• Where am I?

    That was the first thought that registered in my mind when consciousness found me.

    Oh, God. It feels like I’m burning.

    That was the second thought, which was weird because fire was my element. I didn’t burn. I couldn’t burn. It was physically impossible. Fire was like my soul. Without it I was nothing. Without it I was in constant agony. So why? Why did if feel like my flesh was being burned from my body? Why?

    The next thing that I realized was that I was upside down, swaying slowly back and forth. My legs were suspended above me me—ankles chained together—and my arms were below me. Something slid down my face, warm and sticky. I reached up and brushed it off, my hand coming away red. Blood. I was bleeding.

    “Cynthia?” My voice was nearly inaudible.

    There was no answer, though I hadn’t actually been expecting one. Wherever I was, I was alone. No one was going to rescue me. No one could rescue me. My gaze finally shifted downward—depending on your point of view; it could have easily been up—and my stomach instantly tightened into coiling knots. Fear rose in my throat, and all rational thought fled from me. What was it that had completely and thoroughly terrified me? Well, I was hanging a good twenty feet above a black, glassy pool of water, hence the reason that I felt like I was burning. Water tended to weaken my control over fire. Not to mention the fact that if I were to fall, I would die. Not from the fall, but form the water itself.

    “Oh, God, help me.”

    It wasn’t a prayer. Not really. I don’t roll that way. Now, Cynthia was a devout Christian. She put all of her trust in Jesus, but I wasn’t too great with the whole faith thing. I believed in only what I could prove to be fact. Why? Because for some reason, my world could not function without proof of reality and whatnot. But at that moment, I almost wished that God was real. I really did want to believe in Him then, so that I might have someone to ask for help. But I wouldn’t fall that low. Not now. Not ever.

    “How are you doing Conan?”

    The mocking voice made me jump. I twisted around—which was a lot harder to do than it sounds—trying to see who was there, but my efforts were futile. I couldn’t see a damn thing. But, of course, I already knew who it was, didn’t I? Who else could it possibly be, but him? Icarus was my tormentor. He had been hunting me for years. Why? Because I was one of the few people who could withstand Cynthia’s power, and he hated me because of that. He would kill me because of that.

    “What do you want?” I asked, unable to hide the waver in my voice.

    He laughed, the sound echoing all around me, making it completely impossible to tell from where it had come. “You know what I want,” he said.

    Of course, I did. I had always known. Even when he had claimed to love Cynthia, I had seen the ill-intent on his face. I had warned her, but she had been head over heels in love with him and would not heed unto me. He had blinded her, played off of her ignorance. But I had known.

    “Screw you,” I said.

    The words were barely out of my mouth when I realized that I was falling. Straight towards the water, which lied below me, waiting to swallow me whole. I screamed. I won’t try to deny it. Pure terror had taken over me, and if I hadn’t screamed I would have cried instead. But I didn’t crash into the water as I had expected. No, I was still suspended by the chain, having only fallen a few feet.


    “Would you like to rethink that comment, Conan?”

    I didn’t answer because I was trembling too much to speak. Though, even if I had been more calm, which was quite impossible at that specific moment, I still would have remained silent. No matter what I said to him, the outcome would always be the same. I wasn’t going to get out of there alive. He would make sure of that.

    “I’m waiting, Conan.”

    Okay. So I was crying by this point. Who gives a damn? I’ve never claimed to be brave, and in all honesty I’m a coward through and through. Icarus knew that, and so he dangled the threat of agonizing death before me. How long could I last before my fear became too great.

    “P-please,” I said, my voice shaking and hitching with sobs. “P-please, d-don’t.”

    “Are you afraid, little wolf?”

    I nodded my head as best as I could from the position that I was in. Icarus laughed again. “Then you know what must be done. I will free you then,” he said.

    He was lying of course. He wanted my death almost as much as he desired Cynthia’s power.

    “N-no. I w-won’t.”

    He sighed. “Conan, Conan. Why do you defy me? You know it will only end badly for you.”

    “You can kill me,” I replied, my voice surprisingly firm given the circumstances. “But I will never do what you want.”

    “Pity,” Icarus said, and then I fell again. This time, though, I was too overcome with horror to cry out. I knew that this was the end. I was not going to survive falling into the water. I was going to die, but my life didn’t flash before my eyes as I had thoroughly been expecting. Sadly enough, nothing spectacular happened at all. It was only one thought, passing through my mind so quickly that I barely even noticed that I had thought it. Oh, s**t, I can’t believe this is happening.

    By this point, my hands had reached the water, and the liquid seared my flesh. I choked out a sob, and soon after realized that I had once again stopped falling, with the water up to my elbows. I lifted my arms up out of the water, but could only keep them suspended for so long before they dropped back into the frigid water.

    It hurt. That was about the only thing that registered in my mind. It hurt like hell—almost literally, too, since it felt like fire, the fire that I should be able to control, but couldn’t at this moment—was burning every inch of my poor, trembling body.

    “Conan.”

    A whimper escaped my throat, and I could hear Icarus laugh yet again. How one person could find someone else’s pain so amusing, I cannot fathom.

    “Conan,” he said again. “If you change your mind, I will pull you back up.”

    I knew that I shouldn’t listen to him. I knew that what he wanted could literally mean the end of the world. But my fear was too great to ignore. It clung to my heart and mind, telling me to just give in. Besides, what choice did I really have? If I were to become completely submerged in the water as Icarus obviously intended, well, I didn’t even want o think about it. The effect would most definitely be fatal. Once, before I had become accustomed to my power, I had gotten stranded out in a thunderstorm. Every time a raindrop had hit me, I thought I was being struck by a bullet. This would be much worse. A thousand times worse.
    I dropped another few inches until my hair grazed the water.

    “No, no. Don’t,” I pleaded desperately as terror filled my throat and cut off all my air. I felt another drop of blood roll down my face and heard it drop into the water with a plinking sound that seemed much louder than it should have.

    “If you don’t want me to drop you,” Icarus said. “Then agree to give me Cynthia’s power. That is the only way that you will survive. Do you understand?”

    “Y-yes.” How could I not? He had made that fact thoroughly clear.

    “Do you agree, Conan, or do you die?”

    I could never agree. If I did I might not die that instant, but in the end I would. I couldn’t escape my fate. But that wasn’t the worst of it. If Icarus ever got Cynthia’s power he would kill her, and that was something that I could not bear. Because just as fire was my soul, she was my very life—which, in a way, was ironic since, being a vampire, she was dead. And, though, I was afraid to die—afraid as in “wet my pants” terrified—I would. For her. Anything for her.

    “Conan.”

    My body was shaking so violently that I was barely able to get my answer out, but finally the words came, “F**k you, Icarus.”

    And then I fell the rest of the way.