life. It is just a painful existence."

Jay stoped. She raised her hand to her mouth and sobbed lightly. Tears fell freely. She looked so torn up inside; Ezra didn't know what to do.

Eventually, he moved closer and embraced her.

"I have lost everything." She whispered between sobs.

Ezra stroked her hair. "Your brother is alive. That's got to count for something."

Jay shook her hear. "My brother is corrupted."

"We are all corrupted." He said to her. "We can only hope we are not stupid and use them for what they were intended."

"I think we will have to."

Such drama. Such desperation. Such… something else.

I think it's going rather well, don't you? I think so, (damn cliff-hanger type-thing)

I wonder what it to happen in the next chapter. I wonder how many chapters there are going to be. I wonder if I will ever finish this story.

I hope this didn't take too long, and I hope youse enjoyed it.

Luck and Love,

Anita