IMMOLATION: CHAPTER 40

Cold. Why was everything always so cold? The walls, the floor, the chair, the bed...Everything around her burned and yet Joan stood there, shivering in the night. Before Melanie left, she'd asked again if she could see Joan's room and Joan had to turned her down once more. It had been weeks since she'd been allowed back inside her room, and while the enclosure was roomier, it was also open to the sky. Glass had originally made up the roof but her flame melted it and they hadn't found a suitable replacement for it yet. Joan focused her fire onto the ground surrounding her bed, heating it until it to glow red hot just as the rest of her fire burned off. Velvety blackness reasserted itself at once with only the glow from the superheated ground around her bed for light; moon and stars above were obscured by clouds.

Joan crawled onto her bed, a cold steel slab, and opened the bottom compartment that housed her bedding. So far, the compartment had been sufficient to protect the blankets, pillow, and bed roll from being burned. She spread out the bedding, tucked in the sides of the blankets and fluffed the pillow.

“Why do you do that?” A voice asked over the intercom.

“Do what?” Joan muttered, smoothing some wrinkles out of the blankets.

“You're just going to be sleeping in it,” The voice said, “So why make the bed?”

“Not sure,” Joan shrugged and she climbed into bed, snuggling beneath the blankets.

Radiant heat from the still glowing ground warmed her bed and she drifted off to sleep almost immediately.

Joan walked through an empty field. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten there, but it seemed like it should have been important. Signs of civilization poked out intermittently above the tall grass: street signs, lamp posts, remnants of fallen down buildings. Nothing else stirred in her sight.

Step and after step she climbed the sloping hill before her, drawn onward by vague hints of the memory she couldn't quite grasp. As she rose higher there came into sight two bare trees standing side by side on the hill's crest. Their withered form bespoke of stunted growth and a diseased end. Skeletal branches twisted about one another and at the tops of their canopy, barely higher than Joan's head, they wove together in a bowed cage.

Wind rustled through the grass as Joan crested the hill and with it came the scents of age and decay. So powerful was the scent that for a moment joan was unaware of what she saw, and then she began to scream. Fire burst from every pore of her body, incinerating the grass, the rubble, everything...except for the two trees. As the fire burned, pulsing ever outward, Joan felt herself growing weak and had to lean on the trees for support. Her fire continued to spread outward and eventually reached out of sight so that everything within her vision was aflame. From somewhere inside her mind she knew her fire would continue to spread until the world was consumed, if only she had the strength to maintain it.

Joan continued to scream but her voice became distorted and grew into a whine, and eventually into the buzz of an alarm.

“Wake up!” The voice of the intercom shouted.

Joan's eyes shot open and at first she thought she was still dreaming because of the fire surrounding her. Then the wall to her left collapsed.

“What's going on?” Joan shouted.

No response.

She shouldn't be burning, she had exhausted herself before going to bed like usual, and yet she was. What was more, she was burning much hotter than she had ever done before; the pool of molten steel around her that was once her bed proved that.

With a strain that threatened to tear her apart, Joan reigned in her fire and sat panting from the exertion of maintaining such heat for even the short amount of time that she'd been burning.

A sudden sharpness struck her in the chest and she looked down in time to see the end of a dart sticking out from her. As the world faded away she thought she heard her voice speaking of its own accord.

“The world is burning,” Her voice said, “Burning...burning...burning with me.”

Blissful nothingness spread wide its arms and Joan fell willingly into them.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to last and Joan blinked her eyes back open. Sunlight flared into being and stung her eyes. Her mouth felt and tasted like she'd been chewing on cotton all night and her head was pounding. Joan tried to get to her feet but she stumbled and her head struck something solid and she crumpled back to the ground, cradling her bruised forehead. The world faded in and out of focus and the oscillation threatened to make her sick to her stomach. Joan shut her eyes.

“Hello?” She called out.

“Joan,” A voice replied, “How are you feeling?”

“Who are you?” Joan called back, figuring that her state of being should be fairly obvious.

“This is Judge Pederson,” said the voice again, “How are you doing?”

Joan's head settled back down and she ventured another peek from behind her eyelids. Her vision was still somewhat blurred but this time she could make out the heavy brick walls that formed a five foot square around her.

“Where am I?” Joan shrieked and she began frantically searching for a way out. The walls began to fall in towards her. “NO!” Joan cried and she fell once more to the ground, throwing up her hands to protect her against the falling masonry.

“Joan!” Judge Pederson cried back, “Are you alright?”

Judge Pederson waited for a response.

Silence.

“Go check—

Fire burst from the kiln they'd built around Joan and he and the guards were forced back from the heat. Powerful fans switched on and the fire was channeled up and out through the ruined ceiling. Sprinklers kicked on a moment later to cool the outside of the kiln as Joan's fire continued to grow hotter.

“We should go, Your Honor,” one of the guards stated.

Judge Pederson nodded and allowed himself to be lead back out of the enclosure, or what was left of it. Workers surrounded the perimeter as they endeavored to improve the structure in addition to repairing the damage already done to them. Most of the larger pieces of concrete had already been removed but a few exceptionally large chunks still marred the ground. Melted segments of re-bar jutting out of them.

“If only we could just dump her off on one of the dozen countries causing us problems and let them deal with her,” The guard escorting Judge Pederson said wistfully.

“They'd just put a bullet to her,” Judge Pederson chided back.

The guard held his tongue but the look in his eye betrayed him. Such a thing wasn't sounding so bad to him now that Joan's fire was getting so uncontrollable.

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I may have come on a bit too strong with the dream, what do you think? Too much? Not enough? Also, how's the balance between dialogue and action (not just this chapter)?