The sun glanced down on me, while I dragged my feet in the protruding water. Cold sweat ran down my face and my back. I looked behind me to see leaves turning into ashes and the trees falling onto the ground with a silent cry of defeat. The fallen branches prickled my feet forcing me to stop on my path. The forest begged me to release them from their predicament. But I wasn't stopping.

I clutched my heart trying to stop it from giving me this intense pain. A tear ran down my face while I let out a sob.

Destroy. Kill. Destroy.

I let out a scream which reverberated throughout the ruined forest. Half of me was under water when I heard a laugh behind me. I turned around screaming, lunging towards the shadowed figure, hiding behind my agony. It was them. The cause for my heartache. But I couldn't remember the reason for it. I couldn't remember the way my father touched my hair, the warmth that followed. I couldn't remember my mother, who fed me milk every night. And my sisters, who helped me tie my hair and button my dress. My baby brother who laughed at me in his tiny old crib. Their scream still echoed in my mind, when I burned them to ashes. But why? Why would I do that?

The shadow behind the tree gave a final laugh before vanishing into thin air. I screamed, thrashed at the space, more trees followed and the wind left the forest, fearing me.

With a cry I fell on the water, my body was floating. I wanted to drown. There was no reason for me to live anymore. So I did that. I drowned. The water obscured my senses and before I could close my eyes, I saw darkness, pure darkness trying to consume me. And I felt at peace.

*****

I entered the room as the cold wind hits me in the face and a chill went down my spine. The door welcomed me to an entirely different world. I opened the door into a forest covered in snow and nothing in sight. From the dried up trees protruded branches which resembled thorns. I shivered. I felt something in the room and it was powerful and overwhelming but I couldn't spot anything.

Even without any magical powers, the humans in Emirium could easily sense the magic in the air. It is a fact that this sense of power came from the first generation of mages, who were evidently powerful. The seventh son, the youngest of the lot was the ancestor of the humans, who had no powers. And he was said to be a mage himself.

A few feet from me, I found a figure hunching over the shadow of a tree. Suddenly I could hear noises, cries. The figure moved towards me, emerging from the bulbous root of the tree. It left a trail of blood behind the path it took. I knew that it wasn't magic that made me walk towards the figure. It was my curiosity.

The figure, my mother was crying, completely immersed in a red liquid. As much as I didn't want to, I wanted to let out a scream from fear. But I couldn't find my voice. The whole day I haven't even thought about looking for her or Ginny even after I found out that they have been missing since last night. My head was filled with many questions that I couldn't look past the matter.

The red liquid resembled blood and the horrible smell coming from her direction stopped me in my tracks. I was confused for a few seconds before I saw a figure lying on the ground right next to mother. Never in my life I have seen such horrid scenes and never once have I seen this amount of blood. I felt a bile rising in my stomach twisting and turning my insides.

Mother was mumbling something now. She looked like she had aged a few decades and her mouth was stretched back into a sneer. But Goddess, her eyes. Her eyes were animalistic and malicious. It was like she had no soul. Like the image of a mother that she had created for her whole life had just drifted away in the snap of a finger. I took a few steps back terrified. This wasn't my mother. It is true that my mother is a horrible selfish human being. I once believed her body to be a shell with no soul or empathy. But now, i think even mother wouldn't be able to look this monstrous.

"Sorrry...sorry...I couldn't control." She continued mumbling to herself. And a few stray tears ran down her face. Her once soulless face looked a little human when she glanced back to the figure lying behind her.

"Im sorry... I'm sorry, Ginny."

The moment the words left her mouth I looked once again to the body lying behind her. The worn out beige gown and the old black boots were the only good clothes that Ginny owned.

A cry of terror went out of me. How could this happen? How could I let this happen? A horrible feeling of dread and anguish went over me. I felt pins being prickled on my heart and I wanted to tear it out of my chest. My mind went to cry it out silently while my voice stopped working altogether. My eyes began to blur and all I saw was red.

I felt my veins catching fire and my whole body preparing to ignite into flames. My hands gained an extensive amount of strength and began to look like it could snap anything in its path. Everything from my toes to the top of my head was consumed by cold blooded rage. Is this a part of the test? If it is, no one touches a strand of my loved one's hair. Not even the all knowing Goddess.

A deep sensation of warmth engulfed me as a whole. The fury in my body slowly turned into a sense of tranquility. Like my pend up emotions knew about the path that I should choose. Like the flames were asking me to let it go.

I glanced down to see the veins on my hands gleaming bright red and the tips of my fingers tingling with the whisper of a blaze. And my feet embraced an affection for the cold snow down below. I was on fire and everything felt right.

With a sudden motion of my hand, mother was thrown on to a tree, like a leaf being blown away by a tiny gush of wind. I could feel the anger I wanted to release. The air tensed with each step I took towards my sister, leaving a trail of ash and fire behind me. The creature, or my mother suddenly stood up straight like she was possessed by a rabid demon. She dragged her legs that were twisted from the fall. With a smirk which weirdly emphasized her canines, she lunged for me. I braced myself for her attack by crossing my arms outwardly in front of me, which made her smirk widen even more. With a sudden leap, she was in front of me. The movement caught me by surprise and I fell on the floor. The monster, which now I'm sure of, came down beside me and choked me with her bony pale hands. Strange purple veins protruded from her thin, pallid skin. I gasped for air trying to fight my way out of her hands. Her smile turned monstrous as her eyes completely lost all colors and turned white. Dark spots covered my vision as my world slowly began to darken.

I peered at Ginny with a tired, despondent gaze and reminisced of our lifetime spent together as siblings. It was short, dull and uneventful. It wasn't anything special. There were no touching conversations, no remarkable achievements and no heartfelt confessions. We were not special enough for the world. But all those moments that we had together, the mornings we would make bread for breakfast, the evenings we would lazily wander of on the fields, the nights when I felt the walls were consuming my dreams and she would be by my side. Ginny was always there, as my rock, as my sister, even when my whole existence was strange enough for her and everything she believed. It was ours. The seventeen years we spent together as sisters when the whole world was against me. The only one who saved me when I was forced to succumb to my exotic features, my sister who guided me to walk on the muddy fields in our backyard, the one who told me the stones won't prickle our feet as long as we reach our promised destinations.

Tears fell from my eyes as the memories we shared together began appearing in front of my eyes. I opened my eyes to witness the horrified look on the monsters face. In one swift motion, I twisted her fingers away from  my throat as she wailed in pain. I grabbed her face in my hands forcing her to look at me. The look on her face turned into sheer horror as she felt her body slowly starting to be engulfed in flames. From her feet to the last strand on her hair, the fury of my fire ate her  whole being. While wreathing in agony the monster continued to look at me with a gaze of astonishment. And with a final plea for nothing in particular, it vanished in a thick white smoke. It was gone just as it came.

Soon, the fire spread. The snow turned grey and the forest around me looked worn out and helpless. I felt everything around me burst into flames. I stopped in my tracks to see what was left of the once beautiful forest. A sense of dread and heartbreak began to swallow me. I heard the cries of the trees and the leaves begging me to save them. I looked behind me to see the river, once beautiful with clear blue waves, now ashen with my grief.

My mind buzzed a hum, urging me to calm down. My vision blurred to show me the once lush green forest which is now grey with the after effects of a fire. Then it once again turned back into a snow covered land.

I couldn't comprehend the view before me as I felt my mind was playing sick twisted games on me. I tried to avoid the calls from the river. But it didn't stop. My body wouldn't obey me as I begged for it to stop emitting pain on everyone I loved. But I can't remember a single person that I loved in this world.

I fell on the snowy bed and crawled towards the calling water just so I could escape from my agony and it was the only thing in here that could actually make me fill this sullen void inside me. The fire was now everywhere and even in these abominable condition, the fire that was meant to destroy, never harmed me. It engulfed me in a coziness and gave me the comfort of home which was foreign and bewildering to me.

As I laid on the ground covered by snow, mind buzzing a thousand words a minute but my brain gifted only incoherent words, I could sense the comfort provided by the fire slowly retreating from my hands and finally halting into a soft hum in my head. With no energy left to move a single finger, I laid on the snow completely bare from any oncoming attacks from the enemy. As of now, I'm sure that the creature which looked like my mother is not actually my mother but I'm still not sure about Ginny. I couldn't think hard with my mind right now with the feeling of my soul slowly being ripped away from my body.

A figure approached me from the ashes. The old worn out boots and the trail of blood it left behind were fairly easy to spot from the fire. I was writhing in pain when Ginny came to a halt above me. She came with an air of coldness that I forgot for a moment that I was being engulfed in fire. Her face came into view when she crouched low to touch my face. Except it wasn't Ginny. Wearing Ginny's bloodied attire, with a huge whole in the waist, was a women that I've never seen in my entire life.

"Gi.." I was not able to form any coherent words.

"Sh... it's okay. The first time is always hard. But oyee never seen it become that intense."

There were black spots in my vision and my body felt heavy trying to keep them open. I glanced once more at the river but in its wake were more trees and white.

It's okay. You can....

Before she could finish her sentence I already felt my body drifting in to a restless sleep.