Ahir and Fotias

"OkieDokie, I have to start this off by saying that this is rated

PG-13

Why? Fantasy violence, I guess. I've been writing up some of the backstory for Zared's father and I now understand more fully his reasons for being so villainous. The Fotias have no excuse though. They're just evil." -Casey

Ahir awoke to the sensation of being bathed in warm air. It was well into winter and the boy had been curled up in his blanket, but now he tossed it aside as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “Mother?” he called as he wiped the sleep from his eyes and spotted a bright red light coming from the main room of the house.
The boy quickly jumped from his bed, finding that the floor was quite warm, and ran to the main room.
An unnaturally tall figure robed in black stood before his mother. Heat emanated from the black figure, distorting its form like a mirage.
“Begone, beast!” his mother ordered. “There is no evil within these walls!”
The faint flickering of flames began to flow from the hooded creature’s back, taking to form of beautiful butterfly-like wings.
“Selfish desire and violent hatred are incalesent here,” a deep rolling female voice replied. “It shall perish in flame, diminishing to not but ash.”
The flames on the creature’s back erupted forth and quickly engulfed the walls of their house. Ahir stumbled back just as the rafters of the house came crashing down. He was cut off from the main part of the house, with nowhere to go, but back to his room. A scream rang through the house, but was quickly drowned out by the roar of flames.
Ahir called for his mother, but there was no answer, just more flames. He ran to the back of his room and climbed onto his bed in an attempt to reach the window, but it was still too high. Fire was spreading all around his room now and the smoke made it impossible to see much else.
He ran for the window, but flames were already licking at the opening and it was just out of his reach in any case. Ahir braced himself and then jumped up and just managed to catch the windowsill. He pulled himself up onto his elbow and finally managed to fling himself outside into the snow.
The boy buried his searing hot hands in the snow for a moment, welcoming the numbness that took hold of them after a brief jolt of pain. When he lifted them back out of the snow he could see that they were discolored with blotches of red skin.
A loud crash rang out and Ahir realized that his house was collapsing behind him. He took off through the snow and until he reached the cleared off dirt road that led further into town. He kept running, burying his hands in the folds of his shirt under his arms. People were now running up and down the road with beside him, some towards the blaze and other away from it.
“What happened?” he heard them shouting.
“Someone get down to the well!”
“It must have been a fotia.”
“Did anybody make it out?”
Ahir ignored all their shouting and continued to sprint down the road. No one would help him, not when they saw the burns on his hands. Fotia’s where of the magical realm and many considered them to be evil creatures, but none dared oppose them when they appeared. The monsters were murderers, but they only killed those that they knew would turn to murderers as well. Even if Ahir hadn’t done anything wrong, the woman in his house had marked him as a danger to everyone around him.
So he ran until he found himself in the dark and empty marketplace of the town. The only light was the faint glow of hanging lanterns. The boy finally collapsed to his knees on the side of the road, exhausted.
His emotions finally caught up with him and he broke down, crying himself to sleep.

Story and Characters (C) SuperheroGeek13