Chapter 137: Chapter 137

Cinder and smoke fill the air all around me, creating a toxic miasma borne not of rot or of fungal infection but of ash. Of heat and the remnants of things that have been purged from this domain. Things that no longer walk, slither, crawl or see. Only some of us are transformed, only some of us are reincarnated into this new form. Like a phoenix from the ashes, like the sun of a new day to come. We burn so brightly, with a fire that burns with fresh purpose. What a rarity it is, isn’t it? Purpose, that is.

 

  How many of us have a purpose other than existing? Sure, some of us may find one by chance. Or some of us, like myself, can decide to make our own purpose for existing. But how many of us just exist for no reason? For nothing? Simply existing for the day and then for the next and then for the next after that and before you know it, all of your days are gone and you will be left to wonder. Why? For what purpose did I exist? That’s the joke, you see. The great cosmic gag. Only the rarest of us, the hero for example, have a divine purpose. Some dietetic, heavenly bestowed path, adorned with lights and warm beds.

 

  The rest of us? The rest of us don’t have a purpose and yet we wait day after day, hoping one day we’ll realize that we actually did have one all along. That we’ll look at something and all of the sudden realize it was this all along. It was that. A calling. A love. A place. A thing. Of course! “How could I have been so blind?” we’d want to think as we stare at the obvious thing. All these years, I could have been doing… this, or that. Well, jokes on you friend, that’s never gonna happen. I step forward, ash compressing with a crunch beneath me as the winds generated by my heat press it aside in all directions.

 

  No. That’s not gonna happen. You’re never going to have a purpose hand-delivered to you. Nobody is going to light up your way and tell you that you’re the chosen hero. Look! Look! Here are some friends who love you for who you are. Look! Look! Here’s some great ability and talent! Look! Look at all these gifts we have for you because you exist! You’re chosen! You’re special!

 

  No. That’s a fantasy. It needs to be burnt. It needs to be purged from your heart, guy. The goo that makes up that fantasy must be incinerated and scraped off of your mind and soul like the tarnish that it is. So that you can start to see clearly again. So that you can understand too, that the only way forward is the one you’ll make yourself. Through effort. Through violence. Through burning. Burning everything. The old. The new. It all has to be burnt in some fashion to make room to walk. Even if you must walk over bodies, burn them and walk over them as well.

 

  Others surround me and I look at them walking too. They all go in their own directions, but some share my road for a time at least. Their fires have different colors, each signaling some different virtue. Some different pursuit they had had in life. I watch as a red flame in the shape of a woman dances down into the distance, clutching her heart all the while as she goes merrily. I watch another next to me clad in bright, blue flames look all around himself to study everything. Every flame, every mote of dust and ash. Everything has something to teach him. That is his fire. To learn. There are things that persist after death, I look back to my bones.

 

  They say ghosts are formed when somebody dies with an intense emotion raging in their spirit. We are a little different. We are but the spirits of the dead made manifest, but not necessarily their souls. No, we are that deeper layer. Passion. Drive. Desires. Longings. All of the things that a soul feeds on that remain after its departure. In some cases, with the right touch, we become these… things. Elementals. If the disposal of the body is in the right condition to sync with the present core value of the person, then an elemental of the corresponding type can be born.

 

  I don’t know what my body was or who. I don’t know how fresh my death was. All I know is that I am driven. I want to go. I want to go to that place. To that place. Black. Black. Fire. My fire is black. I am more ash than fire. Smoke, a swirling vapor of heat out of which shines two blazing eyes. I want to burn it. It wants to burn it all. Fire syncs well with these emotions that my body left behind. Had I been disposed of in ice, I would not have arisen. But maybe another would have instead. Something distant, something cold. Had I been disposed of in water, perhaps something sad would have come to be. The ritual of burying is important. You must bury the dead.

 

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  Only the element of earth is in itself a base, a neutral. The earth carries with it an old quiet, it lets the dead rest. It lets everything sleep and regrow anew. But there is little earth here. There is only fire. Though that’s just fine with me. I walk forward and look at the entity next to me, who is shuffling alongside of me, down the same way for now. His eyes are set forward, locked in determination at the sight of the unseen goal ahead. His fire is black as well. Great minds think alike.

 

Another. Another.

 

  He is angry. Furious. But it is a controlled burn like my own. Fire is a tool. You must not let it rage. You must control it, you must burn what is unimportant and let the rest escape alive, if not a little singed. I look to the strangely familiar silhouette of the man and a feeling comes to me. An emotion I can’t control as I look into his burning, hallowed eyes. The eyes of my friend. I speak, not knowing what it is I’m saying.

 

“Hey, Piotr” I ask my favorite friend.

 

“What is it Miika?” he groans.

 

“Hot today, yes?” I jest.

 

“Shut up Miika!”

 

 

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