A profound heat crawled up her arms to the nape of her neck, it circled in that area before advancing to her stomach. There it burned intensely. The fire moved forward aiming for storming blue eyes that glowered without cease.
Nicoleta jolted awake breathing heavily and sweating profusely, she wiped the beads of sweat dripping from her forehead with her forearm, and laid back on her bed, only for it to crunch beneath her and cough out a gust of smoke.
A sigh tore away at her lips as she rolled over to the side bringing her knees up to her chest and shutting her eyes. That would be dealt with later. Sleep was much more important.
Just as she slipped into a comfortable sleep the alarm rang waking her up once more to face the nasty reality of her burnt mattress. Nicoleta bounced out of her bed and dialed the resources headquarters, their conversation went as it always did.
"Burnt mattress?"
"Yes"
"We will install a new one by noon" she nodded and placed the phone back on the wall. Nicoleta went to her bathroom: she brushed her teeth, showered and combed through her dirty blonde hair, before tying it back in a ponytail.
Her schedule was the same: breakfast, gym, training, lunch, training, lesson, dinner, and bed.
She went straight to the canteen, and wasted no time, taking her usual bread and butter, with milk, and joining her friend Victoria.
"Good morning" Nicoleta greeted as she placed her tray down, Victoria acknowledged her but did not say a word. "No food today?" Victoria shook her head. Nicoleta noticed she had gotten paler than usual, her lips had become slightly more blue than ever, and her eyes which were black, sunk deeper, as if it were a bottomless pit.
"What's wrong?" her powers were the opposite of Nicoleta's, darkness, it looked like shadows whenever Victoria used them, but before she had any control at all over them, there was a time that sector 8 would be pledged in darkness for hours because of her. The only way the children got around was because half of them had blue flames, or Nicoleta, who had a regular bonfire flame.
Oftentimes Victoria had similar incidents, but compared to four years ago, she had gotten better, not good but better. "Vic? What's wrong?" Nicoleta pressed, leaning forward, Victoria did not respond, she kept her bottomless eyes on the vast ocean before them, resting her head on her bony hand. She had gotten skinnier too.
"I won't eat if you don't" that's what got her to turn, now that she looked much closer, Victoria held a look of sadness, and fear. "What happened at training today?" Victoria held her training much earlier than the other kids, it was for damage control, they couldn't risk sector 8 being in total darkness again.
"San said I might be transferred" on a regular day where Victoria wasn't holding a look so devastated, Nicoleta would have jumped with joy, perhaps even danced all the way to her training.
But considering her tone, and everything else, it looked like Victoria would be going back to sector twelve.
"But you're getting good- " Victoria shook her head, "no no no I'm not, I was consumed i- "
"You are getting better, I've seen you!" Nicoleta hadn't realised how loud she had gotten, "yeah at my best, when I was- " Victoria shrunk into her chair, "if I don't pass my check up I'm gonna be transferred"
"Did they say which sector?' Victoria shook her head, "you can guess" sector twelve, Nicoleta deflated, she must have looked exactly how Victoria felt. The two sat in silence after that, Nicoleta barely finished her meal, before leaving.
Westinsenson was split into sectors, ranging from one to twelve. Sector twelve was where every child started in, it was the sector that prepared the kids for all the others, however it was the sector with the worst reputation, sector one being the most famous.
Nicoleta had never been to sector eleven but she didn't imagine it was any better than its counterpart. She was transferred to sector ten, then to eight after a year, and she'd lived there ever since.
Everyone sought to be in sector 1, but sector 8' most popularly talked about sector was 5, and every now and again, three.
Talk of any other sectors mostly came from the officers that patrolled the halls daily. They spoke about all kinds of things, everyone in eight made a note to ignore their conversations after some time.
She arrived at the training hall and changed into her leggings and tank top for the gym. After gym she went to her power training lessons.
"Good morning" she greeted her instructor, her instructor muttered a greeting, and issued Nicoleta to the middle of the room.
"You're going to train with fast paced mechanics today, it's a simulation of a battlefield" Nicoleta nodded. She let out a long breath, and allowed her flame to flow from her hand up to her forearm, she assumed a fighting stance and nodded to her instructor.
Boards shaped like octopuses braved toward her, and flame after flame they went down as fast as they charged. Nicoleta dodged and docked down, flaming every board, three boards rushed at her at once and she jumped up her flame boosting her farther up and burning down the three boards and more.
The lights flashed and the room went dark causing Nicoleta to stop in her tracks when she landed, "hey!" She called out. A board hit her sending shock waves through her veins, she fell back throwing a flame at the board, another board hit her and the shock waves increased.
She screamed in pain, and spread the flame all around her preventing anything from touching her. Braving through with her fire as guidance, Nicoleta rushed at a board and took it down, she shot up once more going higher and higher, letting the flame run from the soles of her feet and pushing her above the boards, she lit the room briefly by flashing a whirlwind of flame all around.
Downward she saw numerous boards all gathered in the middle of the room, with more following after each one.
The light she made went out as soon as it came. Panic rushed through her like fire, the flame keeping her up died back to the soles of her feet, and Nicoleta began falling down, she screamed and turned mid-air before spraying a gust of… red no scarlet flame down on the boards below.
Her eyes widened at the sight, and more so how the boards just disappeared under the heat of the scarlet flame. She landed roughly on her feet and almost fell if it wasn't for her flame pushing her upright.
More boards rushed toward her and she didn't hold her flame back burning- destroying each one, to the point that they turned to ashes, the ones that were previously affected by her yellowish bon fire like flame had all turned to ash as well.
Midway into the battle the lights came back on, the boards stopped and Nicoleta's instructor appeared from the corner with a chilling look plastered on her face.
"That was- "
"Different" Nicoleta finished for her, a smile crept on her lips as she stepped away from the ash-ridden boards, "it was awesome" all the instructor could do was nod, her expression was a mix of awe and something else Nicoleta couldn't quite detect.
"I should call Mr. Yearwood" Nicoleta sagged, new advances in her abilities meant being checked up on by her doctor, it was for her own good, but she never liked needles, not after sector twelve.
"Is that necessary" the instructor gestured to the ash behind her, Nicoleta deflated, "this could lead to something else entirely, the last time your powers did something slightly close to this you had telekinesis" there was no room for negotiation, she was going to get a check up, and training was officially over.
The check up wasn't very long, and it didn't come with any surprises, Mr. Yearwood said, "well it seems your flame has gotten much hotter" at an attempt to joke but it didn't catch, perhaps it would have if Nicoleta didn't have a needle in her skin at the time the joke was told.
There were no other advancements with Nicoleta's powers, but the power the scarlet flame had was impeccable, Mr. Yearwood had her test it on a metal, but instead of the scarlet flame, the plain old bon fire flame is the one that bursted out to melt the metal can.
He only had the video footage of her training, the only evidence that her scarlet flame existed at all, everything else was normal, her temperature, her heartbeat, her bodily anatomy was the same, nothing changed.
"I'll show this to the mission control and we'll make a decision from there" Nicoleta couldn't help over hearing a conversation between Mr. Yearwood and her instructor. When the woman came out of the room, she placed a careful hand on Nicoleta's lower back, "what was that about?" Nicoleta asked.
"You might get transferred" she let her words sink in before the panic, and fear joined in. Her heart beat as if it wanted to escape from her chest, and though her flame was not even poking to come out Nicoleta began to sweat.
She went to her room, skipped dinner, and hyperventilated all day until she could do nothing but cry.
Sector twelve was for those who didn't have any sort of control at all, with a fire like the scarlet flame, that didn't waste time in destroying whatever the target was, they wouldn't keep her in sector 8, she didn't even know how to bring it out again, it could burst out of her at whatever given time and hurt someone.
She was unsafe, she was going to be transferred, she was going back to sector twelve, she was…
A knock on her door late into the night way past curfew, got her up from her new installed mattress and bedsheets, wiping away her tears, and bracing herself for the horrible news. Nicoleta opened the door.
"Good evening, Ms. Ariti right?" Nicoleta nodded solemnly, holding back her tears, "yes that's me" the woman nodded, and wrote something down on her tablet.
The lady looked up at Nicoleta, "pack your bags you're being transferred to sector 2"
The sorrow turned into satisfaction.