Apollyon

The moment I reached the village, I felt a stabbing pain in my tummy. It was so hard and scary to get out of the volcano when the rocks fell. I thought I’d never see Papa again, but this…

‘Why did this happen? How did this happen? Who did this?’

So many questions, but no answers.

If the volcano was scary, I didn’t know what this was…

Everything around me felt so full but.. so empty. It was either broken or burning. Besides the crackles and hisses from the fire, there was a scary silence—no screams or cries for help. The ground was dirty with bodies, some under broken buildings, others… others burned with a nasty smell. The more I walked, the worse it got, more bodies and more broken things everywhere I looked. Our happy village was a scary, burning graveyard.

I held my stomach, feeling like throwing up. From far away, my eyes got big when I saw a man carrying two children running toward my direction.

I gasped.

‘S-someone has survived? I thought in surprise. ‘Then maybe Papa and Theodore are still alive!’

But before I could get too hopeful, I saw a white shine on the man’s left behind a building, and just as it appeared, a white fire was quick to follow.

The man in an attempt to save the children, tried to throw them out of the flames way, but it was too late. When the fire went away, there was nothing left of the man or the children.

I coughed, forgetting how to breathe for a moment. Before I could understand what had just happened, the white shine seemed to grow bigger and bigger—scarier and scarier.

‘I have to find Papa. Papa will know what to do.’

I took every turn I could find between the broken buildings, trying to lose the shine before reaching Mr. Orion’s house. Each time I looked back, the white light was still there, but it was getting weaker. After a few more turns, the light disappeared, and I stopped to catch my breath and figure out where I was.

Nearby was a sign I knew, but it was half-burned and barely hanging on. Beside it, there was nothing left of the blacksmith shop.

“Mr. Roric…” I whispered, my voice low.

Turning away, my hair fell over my eyes. My legs moved on their own, and I was running again. I ran to hide, to make this all go away. Mr. Roric had the coolest swords, and he was so kind to us, but now he… he…

‘Papa. I have to find Papa. Papa will know what to do.’

Knowing where I was, I knew the way to Mr. Orion’s house. Carefully checking for the white shine, I reached it without any problems. For a moment, it felt like I dropped a heavy rock I was carrying, but then it got heavier when I saw no one was inside the house.

Panic started rising again, but when I saw the house wasn’t on fire and everything looking fine inside, I realized they had left. Then the thought hit.

“Home! They should be home!”

I held my shaking hands close to my tummy and tried calming down.

What if they weren’t home? What if they were gone, like Mr. Roric?

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

I started feeling dizzy. All this smoke had gotten into my head and it was hard to breathe—harder than the volcano.

“Everything is going to be okay. I’ll find Papa and everything is going to be okay.” Holding my pendant while repeating myself over and over, I calmed down.

On my way home, a sharp cry was heard from the plaza.

As I turned to look, the white fire was already eating away the woman who cried out for help. From the corner of the building was a dazzling glow, and behind it, I saw a white wing.

Immediately, my eyes fell on the rock tied to my shirt. W-wasn’t it wrapped in a similar white wings when I had found it?

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I was scared to touch it again, but I did.

To my surprise, it wasn’t hot or painful, and no new white marks appeared on my arms. It was the opposite—calming and comforting, as if it was pushing me away before, and wanting me closer now. Being a little calmer, I took the safe way back home, now that I knew where the creature that created the light was.

My breath became faster the closer I got. Despite running faster, it felt as if I was slower.

Then I saw it and froze in place, unable to move, my legs feeling like jelly. Half of it was missing, fire etching on its ends, while the other half was crumbling, ready to fall at any moment.

“N-no…”

Entering from the side because a giant rock was blocking the front door, I tightened my hands on the rock and my pendant. The first floor, the part that was still here, was empty.

Boom!

A part of the second floor broke down, jolting me in shock. Slowly, I looked up to see where the rock fell from, and I gasped, my heart skipping a thump. Up on the second floor, a robe was hanging. That wasn’t any robe. It was Papa’s!

“Papa!” I screamed, calling for him.

I rushed for the stairs, each one creaking and squeaking. The staircase was on the brink of breaking down, but I didn’t slow down one bit.

Papa! I found Papa!

It was so lonely and scary in the forest and then in the volcano it was all dark and scary and then here even worse, but most of all, I was sorry. So very sorry for running away. The only reason I wasn’t crying was because I knew with Papa everything would be okay! And here he was, waiting for me!

“Papa! Papa!”

The second floor was filled with fallen walls, burning wood and spikes blocking the way, but I quickly jumped, ducked, and ran around all of them, calling for Papa as I reached closer.

“Papa! Papa! Pa—” My voice cut off.

My mouth trembled, and my quick, shaky breaths echoed in my ears. Papa was holding Theodore tightly in his arms, his lips drawn red as spiky sticks extended from his back, finding Theodore inside his hug, flames flickering around their bodies.

I let my pendant and rock go, unable to hold them anymore.

As soon as they were off my hands,, tears filled my eyes and everything got blurry, but I could still see the scene in front of me as clear as day. I felt something snap inside me and the emotions I had been trying to hold back all this time flowed into me at once.

The pain in my tummy was too much. I yelled, I screamed, I howled, my throat burning by the raw sounds. Refusing to believe my eyes, I shook Papa again and again, but no matter how I shook, he didn’t wake up. He didn’t even move. I cried and cried, shaking with every sob, tears sizzling on my burning hands.

The world around me was burning, but all I could feel was the empty coldness inside me. Before, I only felt alone because Papa had yelled at me. Now I was alone. No one was there to help me. No one was there to tell me everything will be okay.

‘No one! No one!’

I was all alone. I screamed and cried, cried and screamed until my voice couldn’t be heard anymore.

A powerful wind blew, and the fire snuffed out, but it didn’t matter anymore. Papa and Theodore weren’t there anymore. Black, unrecognizable figured were left.

I shiver to the cold winds now that the fire was out, and I tried hugging myself for warmth. In response, as if the wind was alive, it got colder, but then suddenly, it changed, heating up quickly to its previous heat, and then some. The darkness of my closed eyelids filled with white.

The weird weather made me pause, and after wiping the blurring tears, I gasped, or at least that’s what it felt like because my mouth dropped, but I didn’t hear any sound

At the destroyed half side of the building, the mythical bird—the phoenix—Papa spoke of in his story, was hovering just a few meters away from me. It was even prettier than what Papa described it. Its giant white wings created heat waves, and each flap caused the floor to tremble.

My head spun from the phoenix, Papa with Theodore and the village as I breaked more and more smoke. Connecting the dots, with shaky breaths, I felt so much anger, so much rage that the creature of pure white looked like the darkest black.

“You… it was you…” I whispered, still struggling to form words. “You… you… you! I repeated, pulling my hair, unable to put my thoughts into a sentence. I stopped trying, and instead, I roared my rage at it.

The phoenix kept flapping its wings, silently. My heart thumped and thumped and thumped. Finally, the phoenix opened its mouth and white fire rose from its neck. Yelling out my emotions cleared my mind, enough for me to be afraid.

I grabbed my pendant and the rock again. Holding them tight to my tummy, I screamed, ready for what was to come.

The fire came out of its mouth, and in a matter of another thump, it had grown bigger than the entire remaining building.

Fear got the better of me, and my hands rose to protect my face as if that would do anything, but to my surprise, I didn’t vanish just like everything else had done to this white fire. It burned, and an ugly smell reached my nose, but it wasn’t hurting.

Before, it was my pendant that had saved me, but now it was the rock that glowed with a faint white light of its own, the calm and comforting feeling returning. The floor trembled and suddenly broke, taking me down together with it. My whole body hurt and my clothes were burned, but other than that, I was fine.

Kraa-aww! Kraa-aww! Kraa-aww!

The phoenix cried out, and its wings flapped faster, its heat waves getting stronger. It landed in front of me and held all four of its wings high as if it were preparing to do something. Then it cried again, and it moved them, spreading them circularly around me.

Before I could even react, a white fire erupted, swallowing me inside. The next moment, I truly felt how painful those flames were. I couldn’t even scream. The flames ate away at me like hungry beasts. Each breath felt like I was breathing living fire, burning my throat down with every gasp for air. It was so unbearable, I wished I had died right then and there. From top to bottom, my body begged for it to end, but the torturous pain only intensified.

My vision blurred, and a part of me had already drifted unconscious, my mind tearing apart. Just as my eyes were rolling back, a dark aura came from my pendant, resisting the unbearable flames. My eyes couldn’t focus, but the pain dropped, and a smile of relief found my lips. Whatever my pendant had done was too late, but I was happy it had at least stayed with me until the end.