Awakening

He opened his eyes and fire was all around him. He gasped and tried to jump back, but the fire was behind him too. Sparks jumped towards his skin and he winced – but nothing happened. Slowly he realised the fire wasn’t hurting him. He couldn’t even feel its heat, despite how close it was to him. As he stared at the flames, he noticed they weren’t the usual colour of fire. The flames were a strange black colour. Carefully, he reached out to touch one-

He heard a terrified scream. Turning his head, he saw that other people were in the fire. But they weren’t unhurt by the fire like he was. It was eating them alive. He ran to help them.

When the people saw him, they became even more terrified. They tried to run away from him, but the fire blocked their path. “Stop! I want to help you!” he shouted. They didn’t seem to hear him. One of the people, a kid his age, was staring at him. Slowly, the kid raised their hand to point at him.

They were pointing right at his eyes.

“What is it?” he said. He turned and managed to find a reflective wall.

He froze.

His reflection was a monster.

His eyes were burning black and red like the fire around him. The light was so strong that the space around him seemed to warp . “What... is this...?” he gasped. Yet somehow deep inside him, he knew. He knew that this was what he was. And when he looked down at his hands, he knew something more.

The fire was coming from his hands. It was hard to tell, but he knew deep inside him that it was the truth. He was the source of the fire.

He looked around. They were dying. The fire was killing them. His fire was killing them.

He was killing them.

Before he could stop himself, he screamed. The scream turned into a sob. He didn’t want this. Please, he didn’t want this. But it was too late. He had caused this.

Though his vision was blurry, he could still see the people running. They were all running away from him.

Everything had gone wrong and it was all his fault. It was all his fault. It was all his-

Byron’s eyes snapped open. It took him a few seconds to realise he was in his own bedroom. The familiar walls were around him but he could barely see them through his panic. The nightmare was still sharp in his mind.

But slowly, the world came into focus. Byron stilled his shaking hands as much as he could and pushed himself up.

“Calm down...” he muttered. “It’s fine. You’re awake now.”

It had all been just a nightmare. Right?

Byron walked through his room and rummaged through his belongings until he found some clothes. The dark grey t-shirt hung loosely off his body. Though Byron was the average height for a sixth grader, he was unusually thin. He didn’t mind the baggy clothes, though. Sometimes it was nice to be able to disappear into your clothes.

After dressing, Byron walked to the bathroom. He was calm when he walked in, but then –

He saw the mirror.

The mirror.

His reflection stared back at him in terror. But Byron only looked at the eyes.

The eyes.

Oh god, the eyes.

His eyes were jet black with a bright red centre, just like in his nightmare. They seemed to burn with a terrible fire.  As Byron stared at his eyes, the air seemed to warp around them. Eventually the effect got so strong that he was forced to wrench his gaze away. The bathroom blurred around him. He fell to his knees.

What was happening?? Byron desperately tried to make sense of it. If he just thought about this logically-

But all he could hear was his own racing heart. All he could see, in his mind, was the reflection with its terrible eyes. He put his hands over his eyes. They didn’t feel any different. A spark of hope appeared in his mind. Maybe it wasn’t real, after all. He just woken up from a dream, right? Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.

There was only one way to find out.

Slowly, Byron rose to his feet. Please, he thought, let it be a dream. Please, I don’t want this.

Two black and red eyes stared back at him.

I don’t want to be a monster.

No matter how many times he blinked, the sight in front of him stayed the same. Byron didn’t understand it. His eyes had never looked this way before. Why was this happening?

As he stared into the mirror, Byron realised that his eyes weren’t the only thing that had changed. There was a strange, burning feeling spreading through his body. It was like a fire. Byron remembered the nightmare and flinched. It couldn’t be... could it?

He flexed his fingers experimentally. If he really had this power, how would he use it? Byron closed his eyes and focused. He felt the burning feeling move through his body and grow stronger, until it was concentrated in his hand. Byron opened his eyes. His hand looked the same, but the air around it was moving strangely, blurring his vision.

Fire, he thought.

And the fire in him blazed to life.

The next thing he knew, black flames were all over his hand and moving up his arm. Byron cried out and tried to shake them off. The fire didn’t hurt him, but just the sight of it was enough to send him into a panic. Why on earth had he thought this was a good idea?

Stop the fire! Turn it off! he thought. Un-fire!

But nothing worked. The fire was getting dangerously close to the wall. If something caught fire...

He had to find a way to stop this, fast.

Byron stumbled out of the bathroom, heading towards the main part of his house. Sparks flew around him as he ran.