Going crazy...

***Note: this is an excerpt from my book, Return to Space, and I retain all rights to this material***

David woke up on the cold floor with the smell of smoke burning his nostrils. As he found the source of the fire, he freaked out hard core.  Cindy was sitting on the bunk bed, humming a song he had never heard before, while she tossed a burning ball of fire from one hand to her other hand and back again.  “Oh good, you are up.  Good morning!”  Her soft voice still maintained the tune as she spoke and her smile made shivers run up and down David’s back. 

The beauty that he had seen last night now made him shiver with fear.  The coldness in her blue eyes would make any person’s heart stop beating. And that fire...  What was wrong with her that she was able to throw fire around like it was a baseball? “Mornin’.” He hesitantly replied before asking, “What’s up with the fire?” 

“I’m not sure, but I like it.  It makes me feel better.  This is the first time that I can control it... maybe you are my good luck charm.”  Cindy responded happily, still maintaining her tune. 

“Okaaay...” came the long, drawn out response.  All of a sudden, he felt no wish to protect Cindy at all.  He felt scared of her powers.  He didn’t know what he could do, if anything, to protect her or anyone else from herself. 

Suddenly, she locked eyes with David as if she knew what he was thinking.  “It’s ok.  I won’t hurt you, but I am going to make sure that no one hurts you ever again.  Your grandparent’s need you to be safe and back in their lives.” 

“They’ll be fine.”  David responded automatically, but inside felt as though he had been stabbed.  Thinking about them and knowing that he would never see them alive again stung.  Cindy obviously didn’t realize the size of militia and their arsenal that was between them and the front door of this place – that was if they even had some where to leave this horrid place. 

Cindy jerked her arm upwards over David’s head and the whole cell shook as the camera was dislodged and fell to the floor in a burst of flames.  The plastic casing had melted off of it almost immediately. The metal in the wiring even looked like it was melting her fireball was so hot.  David looked upward where the camera used to be and was shocked to see a hole in its place that must be at least two feet in diameter. 

“Now you see me, now you don’t...”  Cindy sang out, still humming that weird tune with a grin on her face.  “So, David, are you up to making a run for it?” 

“We’re going to try to make a run for it?”  David asked in a high pitch squeak. 

“Well, that was what I was thinking since they will be sending guards our direction any moment now.  Might as well try to escape while we still have the element of surprise.”  Cindy smiled at David as she hopped off of the cot. 

David, still reeling in shock, just nodded his head as her eyes didn’t seem like they were going to melt him right this second and he didn’t want her to get angry at him now that both hands had a fireball.  “Stand back.” came her warning. He pressed against the back wall of the cell as Cindy proceeded to melt the hinges with the red-hot flames.  “C’mon.”  was the next command as she kicked the door down and motioned for him to start going down the passageway to the left. 

It made sense to him that they would go left as to the right were the worst rooms he had ever known to exist.  This was just happening so fast and he was a tiny bit scared that one of the guards would start shooting and that they would be dead.  Sure enough, after they had made their way around a couple of bends, Cindy let out a deep growl and sent another fireball right towards a guard who crumpled from the impact of dodging it. 

A weapon fired from somewhere and David flattened himself against the wall, before realizing that it was a bad choice as Dr. White’s voice rang out above the commotion.  “Don’t shoot the alien!  Shoot the boy, but do not harm the girl!” 

Cindy briefly made eye contact with David before they continued on.  She made sure that he stayed right next to her at all times which made him feel safe.  They passed through several more barricaded doors, but this creature that his friend had turned into made short work of them.  He was amazed at her ability at self-control though.  She had yet to hurt any of the guards with her fireballs and she hadn’t once tried turning around to kill Dr. White. 

Finally, they got to a very large, metal door that Cindy stopped at.  Turning briefly to David, she whispered while still maintaining the strange tune, “This is the end of the line.  Go home and be safe with your family.  I will make sure that the Doc won’t pose any other problems to you.” 

“Wait, what do you mean?”  David asked, but it was too late.  Cindy had already made a small hole in the door and shoved him through it. His system was shocked by the sunlight bouncing off of the fall leaves in the trees.   Turning around to drag Cindy out with him, he realized that it had never been her goal to escape with him as she melted the double doors into a solid sheet of metal. 

“Hey you, stop!”  A voice nearby yelled and David knew he had been spotted.  He took off as fast as he could go towards the woods and tried not to have a heart attack from the sound of gunfire that followed him.  Deciding that he had gone far enough into the woods, he shimmied up the trunk of tree and got comfy.  He would wait until dark fell before continuing on. 

David did his best to hold his tears back at the magnitude of what Cindy had done for him.  She had probably sacrificed herself for him and he would always be in her debt.  Thinking back to the night before when he had thought that he might have had feelings for her, he shook his head.  He shouldn’t have been worried.  It was stress-induced.  It had to have been… otherwise, he would still have feelings for her now that she was a fire-wielding-psychopath on the war path with the evil Dr. White. 

He had to bite his tongue as a nervous laugh escaped his throat as he pictured what Dr. White’s face would look like if Cindy was able to safely make her fiery way to him to make sure that he would never hurt another soul.  Staring up into the bright blue, midday sky, David said a short prayer thanking his God that he had safely made it out of there and also begging him to make sure Cindy was also safe. 

He didn’t know if he could live with himself knowing that Cindy had sacrificed herself for him, but then again, he had to stop thinking of her as human.  Dr. White had been right about one thing.  She was not human.  Human’s couldn’t throw fireballs around.  He now had a lot of questions if he ever saw her again… like, how many other races were out there among the stars?  Or were they among the stars?  They could be living among them and no one would be able to tell he supposed. 

David felt himself relax as much as one could in a tree as he listened to the birds chirping and felt the cool breeze blow across him.  He sighed as the branch rocked.  Slowly, he felt himself drift to sleep - even though he tried his best to stay awake.  His last conscious thoughts were to please not let him fall out of this tree and please, oh please let Cindy be okay and safe too.