A breath of alchemical fire - and the metal casing of the pod shatters like glass. Out from the mechanical womb, Ivanyl emerged - whole, but traumatised. Lifting herself out of the pod, she immediately felt the change in atmospheric pressure; air rapidly began to escape from the interior, causing the remaining flesh sticking to her skin to wither and peel off.


    She gasped and churned for the open air. Although she hadn’t been claustrophobic, that didn’t mean she enjoyed waking up fifty-by-fifty centimeters in a coffin. The experience hadn’t exactly come stress-free.


    She took several precious seconds to soothe her emotions and fix her manic senses. Stabilise her breaths, re-align her center of gravity, adjust to the odour of rust and vinyl in the air. Like a broken record, she kept telling herself, “Everything’s fine, everything’s fine.”


    Everything was not fine.


    She couldn’t calm down. Sparks of scarlet flame began to dance uncontrollably from her bloodied hands, and she could feel the shadows in the corner of her vision growing longer and larger with each waking breath. She grasped her head in her hands and curled back into the pod - like a snail retreating into its shell; she felt much safer knowing that she was where the world wasn’t.


    But the shell couldn’t hold her fears forever. Nothing could hold her power for long. Even as she fervently prayed, her own flames began to conspire against her. And when she finally burst, so did they.


    Boom!


    All hail and fire - mingled with blood, exploded into a carnival of carnage around her. The pod’s copper-coated palassis exoskeleton began to completely cave in, before giving out. Pieces of bio-anode chips spewed from the pod, alongside the decomposed remnants of oxidised stem marrow that spilled all over the floor.


    After a while, only sobs remained. Ivanyl couldn’t bear to raise her head. She couldn’t bear to gaze at the world; knowing it would only gaze back. Flickers of flame continued to softly waltz around her, mimicking the highs and lows of her every breath. She didn’t know how long she had stayed like that, all curled up. But it was long enough for the flame around her to go cold.


    After all, no flame was eternal; there were no exceptions. Not her, not even Wormwood.


    As the last of the flames receded into her blood, she was left with nothing but silence of her own making; there was a gaping void both inside and outside her.


    The latter of the two voids was filled by a sudden voice. Breaking into her shell like a warm thunderbolt, it was as gentle as it was sudden. “Have you finally calmed down, little miss?”


    She initially dismissed it as a hallucination, even when she felt a hand land on her shoulder.


    But she couldn’t dismiss it for a third time, when the voice came again. It was soft and endearing and - strangely enough, it was everything she ever wanted. “Look at me, little miss, and tell me you’re fine.”


    After several unresponsive seconds, she finally mumbled, “Despondence. I’m fine, thanks,” before lifting her head. Through her tear-ridden vision, she saw the hazy figure of a man kneeling before her.


    His appearance was normal enough at first glance. Normal enough, with darkened skin and Caucasian features - normal less once she factored in the two pairs of insect wings stemming from his back. Peering closer, Ivanyl could also see unnatural ripples in his inky eyes. On his forehead was the ensign of a Believer - the mark of God.


    In an absence of mind, she mumbled, “You’re a Believer.”


    The man was staring at her upper arm, which was now devoid of her blue armband. Laid bare on the naked skin was the insignia of a Non-Believer - the mark of the Beast.


    The man’s eyes didn’t move from the mark as he responded, “And you’re a Non-Believer.”


    Ivanyl’s eyes shifted nervously. “Anxiety. Do you have a problem with that?” Even among the Peacemakers, animosity between their two groups had always been a sore problem - to say nothing of your average civilian. But the man simply blinked once before replying, “Is there a problem?”


    Ivanyl was taken aback by his answer. After a beat, she responded in a hushed tone, “No, no there isn’t.” She wasn’t in the right mind to dwell on such petty differences.


    An uncomfortable silence then fell between the two.


    The man offered her a hand to help her up, but she slapped it away. To think she’d ever accept help - from an adult, no less. She stood up on her own accord, before turning away from the man. And as her eyes fell on her surroundings, she had to struggle to stifle a gasp.


    They were in a small, dimly-lit room crammed with dozens of other healing pods - all connected to one another by a network of wires that covered the floor like a sea of serpents. Entrails of pale flesh and bone marrow intertwined the room’s structure, miring their mechanical counterparts like a living spiderweb. Excluding the man and herself, the room was otherwise devoid of any walking sentience.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Her eyes eventually arrived at the room’s entrance - a domineeringly large door attached to the wall by a series of equally impressive hydraulics. Even with just a glance, Ivanyl could wager that it was heavier than an elephant. Besides the door, she couldn’t find any other exits - not even air vents; a part of her wondered how the man hadn’t died of carbon monoxide poisoning.


    An unbreakable prison. She was a prisoner of Wormwood; it took a while for that fact to sink in. She had heard rumours that Wormwood had been taking captives down to a supposed underground lair beneath the city, but she didn’t expect them to be true.


    She turned back to the man, who was now lying on the floor atop a makeshift bed of flesh tendrils. A part of her wanted to ask what had happened after she had lost consciousness, where she was and why she was here; but she found herself cowed by the awkward mood.


    Maybe she shouldn’t have slapped his hand on impulse.


    –


    ‘ - then the third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water; the name of the star is Wormwood.’


    <ul>


    <li style="font-weight: 400">Revelation 8:10 - 8:11</li>


    </ul>


    –


    A few minutes had passed - or so Ivanyl thought. Trapped here in this encaged room, Time seemed to hold little dominion over their contents. There was neither day nor night; not a clock in sight to tell them apart.


    Ivanyl had tried - and failed - to break open the door. Now, she was sitting in a corner of the room, utterly spent and exhausted. She absentmindedly enjoyed the melody of hums and whirs coming from the nearby pods.


    Sitting idly in the middle of her vision was proof of her failure - a severed pinky finger with blood and wires leaking out from the severed region. Ivanyl recognised the latter as unrefined crystalline circuitry; likely a consequence of her premature awakening from the pod. It seemed that the stitches holding her body’s joints together were still incomplete, and it’d likely take a few more hours or so for the bionic seams to fully integrate with her flesh.


    Until then, it would probably be best to shelve away any escape plans.


    “Ire. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate already,” she grumbled. She was basically a Frankenstein monster stitched together limb from limb. Sighing, she began to stretch her muscles, feeling for which parts were numb and which weren’t. The numbness was a sign of sloppy work - you weren’t supposed to feel numb from temporary bio-arrayed cybernetics. But in this case, she was just thankful she could differentiate which parts of her body were still defective.


    Meanwhile, her eyes turned to the man who was now sitting beside her. He was staring dazedly at the spilled blood from her severed finger - which was now leaking sparks of flames. His eyes widened with each spark - as if he’d never seen fireworks before.


    Come to think of it, how long had he been trapped here? Surely he must’ve seen an explosion or two, right?


    Unaware of her inner thoughts, the man asked, “Is that your Curse?”


    Ivanyl hesitated at that word. ‘Curses’ and ‘Gifts’. In the wake of Day Zero, Non-Believers and Believers alike were granted these superhuman gifts respectively.


    Closing her eyes, she recalled these turbulent past five years. At first, the effects on society were small. A few accidents here, a few criminals there. But like a snowball rolling down the alps, everything soon spiralled out of control. Terrorist attacks, national defence, domestic violence - a world where murder was just so much easier. In such a world, Believers and Non-Believers slowly turned on one other; man and brother slaughtered each other like animals.


    She shuddered, before opening her eyes. The man was looking at her expectantly - clearly waiting for an answer.


    “Yes, this is my Curse.” came her response. She then flicked her hand - a movement which the blood and flames eagerly matched. A column of crimson fire mingled with blood arose from the ground. It swirled through the air to loosely form a familiar emblem - a globe surrounded by laurel leaves.


    “Is that the UN?”


    She was surprised when the man recognised the emblem’s vague contours. The man continued, “Pardon me for asking, but are you from Arcadia?”


    Ivanyl nodded; she didn’t see any reason to lie. Meanwhile, the man seemed taken aback. “The country run by the UN, right?” He paused, seemingly in thought. “I didn’t know Wormwood was kidnapping people from over there too.”


    His words made Ivanyl freeze. Did the man think she was kidnapped? If so, her identity as a Peacemaker seemed safe for now.


    Almost instinctively, her hand reached out to her upper arm, where her armband should have been. The piece of faded blue cloth that she had begrudgingly learned to love was no longer there.


    What was it that Mr. Hanson would always tell her? To never get attached, and to always accept loss.


    She called him a failure for a reason.


    Perhaps he sensed her turmoil, as the man beside her asked, “You okay, little miss?”


    She didn’t respond. The man’s eyes then shifted towards her scalp, as if measuring her height. She knew that look; the one people would carry when wondering about her age. And sure enough, the man soon asked, “By the way, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”


    This time, Ivanyl knew she had to lie. It didn''t matter if the man in front of her was oblivious as to her true identity; absolutely nobody could learn of her age. After all, it would be a PR nightmare for the UN if the public learnt that there were children among the Peacemakers. Nevermind that she was clearly more mature, more experienced and more powerful than many of her comrades. No - because apparently children weren’t allowed to have free will these days.


    With all this in mind, Ivanyl knew she had to respond cautiously. “I’m…eighteen. Turning nineteen in a couple of weeks, though.” She hoped she was tall enough for the man to be convinced. Fortunately for her, it looked as though she was successful.


    The man''s eyes widened in shock. “That’s messed up, you’re basically a child.” He paused, and Ivanyl guessed that he was having an internal debate as to how ‘traumatised’ she’d be after being ‘kidnapped’ at such a young age.


    Ivanyl had to struggle real hard to hide her reaction. If that was his response to hearing she was eighteen, she wondered how he would react when that number was subtracted by two.


    “Yeah, tell me about it,” came her laxed response. She hoped it didn’t sound too forced - after all, she needed to convince the man she really wasn’t a child. “Confidence. It wasn’t too scary though, since I have my reliable Curse with me.” Thankfully, the man didn’t seem to notice.


    Vice versa, Ivanyl failed to notice the trembling of her own fingers.