Who You Really Are

PAGE 7

Jade had wanted warmth, but nothing could prepare her for the wave of suffocating heat that swamped her when she stepped through the door. All traces of her freezing state vanished in a wall of heat so fierce that she thought she might pass out from heat stroke. Worrying that she might go into shock from the sudden shift from extreme cold to extreme heat, Jade looked up to see what was causing this blazing temperature. A volcano, impossibly tall and impossibly steep, was emitting a cloud of thick, black smoke.

Jade scrabbled in her bag, trying not to breathe in the sulfur and toxic fumes pouring from the top of the volcano. She found a thick mask and put it on, quickly, before any smoke could get in. Her eyes stung and she turned her head away from the smoking mountain of fiery doom to look for the ring.

There, glittering wickedly up at her like a tiny eye, gleamed the ring. A red gem was set into the top and Jade could see the moment when lava erupted from the volcano reflected in its depths. She ran towards the ring and deftly snatched it up in her hand as she rocketed down the volcano, with the hissing, bubbling lava right on her heels.

A forest of dead, burnt trees loomed in front of Jade and she saw the door set into one of the closest trees. She ran towards it with the lava devouring everything in its path behind her. She flung open the door and launched herself inside just as the volcano exploded in a wave of heat and fire.

The door closed as soon as Jade was inside but she lay on the floor for a moment, shaking. That had been one of the scariest things that had ever happened to her and she was still a bit shell-shocked from how close she’d come to becoming barbeque.

“Well, well. Look who it is.”

She sat up to see Irvetta drifting down from the rafters. Wait. Rafters? “I’m in a house!” Jade realised and had to shut down her happy thoughts before they got her too excited. “Irvetta,” she gasped, her voice dry and cracked. “You came back.”