Nari

Nari was sitting in the back of a dark van. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and a heavy helmet covered her head and face so she couldn't see anything. Part of her was curious about where she was being taken, but they had trained her well. She wasn't supposed to ask questions, she was supposed to do what she was told.
She felt a hand on her knee. It was a strong, firm hand. There was no way it was the doctor's hand. Her touch was soft, almost compassionate even. This was the hand of Corporate Security. It didn't matter which officer, they were all the same. They treated her like a dog, they told her she should get used to her new life in captivity. Sometimes they even touched her, but the doctor always put a stop to it. One time a man tried to reach down her shirt and the doctor was so angry she had the man beaten right there in front of Nari. It seemed to her that the doctor had orchestrated the whole thing in order to win her trust but that didn't seem likely. The doctor was good, she only wanted to help Nari get better. Security was a different story altogether. She could remember the day they took her. She was working and one of her callers had yelled at her. The next thing she knew her desk was on fire.

She told her supervisor she didn't know what happened. Maybe her work station over heated or short circuited. When her supervisor refused to believe her, Nari pushed and pushed, denying any blame for the incident. Corporate Security arrived then and she was taken to the doctor. The doctor was nice at the time, she talked about stress management and even tried to help Nari remember how the incident started. That was when the doctor's desk lit on fire and Nari was sure that it was just another case of an overheated work station. "Maybe they're faulty," she said, "we should issue a recall."
The doctor didn't listen, nobody listened. She spent weeks after that sequestered in a tiny cell. Every once in awhile the doctor would come and smile and give her some food. It wasn't terrible. The food was okay and her cell was nearly bigger than her entire apartment, but then the tests started. Needles and machines and fire. So much fire. They burned her repeatedly. They demanded that she control the flames and she tried, God did she try, but she couldn't. Nobody could control fire, it was wild and savage and it didn't take orders but still they made her try. It wasn't until they brought in her mother that she actually accomplished what they were asking.

"All you have to do is light the candles," The Security officer said. He was holding a gun to Nari's mother's head and she was crying, begging to be let go. "If you don't, I'll have to shoot."

She lit the candles then, but it didn't stop there. The officer's uniform caught fire. He screamed and screamed. He fell to the floor and rolled but Nari refused to let the fire go out until he stopped moving.

"What are you?" Her mother had asked. Those words still haunted Nari and the look on her mother's face would stay with her forever. Wet glistening cheeks. Red, panicked eyes. She wouldn't let Nari touch her, or even get close.

From that day forward the doctor took complete control over Nari's Corporate Plan. She rarely ever saw anyone from Security, only the doctor and her medical officers. It wasn't long before she acclimated to her new prison. It was softer than the old one, and the food was even better. She had no idea what was truly going on, she didn't realize how complex the conditioning process was. She became accustomed to her life in a box, and even accepted the restraints every time she was taken out of the facility. They helped her feel safe out in the world, which was big and bright and full of things that could burn.

The van started to slow down and one of her guards said to the other, "You need to move that hand if you wanna keep it. If Whynn sees that she'll be pissed."

The hand on Nari's leg was reluctantly pulled away and she felt a little safer. Not just because she wasn't being touched anymore, the sound of the doctor's name soothed her. They stopped and the back door of the van opened. "Nari, thank God you're finally here. You're the only one who can help."

It was the doctor's voice. Nari smiled and turned towards it. "The only one?"
"The only one."

Nari was helped out of the van and when her feet were on the ground the doctor unbound them. She left the restraints on her hands and head but Nari knew that was for the best.

"There's fire here," she said.

"How do you know that?" The doctor asked with patience in her voice. "You can't see, you can't smell."

"I feel it, there's a lot of it."

"Where do you feel it?"

"Everywhere. In my stomach, in my heart, all over my skin. It feels good."

"Are you scared?"

"No."

"Good." The doctor removed Nari's helmet and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the smoky air. The doctor looked beautiful with smears of ash all over her and sparks dancing around her head. "Nari, we need you to try to use your gift for a very important job."

"I can't."

"You have to. Look!" The doctor gestured towards the burning city. "You may be able to fix this. Remember, you're the only one who can help."

On her cue Nari asked, "The only one?"

"The only one." Nari moved towards the line of fire fighters who were separating the public from the blaze. A security officer spoke to them and they let Nari and the doctor pass. The doctor reached for Nari's wrist restraints and let them fall to the ground. "Just do what you can to stop this, okay?"

Nari smiled at the doctor and started wandering into the smoky containment area. She stepped slowly down a street with tall burning buildings on either side. The heat made her skin tingle, the fury of it all made her spirit fly. That was when she realized she wasn't alone. The woman was with her, the old one from her dreams. She was standing in the middle of the blaze, flames dancing all over her body.

"I'm not supposed to pay attention to you," Nari said.

The woman didn't respond. She danced through the fire and threw her hands in the air. She looked too old to move with such grace.

"You don't exist."

The woman was surrounded with a veil of ghostly blue flames and she was grinning with pleasure. It was a half mad smile, poised somewhere between ecstasy and rage. It looked good. It looked like fun. Nari extended her hands, two fingers on each one pointed straight out, and began to match the woman's dance. She felt the fire starting to respond. She smiled as floating embers swirled around her, followed by small tongues of flame. Eventually all she could see was fire. That wild, uncontrollable beast was at her command and it felt so... so good. She laughed and danced in the flames and the old woman with her ghost flames danced along beside her.

"They tell you I'm not real because they want to hold you back," the old woman said. She had never spoken to Nari before. Before now the old woman seemed frightening but here in this blazing ballet she seemed peaceful, almost familiar. "If you come to accept me, if you let me teach you, there's nothing we can't do."

Two blocks worth of inferno were swirling tightly around Nari. She was spinning and moving her arms to keep the flames going. They moved in closer and closer, she felt their heat and started to sweat. She let the old woman move closer to her as well. Eventually she felt the woman's arms embracing her, hugging close to her body. Nari was so consumed with the flames around her that she didn't even realize the old woman was fading away inside of her. When the woman was gone Nari threw her head back and thrust out her arms. The fire she was bending shot up into the air, condensing and shifting color until it was a bright, blazing, electric blue. The blue flames rocketed high into the air, they shifted and changed into a fiery blue vision of a flock of birds and dissipated into the dark night sky.

Nari fell to the ground, the determination required to pull off such a feat had sapped her of all her energy. She didn't feel exhausted though, she felt as if she'd released all the tension that had been building inside of her for years. She felt like she'd been living a lie all her life without realizing it and now all she knew was thetruth. The old woman was stirring inside of her, filling her with a new truth, a truth that actually felt right.

After a moment or two she heard the doctor's voice and realized she had been trying to get her attention for a while. "Nari? Nari what happened?"

Nari stood up and looked at the doctor. "When did you get here?"

"A couple minutes ago. You've been out cold."

"That's funny, I feel warm."

Doctor Whynn moved closer to her and felt her face. "I'd imagine you would feel warm, I do too, but it was just a saying, it means you were unconscious."

"I know what it means, damn can't a girl make a joke around here?"

"Are you feeling okay? Maybe this was too much for you to handle. That was quite the performance, why were the flames turned blue I wonder?"

"I handled it fine, thanks. Look around, you don't see any fire do you?"

Whynn's smile faltered. She cracked her neck and said, "Thank you, I knew you were the only one who could help."

Nari hesitated for a split second and she hoped the doctor hadn't noticed. "The only one?" She finally responded like she knew she was supposed to.