They think she's fearless.

She had traipsed through the thick humid underbrush of the tropical rain forest, had swam through shark infested waters.

She would stand at the edge of a cliff and watch lighting dance across the ocean with no thought for her own safety. She would climb up into trees and lock her arms and legs around the branches to nap.

She was always the one who caught the bugs in a cup and set them gently outside, warning them to be careful about getting squished. She was always the one who never let things get to her, instead deciding if it was or wasn't worth her time.

She had dealt with molestation and death, violent and brutal, and had used that fire to forge armor for herself, rather than burning up in it. She was confident enough in herself and her Lord that she knew no fear of loneliness.

The future would find her jumping off airplanes and buildings, laughing as she looked Me in the face, time and time again, and lived to tell her friends how Death looked up close. I couldn't do so much as touch her. She brushed me off like she brushed off the bugs, the pain, the worry of friends for her well being.

But now, in the present, she was a quivering ball of human, cowering in the middle of her bedroom floor. The tears, such a human thing, a reaction to pain, hurt, fear, came running and mixing with snot and blood from where she had bit through the skin on her lower lip. She was caught up in it, the fiery, burning fear. It consumed her, burned through her, leaving a lifeless husk in its place, slowly emptying itself of tears. She could have been broken so easily then.

Is it too ironic that one of her two fears was that of fire? That it harrowed her very soul, in some deep, instinctual place? Maybe she believed there was a God because of that, because if there was a hell she wanted no part in it. Her only other fear: that of loosing those she loved.

Combine the two fears, and her mind would draw into itself for a time, because no one can deal with all the pain and sorrow ultimate fear brings.

She was safe, and she hated herself for that. It was wrong twisted thinking, but I could see where it came from. Her family, and those she considered family, and the others close to her, they were trapped, all of them, trapped.

She was safe and they were boxed in by flames that were only fanned by the wind and barely put off by attempts to contain them.

The date was October the 21, 2007. A Sunday. Her eighteenth birthday was in a week.

And those she loved were trapped in the fire, and dammit why couldn't she be there with them? Why did she have to be the survivor? Why had she gone away to college by the ocean, where she was safe and sound and her home was being ravaged by the same fire storm that had struck four years before. She couldn't care less that her house might burn down, or that the whole town could burn down.

Let it burn.

Just let them be safe.

I watch as the thoughts smear across her brain like so much roadkill.

When the phone rings she screams, screams because all the fear that's slowly leaking in trails of tears is suddenly loose and wild in her. The call could be anything, but she only wants it to be one thing.

"Let them be safe!" Screams her heart as she slowly picks up the phone. The merry jingle is an offset to her tears and for a moment she can only stare at the device. If she answers it, she has to deal with the reality of what may have happened, what may be happening.

If she doesn't, she'll have to live in fear until it rings again.

There is an endless moment when she presses the small green button, starting the call. The fire in her, the fire trapping those she loves, for a moment they're one and the same and she can't think, can't hear anything.

"-ok, I said we're ok, can you hear me? Listen to me, we're ok. I talked to everyone else, and we all got out ok. Everything is fine, the house is fine, we're checking into a hotel right now, we have all we need, it's ok, talk to me." And she drops the phone, with a thud that can barely be heard over her sobbing.

Funny how humans cry in fear, in pain, and in relief. Twisted.

The voice on the phone, her mother, continues. "I know sweetie, it's ok, everything is ok."

Sobbing in a huddled mass on the floor, tears turned to a soft assuagement of pain, she can only listen to the voice and mumble panicky relief to herself.

"Thank God, you were all dead, couldn't get through, oh Lord, thank you, mom, are you sure you're ok, mom just keep talking to me just don't leave, please please please..."

I walk over to her, almost glad that there is to be no life of her loved ones reaped today. I brush my bony fingers against her hair and she shudders, but doesn't notice that single shiver among so many others.

They may think she's fearless, but she fears so much more than anyone will ever know.