The Beauty of Destruction

90. Ch11 S21&22

Nov 08, 2024

My dear and cherished Sparks.

The title of this episode, is what I originally intended to title the entire story. I thought it fitting for these scenes because it captures the paradox of Misty’s power and the depth of emotional complexity for those who witness the release her untapped potential. There’s also irony in the fact that destruction can be beautiful, just like the flames that destroy a forest or a field, are beautiful in the moment despite the devastation the wreak.

This entry is a little short, you’ll notice, but it’s all there is to this part. I’m also not one hundred percent happy with how it came out, but since I am here, finishing it up in stolen minutes, less than an hour before it’s due to be sent, it’ll have to do.

It was one of those difficult pieces that inspiration sometimes tosses your way. You know what you want to get across, but exactly how—that’s the conundrum.

I hope that these two short scenes capture the poignant horror I was trying to evoke. I hope they haunt you (in the best way) like they haunted me, because that’s what great fiction does. It sinks its claws in and stays with you. I can’t say if it’ll do that, but considering the week I think most of you have had, I think you could use a little distraction.

Let this suffice…

Previously: Misty asks Luke for help processing some of the memories that haunt her. After seeing the first two horrific scenes, Luke is reluctant to continue, but finally agrees to do one more when Logan and Misty talk poignantly about how everything seems to have gone back to normal. When Luke sees Misty’s mother killed, he hopes that it’s over, but it isn’t…

I feel my way in the dark, past the bleeding bodies on the ground, back to the cold hard chair with the torn straps, and climb in, curling up to cry some more. Mommy is gone now. Her blood dripped slowly onto the floor. She wasn’t moving. It was like she was asleep but her eyes were open. They looked dull and dry. Like I feel now. I feel so tired. I feel so weak. The room is sucking my energy out of me. I have to keep my energy inside. If I can just rest it’ll feel better. Else it’ll all be gone and I’ll die too. I have to try to stay alive.

The lights go on. I hear voices and look. Oh no! It can’t be. They can’t do THIS!

“Father? Kayten. No!” I drag myself out of the chair, back to the window. I’m too tired to do more than press against the cracked glass and watch.

Mommy’s body is still there. Father is chained to a chair looking at her. He looks sad. His face is hurt, and his hands. His clothes have blood on them. Kayten stands in the middle, frozen, like she doesn’t know which way to turn. Her favorite red dress is torn and dirty. Her face is red from crying.

“Take up the blade,” a voice says over the speakers. Kayten jumps, and looks at the blade laying on the ground, but doesn’t move to take it. I try to hit on the glass so she will look at me but she doesn’t. She looks scared. “Take up the blade!” The voice shouts, but Kay only looks down and cries, shaking her head. I see Father talk to her. It looks like he’s saying: “It’ll be alright.” Kay doesn’t move.

A man in guard uniform comes and puts the blade in her hand. It falls. She won’t hold it. Another man comes in and tapes it on. Kay cries. “Strike!” The voice orders. Kay only cries. “Strike, or you’re next.” She shakes her head no, the man holds her hand, and lifts it over her head. She closes her eyes, as he brings it down.

“No!”

My world shatters. I feel hot. Silver green and red are the next colors I see.

Kayten scrunches up her face when blood splashes on her and the thick glass wall melts beneath my hands. Strength floods through me as sadness turns into something else, deeper, colder.

Kay screams: “No!” as the man pushes the point of the blade into Father’s chest, right there, where Teag taught me his heart is. His mouth makes an ‘oh’ shape.

I feel my body burning with bright green fire, as my power bursts out. The man disappears, blowing away like smoke, leaving behind his hand still over Kayten’s. The room disappears. The ceiling, the walls, the little rooms around that we watched from. The green fire is everywhere, burning like the anger in me, eating the world up, crunching its bones into splinters like my broken heart.

Others come running, but they disappear before they can get close. Kay cries: she’s sorry, as she falls to her knees. I take her hand. The blade finally falls. Father looks at Kayten and I with dull dry eyes. His mouth still that ‘oh’ shape…

I feel it quake through my body, like shattering glass as the first strike falls. Watching through Jenina’s eyes, it’s hard to make out what happens next. Her vision blurs and distorts, the heat of her power like an inferno, an erupting volcano. She moves as if in slow motion.

The blade pierces her father’s chest.

Her agony in that moment is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s cold and murderous and leaden.

Energy, pure and simple, surges outward, saturating the air like radiation, disintegrating everything it touches. The guard holding Kayten’s hand turns to dust, and blows away. As she reaches her loved ones, a kind of bubble forms around them while the complex seems to rot. Her power comes out in pulses, with her beating heart, each wave reaching a little farther than the last—no intent, no will behind it, just the fact of its existence and the destruction it wreaks.

When it’s over she’s holding her sister’s sobbing frame, stroking her hair absently, devoid of emotion, dead inside with the Teleran light blue sky above and gently falling snow.

Teag glides across the abyss, stepping onto the narrow spire where Jenina and Kayten kneel, an untouched island in a sea of ash. James trails behind him, his greasy hair falling over his smirking face.

Teag looks down at the girls, his triumph written in every fiber of his being. “See there, little one,” he says almost lovingly, “I knew you could do it.” James chuckles coolly. Jenina’s gaze hardens as she meets their eyes and whispers: “I’ll kill you for what you’ve done.”

* * *

The grey metal ceiling fades into view. Misty sobs, her face in her arms, hugging her knees. Luke holds his head staring at her back in disbelief. I rub my eyes and gasp softly in surprise when my hands come away wet.

I could feel Misty's whole body burning. She stood, pressing against the glass with her right palm flat, and her left pressed against her right. She was screaming. The fire grew. The glass melted.

I try to make sense of it. What was it all for? They did that over simple, childish disobedience?! It can’t be. Why was Teag so satisfied by the result? What did he mean by he knew she could do it?

“Ahem,” Luke clears his throat after a little while. “Misty, are you okay?”

She nods, sniffling.

"That was…uhm…” Luke stumbles, no words can encompass it. “I’m sorry dear.” He says softly after a long pause.

“It over. It doesn’t matter anymore.” She whispers.

Next Time: End of Chapter 11. No spoilers.

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The Beauty of Destruction

90. Ch11 S21&22

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