The World is on Fire

[Baron Saturday]

((Heads up, this one gets a bit dark.))

The world is on fire, and it speaks to me.

She is weak, but you do not have to be.

It does not lie. I know this. Mother is weak. Tired. Self-deluded. She tells us - me and little Elle - that the fat, groping nobleman with the wandering eyes will leave his wife for her, that we will all be taken care of. "And if this one doesn't," she adds, "One of the others will."

I do not know if she was always so, or if it was the loss of our home that broke her. Or the drink. Or the drugs.

The Pact is already made. The power is there, if you will but uphold the bargain. Your family need not be this sad remnant, subject to the whims of lecherous old men. You, and your children, and their children - you could have power, and position, and wealth. But this sad creature, who has failed so completely, she must pay the price.

I turn in my sleep - am I sleeping? Little Elle murmurs a complaint. Mother says nothing. She snores in her chair, mouth slack, gaudy cosmetics smudged: She is fresh from some revel, and will not wake until after noon.

And would she not wish it, were she in her right mind? What mother would not give her life to better the lot of her children, and gladly so?

Do the fiery mouths in the twisting halls of my mind speak these things, or are they my own thoughts? I am unsure. The knife in my hand, that is a sure thing. It is dull, but it is equal to the task, for she is soft. So soft.

My name is Helene. I am twelve years old, and I have killed my mother. I will not be weak.

[Baron Saturday]

The world is on fire, and I am afraid.

Why do you weep, my Gifted One? You shall have what you desire. Your grandmother's Pact is made null and void: A new accord is forged.

The chain link glows, red-hot. It sizzles as it pierces my flesh, emerging again in a dull red, quenched in blood, joined to its neighbors in their thousands. A second skin of metal, and upon each link the new terms are writ in the tongue of Baator.

I cannot scream. What air there is in this place sears the throat, burns the lungs. Do I yet have a tongue to speak? Eyes to see? I do not know.

I know only this:

My name is Helene. I am fifty years old, and I have failed.

Yet the power courses through me.