Fireweb

Fireweb

By Katrina Harkess.


She leaned out her window, smiling and calling to the crowds below. Just another Lady of the Night in the District of the Night on Earth's first successful colony. A man looked back at her and entered the reception below. She pulled back from her window and closed the shutters. She turned and smiled at the man as he entered her room. He moved towards her, his hands hidden. There was something about his bizarre grace. He reached her. She lifted her foot to move backwards, images from the Public Warnings flashing through her mind. He grasped her hands, freezing her to the spot. She caught only a glimpse of the glowing web's on his palms. The firewebs.

He felt her consciousness fade into torturing pain, felt her life begin to transform. He lifted his head and gazed into space. She whimpered. A forlorn, lost noise. Her palms were branded now, glowing firewebs that began to expand, grow up her arms. If any being entered the room now, they would both be killed. Here in the District of the Night, they would be torn to pieces and trampled into the green soil of this planet. She would have welcomed that end if she had a mind to welcome it with. She was pain. The firewebs entered her blood and now she glowed with a ghastly, alien orange. Agony shuddered through her. He looked at her. She was like a statue, frozen in time and space. His eyes drank in the glow every fibre of her gave off even as his soul took her pain and transformed it to power.

It had been so long for him. He and his people were hunted on this world. Their world. The power was flowing into him, so sweet. Here was a good place to prey. He was vulnerable until she transformed. Until her remaining life reformed itself.

Others must come.

Her body dissolved now, her cells forming mindless, pulsating threads that wove about the room. Her soul is still there, forever in torment. The spectral light formed it's threads into a pattern. A web. He smiles. He vanishes.


Months pass. The threads are dimmer now. It still pulsates, almost contentedly as the faint noises of the crowds and the calls of the Ladies of the Night drift through.


Copyright 1997 by By Katrina Harkess.

Year 12, North Sydney Girls High School.

A word from the Editor:

If I remember correctly, this story was submitted by DCC send online in a DALnet chatroom. Possibly #theWriters_Club or #FantasyWriters. I regret that I do not have an e-mail address for Katrina nor any other biographical information. I am hoping that she or one of her friends will see this notice and put her in touch with me.

Thank you,

Dan L. Hollifield, Editor: Aphelion Webzine Click here to send a message to the Editor


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