Firedown Sun

We decided on Seem to be the first seeker, and after we'd all chosen our hiding spots, it seemed like nothing even happened. I had pushed a hollow log against a tree, climbed the tree, then dropped into the hollow log as fast as I could, before the sixty seconds was up and Seem came looking.

And then suddenly, everyone was either screaming or laughing. Seem ran around, practically tackling people as he found them, then dragged them off to help him search for the rest of us. And I guess it WOULD take a while to find fifty-one other sixteen-year-olds.

But maybe not this time. He was finding people within seconds of the start of his search.

And I knew in an instant, when he came running at me, that my hiding spot may have been creative, but it wasn't good enough against someone as clever as he was.

There were cracks in the wood, so I could see him when he rushed up to the log, and he laughed right out loud, calling out to the kids he had already found- none of them were kids I knew off the top of my head- "Well, isn't this an interesting hiding spot?"

They laughed, too, not even caring they'd been caught so soon. In fact, they encouraged him when he came up with his "brilliant plan".

"Hey, stop!" I cried, half-laughing, half-panicking. They tipped the log over, wishing me a fun trip as they pushed me toward what appeared to be a very steep hill. My eyes popped open in horror, and I beat my fists against the hollow log, praying to break loose before they could push me down. "Stop! This isn't funny, Seem! You got me, you got me, come on! Don't do this!"

"Do it, do it, do it!" his prisoners cheered.

And he didn't even HESITATE!

I was spinning, rolling, and now I couldn't see or breathe or even think straight. I screamed the whole way down, then came to a dizzy stop at the bottom.

"Have fun, Kitten?" Seem laughed.

The world was turning. I felt like I was going to be sick, and I crawled out of the hollow log.

"No, I did NOT have fun!" I hollered back at them. I couldn't even walk. I stumbled toward what I thought was a short tree.

It happened to be a warm pair of arms.

"Why, Kitten," they taunted, "you appear to be lost. Need help back up the hill?"

My vision was too fuzzy to tell who I was staring at. "Who...?" I choked, trying to hold back the nauseating feeling consuming me. But the person who had caught me only chuckled again and pushed me up to Seem.

"Don't worry, I've got you," they reassured me when I kept tripping or staggering to one side when I lost my balance. I thanked them multiple times, glad I didn't trip and land, splat, on my face.

"Who are you?" I asked again. "I demand to know!"

I could see now, so I turned to face whoever had caught me.

And I really WAS going to be sick.

"Lune!" I screamed in shock. "YOU caught me?" I pushed myself away from him and I didn't fall.

He nodded, grinning from ear to ear. "I was hiding at the bottom of the hill when they pushed you."

And I had THANKED him...

"Get away," I mumbled. "Thanks for rescuing me, but I was fine on my own."

"Oh, sure you were." He walked off, chuckling.

Hexa and Resh came up beside me, surrendering to Seem, they said, so they could stand between me and the Drumer boy... I laughed at the offer but accepted all the same. Not that Lune was really a danger or even a problem.

Just an annoyance.

All the same, they stood by me, making jokes and getting me all jazzed up again for the game as we ran around, trying to hide from the next few seekers and never quite finding a place good enough. The seeker would scare the daylights out of us, especially the last one, Zarther Summon, who was a joker if I ever saw one. Once he found us huddled by a boulder, he chased us around the hospital ruins, growling like some rabid creature but we only giggled, pushing him away as he tried to tackle us to the ground.

And then Seem gathered us together again. He really was leader-like. He watched over us like some distressed parent, making sure we weren't fighting or breaking rules and always a step ahead of us, giving us advice about things.

And I suddenly realized he wanted to be seen as that, as a leader. He wanted the city leaders to see him, and of course, they would. They lived somewhere up in that midnight sky, watching us every second of every hour. They saw EVERYTHING. And if someone showed divine potential, they could be chosen leader...

Would they choose Seem?

I looked into his shining, golden eyes and knew that this was his decision. He wanted to be noticed by the leaders, for them to like him, to be chosen by them. And thus BECOME one of them.

So, Seem, the one who came up with the brilliant plan of Hide-and-Seek before the snow set in tomorrow, the one who was actually sort of nice and even good-looking, would turn into one of the selfish, stupid leaders and then I'd hate him.

Those kids the leaders chose had to do something grand, something BIG. What was Seem planning? Surely not just something like this. A game at night to get all our hopes up. After all, our hopes would be devastatingly dashed tomorrow morning when the snow came. We wouldn't be Seem's happy followers.

I certainly wouldn't follow someone who wanted to be a leader. Who LIKED the thought of being one.

I was repulsed by the slightest idea.

"Alright, hot chocolate anyone?" Seem called out. There were pleased sounds from the kids around me, and they begged for some to drink. I squinted in the darkness and saw Seem passing mugs out to them.

He came up to me and offered one.

I didn't take it.

"Don't you know what this is?"

I held my tongue. Of course I knew about hot chocolate. Who here in Monten didn't?

"You've never heard of hot chocolate? A REBEL like you doesn't know about hot chocolate?" He laughed. "You need training to be a proper rebel."

"I don't need training, Seem," I snarled. "Just because you're so-"

"Don't make a fuss, girly. You don't need to hate me yet."

And he was right. But why did he even have to REMIND me? Why was it that I could hate people so much at the simplest annoyance? Or was it even hate? What was this feeling inside me that made me so... angry?

There. Just anger. Plain anger. Not that the stupid emotion was any better than hate. It could be just as fatal.

So I didn't hate Lune. I didn't hate Seem. I was just angry at them for being what they were.

And they must be angry at me. For being what I was. A rebel. A nobody.

An Outcast.

"Here, have some hot chocolate. Tear open the packet, pour the mix in the water. But be careful. It's hot," he warned, handing the mug to me. He held his hands there for a moment, on mine, like he was trying to comfort me.

Him? Comfort me? For what? Maybe he didn't have a reason. Maybe he was just trying to prove to the city leaders that kids here weren't just selfish savages.

Maybe he wouldn't be a leader like that when he was chosen.

Because I knew it already. Seem would be chosen.

It happened once every few years. Whenever a kid really did something that the leaders liked, they were immediately called up to the sky for a "talk". And they usually didn't come back. There had only been one teenager that had ever refused. And he was now considered infamous.

Nimeous Bloom. The rebel that started the revolution. The one that almost took down Monten. The one that came up with Firedown Sun.

And, though he was my hero, I was scared of him, too. Scared of the courage he'd had. Scared of how much he had been able to do just because... he believed he could.

Believing anything in Monten was wrong. All those people that "believed" in something- a religion, a tradition, ANYTHING- had been killed. But what would do something like that? Some creature? The song we'd sung in Life Studies had spoke of a darkness that killed them. WHAT kind of darkness could kill more than half of the planet?

Okay, let me set the facts straight: ninety five percent of Earth was dead.

By one... thing... only.

I shivered as I thought of whatever that thing was- vegetable, animal or mineral- coming back and killing us, too.

With trembling fingers, I poured in the hot chocolate mix and stirred it with the spoon Seem had handed to me. As I lifted the mug to my lips, I remembered the warning: be careful, it's hot. I sipped slowly, but it wasn't TOO hot.

Course not. There was no such thing as too hot in Monten. Nothing in Monten could hurt you, because that would look bad for the leaders. They said "No one here will ever get hurt", so how could they explain it if someone did?

The cocoa tasted good, even without the cream I usually had with it. I drank a few gulps, feeling Hexa and Resh come up to me on both sides. They held mugs of the steaming drink themselves, sipping at it and shivering as a cold wind filled the night.

The ruins looked strange when I really focused on them, when I wasn't rushing away from the seeker's grasp with a giggling Resh behind me or a Hexa by my side, threatening to gut the seeker if they dared touch me. I stared at the walls that had fallen down. Not by a bulldozer or crashing ball. Just by time itself. Because people had stopped using it.

A decade or so ago, people had had illnesses all the time. And then the leaders figured something out to get them to stop. They forced people not to be sick anymore. Maybe placed something in our brains?

Well, even if I didn't want people messing around in my head, if it was keeping me from getting ill, I was happy to have it. At least it didn't get me to stop being rebellious and start acting like their stupid puppets. THAT I would have had to fight against.

"Oh, good cocoa," Resh commented. "So chocolaty and... HOT."

Hexa shivered in agreement. "If only we had heat jackets or something."

I suddenly smiled and whispered, "I've got something better than heat jackets." Before my friends could ask what, I pulled out my match box. "Go get some concrete pieces or rocks from the ruins," I told Resh. She hurried off obediently, not even asking why. Good Resh. She hardly questioned things.

Ha. Unlike me, who questioned everything.

When she came back, I placed the rocks she held in a circle on the ground, Hexa bending to help me, just as trusting as Resh. Then the three of us hurried to grab branches that had fallen onto the ground or twigs or even dry leaves. I knew all about lighting fires the proper way, so I told them how and they got to it. Well, they put the little sticks and leaves down, anyway. They left the match part to me.

A crowd had gathered around, curious as to what was going on. I saw Seem staring at me among them, biting his lips, like he wanted to stop me.

Especially when I lit the match.

"Stop!" he ordered, stepping out. "No fire! NO fire! Don't you know that, Kitten? Are you crazy or what?"

Someone's hand shot out, and I grinned as I recognized my Life Studies Partner.

"Let her be," Pharis told Seem in a comforting, sweet voice. "She's going to be a Fire Pit Manager when she grows up, anyway." He gave a little smile toward me, and I knew he trusted me, too. "Why don't we let her practice?"

Seem hesitated, then nodded in defeat.

And, with that, I dropped the almost burnt out match onto the kindling wood.

It sparked, but I knew it wasn't enough. "More amo," I laughed, pulling out more matches. Might as well use them up tonight, and then I could have the full box all to myself when I got home. Yes, sweet success number two! Some kids started to help me, realizing that a fire meant warmth. Even Seem realized that, so he handed me a branch, even granting me an appreciative smile, his golden eyes twinkling from the flames growing in the middle of the stone circle.

Soon it was burning fine all on its own, and I let them know it was okay to stop feeding it. We didn't need a bonfire, just something to stop our fingers or toes from falling off. I'd read that frostbite wasn't so good, and it wasn't exactly something even REAL doctors could fix. Unless they gave you mechanical replacements, but that didn't sound so intriguing...

We gathered round, lifting our hands up over the flames, some barely standing close enough to feel the heat from it. Their eyes were all wide in fear, but I told them it was okay. As long as they didn't actually fall INTO it, they wouldn't get burned.

Of course, with fifty two of us, we had to take turns warming up. I stood aside, letting the others go before me. After all, I had done it for them. I could light up a flame any time I felt like it. They'd have to come to me to get some.

I threw the match box in the fire after giving it a goodbye kiss. It had been a friend for a good, long time... I whispered, "good night" softly to it as it burned away into nothing but ash, then sat down on the cold ground, smiling at having made everyone happy.

That happiness didn't last long.

Flashlight beams started appearing all around and booming voices were calling to us:

"Put that out!"

"What are you kids thinking? You'll burn the city down!"

"Who's responsible for this? WHO?"

There's this thing we all have for each other. We all didn't want to get hurt ourselves but would hate for any of the others to get hurt, too, because that, in turn, would be hurting us also. Or at least, that's what we told ourselves. Maybe it was just because we had known these kids all our lives and didn't want to see them get into trouble.

But whatever the reason, it was playing a huge role tonight.

I saw three hands flash up. The owners were all boys.

Jaz Erewing, Pharis Cuppard.

And Lune Drumer.

No! They couldn't take the blame! I raised my hand, too, hoping to draw the attention my way. I might as well just admit it. Just in case I actually DID burn my house down one of these days, I might as well tell them tonight that I was the firegirl, that I was the one with the matches. I wouldn't let them know who I got them from, though. Just like Ankun would never squeal who'd supplied him with so many books.

But I wasn't the last to volunteer to take responsibility for the fire.

Hexa and Resh were next, simultaneously shooting their hands into the air. Then Havva Twigley. Then Zarther Summon. Seem, too, and Perisnow Lilley, one of the girls in my homeroom. A few more people from my Life Studies class. And then everyone began to do so, people that didn't even know me hardly at all. Every single hand, fifty two total, lifted up and, as an entire age group called themselves responsible, the police with the flashlights could do absolutely nothing.

And it was a laugh in the face directed at the leaders.

That may not be a good thing in the future, of course, especially for Seem, who wanted so bad to become a leader himself. How could they ever pick him when he was involved in this fire?

And it was my fault.

Staring at us in confusion, one of the police officers spluttered, "Well, just... just put it OUT, then. Stupid kids," he muttered as he followed the others back to their motor scooters to drive back to headquarters.

Funny. Why hadn't we heard their scooters coming?

Our hands fell back to our sides, and I nearly screamed. I tried my best to whisper, though.

"You guys are all CRAZY!" I accused. "Sticking up for a rebel like me! Why would you do that?"

They all just shrugged, murmuring for me to put out the fire and head home. Probably wondering why they had done it, too.

Lune had been among the first to take responsibility. I'd think he would have been the last, if that. Why would he-

"Just say thanks," Resh reminded me. "After all... they saved your neck."

I sighed. "Thanks, then." Thanks for not thrusting me into the officers' arms and decreeing me guilty. Thanks for being somewhat grateful for my act of stupid kindness in giving you a fire. Thanks for actually caring whether or not I was dragged off to a cage or torture.

I went to my scooter, carefully undid the lock chain and got on the grumpy mechanism with another sigh. "Ready to go home?" I whispered. It groaned beneath me, and I thought again of naming it. "Do you want a name?" I asked. It was silent, like it was unsure whether it wanted to have a connection to me or not. Eventually, it just grumbled. Like it ever did anything else.

What could a scooter like mine be named? Something that reflected its grumpiness, its miserable outlook on life. Or maybe something happy? Just because it was the exact opposite? Something that paired up nicely with something ridiculous like Kitten. Something that had a good, rebellious, fiery sound to it.

I smiled and snapped for it to let me on. It rumbled to life beneath my sneakers and I patted it. This time it didn't shudder because I cooed to it:

"Take me home, Dragonblade."