PROLOGUE

THE CANDLE

I've always been fascinated by candles. Looking into the flames calms me down. NEPA is always taking the lights, so I keep them in my room. Candles and matches don't run out of batteries the way a torch does.

One night, after the power went out, I lit a candle as usual. Then, also as usual, I got down on the floor and just gazed at it's flames.

My candle was white and thick. It reminded me of the ones they used in church. I lay on my belly and just stared and stared into it. So orange, like the abdomen of a firefly. It was nice and soothing until...it started flickering.

The candle just flickered like any other flame. I moved even closer, until the flame was an inch from my eyes. I could see something. I moved closer still. I was almost there. I was just starting to understand what I saw when the flame kissed something above my head. Then the smell reached my nose and the room was suddenly bright yellow orange. My hair was on FIRE!!!

I screamed and smacked my head as hard as I could. My burning hair singed my hand. Next thing I knew my mother was there. She tore off her wrapper and threw it over my head.

The electricity suddenly came back on. My brothers ran in, then my father. The room smelled awful. My hair was half burned and my hands were tender.

That night, my mother cut my hair. seventy percent of my hair, so nice, lovely and long gone. But it was what I saw in that candle that stayed with me most. I'd seen the end of the world in it's flames. Raging fires, boiling oceans, toppled fallen skyscrapers, ruptured land, dead and dying people. It was horrible and it was coming.....