I wake, terrified.

My muscles, stiff and locked,

Refuse to move.

My body sweats,

Soaking the tightly wrapped sheets covering me.

I am immobile,

But my mind is free.

I can’t breathe

Lungs stuck

Remembering the taste of smoke on the air

My heart pounds

Races

Speeding its beating pace to a rhythm

I cannot match

The panic has captured me and I cannot respond

My mind desperately tries to scream

But my body cannot.

Instead, tears of impotent need

Stream in floods down my cheeks

Sobbing finally wracks my body into motion

And I can’t seem to stop weeping

Curled up, alone, with nothing but my bitter suffering to comfort me.

The ground is a wicked mattress

And the night sky my only solace.

I stumble

The woods impede my progress

The sound of rushing water

Prances through the forest and I rush to meet it.

I don’t bother to shed

My already soaked apparel

I simply fall

Splashing into cold water

Refreshed.

The water beats my fiery nightmares back to the past

And I dive deep into its silvery, moonlit currents.

Smoothly cutting beautiful swathes of my sea

I dance through it.

Tiny rivulets swim past my clothes

Swirling in and around my hair

Caressing gently back to wakefulness

And a cool calm.

My sparkling jewel of the night that sustains me.

I have long since suffered in solitary.

I am shunned.

Scorned.

Unwanted.

I am seen as cursed and unworthy.

So I found my lake

I built my house

And I dream alone in my forest.

I know my family in my dreams

But they are no longer my comfort

They only bring me fire.

My town blames me

For the curse of fire.

I journeyed farther than their imaginations

Can comprehend.

I found my lake.

And I have been safe

Safe from everything except

Cold in winter

And dreams,

Dreams of suffering and disaster.

My name is Haika.

And that is my life.

Or rather, it used to be.