autumn twilight

Power explodes inside of me, a hot storm of wind and lightning that boils through my body. No matter how often I call it, it still surprises me. It’s overwhelming and insane. I’ll never be able to control this storm, and so I don’t try. I throw back my head to scream, but there is no air, no way to do it.

The lightning bursts out from my mouth and eye, running along my face and down my throat, tracing the paths of least resistance down my body, wrapping around me until my entire body was burning with it. The whip struck me again, across the shoulders, and the golden glow of the lightning wrapped itself around the falls, drawn off of me. I found air somewhere, and I did scream. The pain of the whip was nothing, it was warm pressure, living heat against my skin. I screamed now as the power was ripped from my skin. The falls of the whip came down again and again, each time they drew back the power went with them, being dragged away from my skin. I could feel my eyes bleed to black, and the light was all too much.

I close my eyes against the light and the whip kept falling. As always happens, I start struggling. I know it’s no use, but the pain is too intense to do anything else. My body fights because it has no choice. The steel around my wrists heats up and cuts against me. I twist and writhe, jerking towards the wall to try and escape the whip.

The gatherer laid on harder and I opened my eyes. The light of my body was still bright and the power kept being pulled from it. I squinted at him and saw the hilt of the whip in his hand glowing with the magic harvested from my body. I pulled away and his dark eyes flickered with anger as he struck me again. I began to cry, as I always cry, and my tears were a stream down my face. I was no longer screaming, I had no power to do so. His forearm was beginning to glow now, soaking up some of the power in the whip. He began to strike me with more force, and I felt the power begin to draw back inside of me. My body jerked as the whip struck harder than ever before. And I felt a stinging pain in my hand.

Time slowed, stretching into one of those long moments where you know you have as much time as you need to do what needs to be done. I didn’t have anything to do, but my body had different ideas. I looked up at my wrist, and I saw it. There was a sharp spot on the manacle, it had nicked me. There, near the bottom of the metal was a spot of blood, moving down my forearm slowly. The power that had begun to draw back inside me burst back out against my body, brighter than it had been before, and my eyes adjusted to it. There was no pain to the fire now, just a welcome sense of peace. The power wrapped around me and there was something different about it.

The gatherer’s eyes widened with hunger. I could see his desire for the power that was pouring off of me now, greater than it had ever been. He swung the whip, but it never struck me. He began to scream. I saw the whip explode into fire, gold and purple, and the fire rushed up his arm and consumed him. His scream was over as quickly as it had begun. I fell to the ground, only peripherally aware that the fire had bled off my skin and that the chains and manacles that held me were gone. The floor beneath me began to burn with that fire, and it poured out from me, engulfing the room. The support beams were devoured and the ceiling began to fall. I had just enough time to rise up onto my hands before losing consciousness to the destruction and pain that engulfed me.