Fuchsia Fire And The Purple Lake

This story was originally published in Short Shorts on Medium.

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A dry wind raises dusky dirt off the barren land and flings it about. I squint. Dirt specks pierce my corneas… but I keep my eyes open… for I see it.

50 yards ahead, 50 yards up in elevation, the purple lake. No one has ever reached it. The dragon keeps a close watch over it. The dragon drinks from the purple lake and it gives her powers; she cannot allow anyone to be as powerful as her.

But my plan is working. I stole one of her eggs and placed it in the village for her to see. Her shadow engulfs the village as she hovers above, swooping down and unleashing her fuchsia fire onto the tops of the houses.

She’s distracted. I look back… my village… up in flames. Villagers scatter and sprint like many fearful ants. The dragon is preoccupied with exacting revenge on the villager who stole her egg by letting her fire swallow up every last corner… leaving the purple lake unguarded.

Just as I turn back, ready to make a run for the lake, ready to dip myself in and absorb its powers… I sense darkness. Clouds and smoke shield much of the sunlight in the sky… but something else is now obstructing it. I am in a shadow.

Her shadow.

She swoops just above my head, lifts back up, and lets that fuchsia fire fly from her throat and wash over the dirt hill leading up to the purple lake.

That’s it. The entire dirt hill, littered with embers, dancing, beckoning me to run through them and meet certain death. There is no other way up to the purple lake… not without going through the fire. The dragon looks at me over her shoulder, a wry smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth as she flies away, certain I won’t make it to the purple lake now.

I look back again. My village in fuchsia flames, all thanks to me. All thanks to my plan to stop the evil dragon. I’ve made matters worse. If I were to absorb the power of the purple lake, I could put out the fires, and I could stop the dragon. The old wizard at the end of the road told me how to harness and use the powers with immense strength.

I look ahead once more. But that purple lake, guarded by more fuchsia flames, is an impossible feat.

Or is it?

As everyone knows, this particular dragon and her fuchsia flames… they are unlike a usual fire. No, it’s not a fire that instantly burns you and kills you. It is more of a poison. A slow burn. A slow death.

So, the feat is not impossible… it is that the feat is impossible to be accomplished without me also dying in the end. The other options… I live. Everyone in the village dies… because of me. The village burns down to ash… because of me. I wander the land endlessly, searching for another village, searching for another community, knowing I destroyed the only one I have ever known.

This option… it just won’t do.

With my mind doing its best to hold me back, to preserve me, my legs rebel and push me forward. I run. I run faster than I ever have before. Not because I won’t have time to make it through the fuchsia fire. I’ll have plenty of time. I run fast so that I don’t give myself much time to reconsider.

Up the hill. Through the flames. An awful feeling… hot poison burning my skin and infiltrating my body. I push forward.

Hot, sick feelings radiating throughout. They won’t stop.

I reach the edge and plunge into the purple lake. Instantly, a power surges through me. It is strong, it is healthy. However, I am not.

I am back out of the lake before I know it. I am pushing myself through the fuchsia flames once more… before emerging out the other side, standing on a barren land, facing my burning village.

I feel the power inside me. I feel the poison alongside it, slowly killing me. I see a shadow stretching across the land. She is in the sky, but she is circling back.

I started this. Time to end it… before I end…

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