The falling is the worst part. An endless tumble that wraps my insides around and around themselves. It seems like a pit has opened up inside me as I fall and I fall. A twisted, animalistic scream rips its way from my throat. The twisting in the air, flipping over endlessly as I try to find a way to stop my descent while my back grows hotter and hotter.

My long curly hair wraps around my face, suffocating me when it covers my mouth. I could still see the vague shapes of the people who threw me in here as some sort of “sacrifice” to their twisted leader. The Emperor. In this world of gods and goddesses, I was out of luck.

I flip onto my stomach and the scream is ripped from my mouth as air rushes in. The pool of magma spreads out beneath me. The beating, glowing heart of the volcano. I close my eyes and wait for the inferno to swallow me whole.

Fhwump

Searing hot energy crackles to life in my veins. There is no pain. Only pure energy. My senses immediately heighten, and my eyes fly open. In front of me is a sea of orange and red. My heart is beating 100 miles per hour and I can almost feel my thoughts moving within my brain. I surge upward and break through to the surface of the magma.

I gulp in great big gasps of air. It burns my throat as if the magma itself is being poured down it. In fact, magma had found it’s way into my throat. It burns through me, not in a literal way. It burns through me to my core and it feels as if my every nerve ending is bursting. I slowly begin to rise up, the magma swirling around me.

I look down at my hands and see that they glow a flaming marigold beneath my dark brown skin.

The volcano walls rumble around me.  I sense the magma shift around me before I am rocketed up and out of the volcano.

I become weightless. I am flying up, up, and up.

Until I’m not.

I’m falling down. Terror tears through me and I twist around just in time to see the group of people who threw me in.

Whoosh

The ground compresses all the air out of me but doesn’t crush me.

Relief floods through me as I stagger to my feet. I face a man; the one who personally cast me in.

“You threw me in, but you didn’t think I’d come crawling back out.”

His face remains impassive and he cocks it to the side in amusement.

“Yes we did, now come with us.”