CHAPTER 4: INFERNO
Scene 1: Awakening
Maya’s heart pounded in sync with the roaring flames around her. She had spent her life fighting fires, but now she was the fire. Every flicker, every surge of heat, it was all responding to her. It was intoxicating.
She barely noticed the Ember agents trying to breach the room, their tactical gear proved useless against the inferno she had unleashed. The server farm was moments away from critical failure, exactly as planned.
Then, Wallace’s voice cut through the chaos.
“I’ve waited fifteen years to see what you could really do.”
Maya spun, flames coiling around her instinctively. Fire Chief Wallace stood near the emergency exit, encased in an advanced environmental suit. His attitude was unreadable behind the reinforced visor, but his tone dripped with satisfaction.
“Your parents tried so hard to suppress your abilities,” he continued. “Such a waste.”
Maya clenched her fists. “They weren’t suppressing me. They were protecting me.”
“They were limiting you.” Wallace looked at the burning servers. “Look at yourself. You think this is the peak of your power? It’s barely the beginning.”
Maya’s mind raced. The Phoenix Protocol had always been a mystery, but Wallace spoke of it as a certainty. And worse, as if she was proof of its success.
The fire crackled around them, waiting for her command. The choice was hers.
Scene 2: Revelations
The klaxons blared, but Wallace remained unfazed. “You think we created pyrokinetics? No. We simply woke them up.”
Maya’s stomach twisted. She had heard fragments of this before—whispers in her mother’s old journals. The idea that fire-wielding abilities weren’t an accident, but a lost trait of humanity.
Wallace took a slow step forward, the flames barely reacting to his heat-resistant suit. “Your parents found the truth in New Orleans. That fire wasn’t just a tool humanity discovered—it was part of us.”
Maya shook her head. “You’re talking about myths.”
“No, I’m talking about history.” Wallace’s voice softened, almost reverent. “The Phoenix Protocol wasn’t designed to create something new. It was meant to restore what was lost.”
A chill ran through Maya, despite the heat.
Scene 3: Betrayal
The firelight flickered as Wallace pulled a sleek, unfamiliar device from his belt. Maya became tensed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and fired.
A pulse of energy bursted from a device neural disruptor. Maya barely had time to react before the shockwave hit her. Her flames sputtered and her vision turned blurred. It was like being trapped inside her own mind, unable to connect to the fire.
Wallace moved forward. “I had hoped you’d embrace this, but I should have known better. You’re still your mother’s daughter.”
Maya gritted her teeth. Fire answers to itself first.
She recall her mother’s words from the journal.
She fought through the haze, searching for any ember, any spark still connected to her.
Then she found it.
A single flicker, hidden deep within the collapsing server cores. A dying flame, it was small, but enough.
With sheer will, she seized it.
Scene 4: Rebirth
The disruptor’s grip shattered. The tiny ember erupted into a column of fire, spiraling outward in a shockwave. Wallace fell back as the flames curved not wild, but controlled. Maya was the fire now.
Wallace recovered quickly. “Impressive. But you’re still one person against an army.”
Maya narrowed her eyes. “Then I guess I’d better burn brighter.”
The entire room ignited, and the fire formed a barrier between them. Wallace lifted the disruptor again, but this time, Maya was ready. She thrust a hand forward, and the flames surged—not at him, but around him, tightening like a vice.
For the first time, Wallace looked uncertain.
“You don’t have to fight me,” he said. “Join me. You were meant for this.”
Maya’s flames crackled in response.
“I choose my own path.”
Scene 5: Escape
The server farm was just minutes from total collapse. Alarms blared and the walls groaned under the heat.
Wallace hesitated. “If you leave now, you’ll never know the full truth.”
Maya’s gaze didn’t shake. “I already know enough.”
With a final pulse of heat, she sent the flames roaring upward, severing the catwalk between them. Wallace vanished into the smoke as she turned and sprinted toward the emergency exit.
She bursted into the night air just as the facility erupted behind her.
As the fire raged in the distance, Maya knew one thing for certain, this was far from over.
The Phoenix Protocol had only just begun.
Scene 6: Aftermath
Maya ran until her lungs burned, the heat of the explosion was still pressing against her back. She didn’t stop until she reached the tree line beyond the facility, where she collapsed against the trunk of a charred oak.
The night air was thick with smoke, but the stars above remained untouched, indifferent to the destruction below.
She forced herself to focus, breathe and think. The fire inside her had finally settled, but her body still trembled from the intensity of it all.
Wallace’s words haunted her. We didn’t create pyrokinetics. We woke them up.
Her parents had known this. They had tried to protect her from this truth, from what Wallace had planned. But it hadn’t been enough.
A rustling in the bushes snapped her out of her thoughts. She was tensed, ready to ignite at a moment’s notice.
A shadow emerged, lean and cautious. It was Hawthorne.
He knelt beside her. “You did it.”
Maya let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “The servers are gone. Ember’s lost their data.”
“But Wallace is still out there.” His voice was tight, his eyes scanning the burning ruins in the distance.
Maya agreed. “And he’s not done.”
Scene 7: The Warning
They didn’t linger. Ember would send reinforcements, and neither of them was in any condition for another fight. Hawthorne led her to a safe house a few miles away, an old ranger’s cabin buried deep in the woods.
Inside, the air was damp with the scent of moss and rain. Hawthorne grabbed a first aid kit and started patching up her burns, though Maya barely felt them.
“You pushed yourself too far,” he muttered.
“I had to.”
He didn’t argue. Instead, he pulled out a satellite phone and dialed.
“We’re clear,” he said after a beat. “No sign of pursuit.” A pause. Then his appearance darkened. “Understood.”
Maya frowned. “Who was that?”
Hawthorne hesitated. “One of our contacts. There’s chatter—Wallace isn’t retreating. He’s accelerating the timeline.”
Her pulse quickened. “What does that mean?”
“It means he doesn’t need the data anymore. He already has enough test subjects.”
Maya’s stomach dropped.
“Then we have to stop him. Now.”
Scene 8: The Hunt Begins
They left the safe house before dawn. Every second counted now.
Hawthorne had a lead—an Ember facility on the outskirts of Baton Rouge. Not as large as the server farm, but crucial.
“He’s moving test subjects there,” Hawthorne explained as they sped down an empty highway. “We don’t know how many, but if we can extract them—”
“We cut Wallace off before he can escalate,” Maya finished.
But the weight of it pressed on her. These weren’t just people caught in Ember’s experiments. They were like her. They had been awakened.
And if they didn’t get there in time, Wallace would use them to finish what he has started.
She clenched her fists, as she felt the heat coiled beneath her skin. She wouldn’t let that happen.
Scene 9: Ember’s Trap
The facility loomed ahead, an abandoned refinery repurposed for Ember’s needs. From the outside, it looked inactive. But Maya knew better.
“Security?” she asked.
Hawthorne scanned through binoculars. “It’s heavy. More than we expected.”
Maya exhaled sharply. “They’re waiting for us.”
It was a trap. Wallace had known they’d come.
But that didn’t change anything.
Maya stepped out of the car, flames already curling at her fingertips.
Hawthorne gave her a wary look. “You sure about this?”
Maya’s face met with his gaze, fire reflecting in her eyes. “They started this fight.” She turned toward the facility. “I’m going to end it.”
Scene 10: The Inferno Awakens
Maya moved like a storm, flames surging in waves as she tore through Ember’s defenses. Bullets melted before reaching her. Security barriers crumbled in the heat.
The deeper they pushed, the louder the alarms blared.
Then, there was gunfire. Hawthorne ducked behind cover, returning fire as Ember operatives flooded the corridors. “I’ll hold them off!” he shouted. “Find the test subjects!”
Maya didn’t delay. She ran.
The heat in her veins burned hotter than ever as she reached the containment sector. She blasted through the reinforced doors—
And stopped.
Rows of containment pods lined the room, each holding a figure bathed in flickering red light. Some unconscious. Some awake. All burning from within.
Wallace’s voice echoed through the intercom.
“Welcome home, Maya.”
Her flames surged.
This wasn’t just about stopping him anymore.
It was about burning his entire vision to the ground.