Twisted

My breath shortened.

Was this some kind of joke? It couldn’t mean anything. It was just a story told to me on my birthday – no idea who it could be from. But still. It just could not mean anything. That was what I kept repeating in my head. After my – let’s call it weird – day yesterday, I was hoping for a normal birthday.

I closed my eyes and lowered myself to my bed, breathing in and out. Then I just opened my eyes and slowly folded the old paper and placed it in its envelope.

My breath still stayed irregular as I changed from the blue dress to my usual jeans and carefully placed the dress on a coat hanger. It took its probably-permanent place in my wardrobe.

“Rayna?” Alex called out from outside my door. “There’s a dance tonight. Carly told me.” Despite Carly’s obvious dislike of me, she was still a friend of Alexandria’s.

“Really?” I frowned, setting Listy’s card on my desk as Alex opened the door and came in. “That’s…coincidental.” There was a fire dance on my fourth birthday too, the first one after we moved here. No one knew that, of course. Alex would probably assume I was just talking about a fire dance on my birthday.

“So, who was it from?” she asked, pointing to the envelope deserted on the bed. I only gave it one cautious glance before I turned back to Alex and shrugged.

“I think it’s from someone…I met a few days ago.” Which sounded better than saying someone I met yesterday, once in an empty park and then again in my bedroom at midnight. “It was just a fairy tale kind of thing.”

“Someone you met a few days ago?” Her face resembled the kind of stony expression someone adopts when they want to hide what they’re feeling. I was shocked. Alex didn’t usually care about friends or people I decided to be with. Then again, I had never really gotten close to anyone, not after Mum and Dad died.

“Yeah.”

“What’s their name?” Now her voice was taking on the cool indifference that hid cobwebs of emotions between the words. I didn’t understand what was wrong with her. Or maybe I was just reading too much into her words.

“Blayze. At least that’s what he told me. I don’t think I’ve met a Blayze before.” His name reminded me of flames but it probably reminded everyone of flames.

“I see.” I shot her a startled look at the cutting tone in those two words. And then my surprise grew as she rose and left the room, with not another word.


I visited Listy again that afternoon but nothing had changed. It began to be clear that it was not just fainting – or at least not normal fainting. I asked a doctor if they knew what was wrong with her and he told me they didn’t know yet but they were working on it.

I got ready for the fire dance by myself, which was honestly kind of strange. I usually went with Listy, and if she was going with someone else – which rarely happened – I went with Alex and Brian. But I hadn’t seen Alex all day and when I asked Brian where she was, he shrugged. And then added as an afterthought that she probably was going to skip the dance.

I dressed in my mum’s dress – my dress – and looked in the mirror before deciding it was too fancy. So instead, I wore my favourite jeans and the most flattering shirt I could find.

At dusk, I made my way to the river’s edge – where the dances were always held – with only a torch lighting my way. Well, and the stars and the moon smiling down at me. It wasn’t very dark that night.

Goosebumps rose on my skin as I got closer. Something didn’t feel quite right, but that line has been used too many times to describe the feeling anymore. It was like bugs were crawling under my skin and my stomach wanted to give up – or throw up – on me.

The crowd was silent when I finally arrived. I could feel eyes on me but I dismissed it as paranoia. And then, it was dark. Like a light had switched off. I could look up to the sky and see no moon. My torch didn’t work.

Everyone seemed to think this was normal so I told myself maybe it had just grown dark quickly. And my torch ran out of batteries.

A fire was lit in the middle of my vision and my brain immediately classified it as Bonfire. Which it was, but I found it so hard to believe, simply because there had never been a bonfire at a dance before.

And then the drumming started, a heartbeat in our blanketed world.

More spots of fire sparked in my vision and this time, I recognised them as normal. They were the dancers’ fire sticks. The orange light glowed at each end of the stick and illuminated the dancers’ masked faces. Another difference: instead of plain black masks, these ones were adorned with glowing green rings around the eye-holes. I couldn’t figure out if they were glowing because of the fire or just because they were meant to.

All of it captivated me.

I stood so still, I thought maybe I’d start collecting dust, but then I realised he crowd was moving around me. People were bumping into me, pushing, shoving.

“Hey,” I cried, annoyed. “Sto-”

And then, I was right next to them. I could feel the heat of the bonfire on my face, smell the smoke. The dancers were only metres away. And yet, only one dancer mattered. Only one dancer wrapped an invisible rope around me. Only one dancer pulled me in.

I stumbled my way into the circle the dancers had created, a circle with only me and the bonfire inside. I didn’t realise it at the time but the crowd was forming more and more circles around, layer upon layer. I couldn’t see it, though. My eyes were only on the flames, blackening the wood used to fuel it, burning crackling energy into my veins.

Until my sister appeared.

She was pale and sunken, clothed in nothing but dirty rags hanging off her very bones. Both of her hands were shackled and the chains disappeared into the flames. There were rusted red lines from her eyes to her chin, as if she had cried blood tears.

And her eyes were hollow. It wasn’t that her eyes weren’t there, but they were blackened. No pupils, no white, no colour. Just black clouds swirling in endless circles. It reminded me of the dark voice.

Your sister will be fine if you stop messing with visions. She’ll be safe if you do that.

My face paled as Listy tried to walk to me. She stumbled and fell back as the chains restrained her. Dread and despair coloured my breath and I took one step, staring at her tortured soul. My fear choked me even more when I saw her mouth open in a silent scream. When I took another step, I realised I was the one that was causing the pain. Hastily, I stepped back.

As my eyes drank her in, I learnt something. Everyone thinks souls are going to be a ball of light or an animal of light or something as majestic. But souls are how you see yourself. It changes and it may not be the same as what someone else would see you as but after all, it’s your soul.

Listy’s soul was far from beautiful. Her chin was too pointy, her eyes...Well. That one was obvious. The scar on her cheek was a lot more noticeable. Her hair was the wrong shade of brown, just a tiny bit too dull and bark-coloured. There was a single four leaf clover stuck to her hip, though I didn’t think she noticed it. I seriously didn’t think she was lucky, so I wondered why it was there.

But I didn’t think all souls had chains and were attached to flames. Wasn’t that like Hell, if it was real?

Inhaling sharply, I noticed that Listy was being pulled backwards. Her foot entered the fire first and I saw her back arch in pain, her lips open again in another silent scream.

“Listy!” I screamed, not even caring that I’d screamed it out loud.

My limbs trembling, I hurried forward a few steps but then saw Listy stare at me with her clouded eyes and shake her head. Her bottom lip wobbled, which was an immediate sign of tears, and I couldn’t help but go back again, forced to watch as my sister’s soul was burned alive.

“Listy,” I whimpered and I collapsed to the ground. My heart felt like it was being wrenched out of my chest and devoured. My head throbbed. My eyes felt like sandpaper, wanting the tears but unable to break such a strong promise.

A scream forced its way from my throat, terribly high pitched and ripping the inside of me to shreds. At first I thought it was coming from someone else but then I knew it was me.

Two strong arms wound around me and I was shaking too badly to even flinch. They curled around me, protecting me, holding me together, and then hoisted me up. I stumbled on my unsteady feet before finally gaining balance.

I turned to face a fire dancer, dressed in the frayed jeans and black mask that was simply a dress code for them. And then I focused on his eyes, circled by the glowing green rings, unable to be surprised when I recognised them.

Somehow, I didn’t think I made any sense when I whispered to Blayze, “Take me away to someplace they won’t get me.”

His face didn’t even change, or at least his eyes didn’t. It was hard to tell with the mask obscuring almost everything that could give away emotions. All he did was grab my hand and drag me through the circling dancers, the circling crowd. They stifled me but Blayze’s hand in mine was a constant, something to keep me from floating away.

An eerie song began to follow me around, seeming to come from nowhere, until I realised it was me. I’d begun to sing my mother’s lullaby, probably because I needed comfort, normalcy, something from before all of this happened.