Blair Zader D10 {WIP}

I am a phoenix, beautiful in fiery glory. My hair ripples in bouncing flames of red so that you can almost hear it crackle with life when I shake it. My eyes flash a golden brown, and my smile can light up a room...if you can ignore my face. My body is a patchwork of skingrafts, poorly pieced together by the best healer my parents could afford. Ugly scars streak my face like grooves on a charred log. My lips are permanently chapped and discolored, and my nose has been reduced to a stump. Yeah, fire is beautiful. I will always remember the day my flaming beauty was transformed to dust and ashes. I was only twelve years old; the shadows of future beauty flickered across my youthful face. But they were only shadows, shadows of things that would never be.

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I suppose you know about the black barn, most people around here do. I'll assume that you've seen how everything around the old barn withers in death, that you've seen the scraggly old trees and the dried creek bed. I'll assume that like most young people, curiosity has led you there more than once, and that you know that the sides of the barn weren't painted black. They were burned.

Would you believe me if I said that once upon a time, only a few short years ago, the black barn was a completely different place? Would you believe me if I told you that it was once painted white, trimmed in yellow, surrounded by a charming wooden fence? Could you believe that the dried up creek bed once babbled with water, that the scraggly trees were once flowering cherries and graceful willows, that the barren ground was once alive with green? I can tell you how it happened. You see, I was there.

I was twelve years old and had been struck with a bad case of puppy love. The object of my affections was a boy in my class, who several of my many friends knew, but who I could never seem to talk with. My best friend, Mason, kept trying to explain to me that I wouldn't actually like the guy, that he was a jerk, etc. My gosh...now I can't believe I wouldn't listen to him. Genius that I was, I thought Mason was jealous or something, which was ridiculous, because there's never been anything romantic between us. Anyway, my other friends arranged for us to meet in that beautiful white barn. I. was. ecstatic. For a whole week I looked forward to nothing but the scheduled midnight meeting in the barn. And then that night came, cold and dark, mysterious, and the feeling in my heart filled the starry void. But he never came. Instead, somehow, I don't know how, the barn caught on fire. That's when the barn blackened and I...well, I almost died.