CHAPTER 5: TRIAL BY FIRE

Scene 1: The Awakening

The red glow of the containment pods bathed Maya in an eerie light. Each pod held someone like her—awakened, burning from within. Some thrashed against the glass, and eyes flickering with embers. Others lay still, as if their flames had already consumed them.

Wallace’s voice hummed through the intercom. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”

Maya clenched her fists. “They’re prisoners.”

“They’re the future,” Wallace countered. “The Phoenix Protocol isn’t just about you, Maya. It’s about all of them. About restoring what was lost.”

Maya reached out, feeling the fire inside the pods. The heat was chaotic, unstable. They were suffering, drowning in their own flames.

“Let them go,” she requested.

Wallace chuckled. “I intend to. But first, we’ll see who’s truly worthy of rebirth.”

A warning klaxon blared. The pods opened.

Scene 2: Baptism in Fire

The moment the seals broke, raw energy exploded from the chambers. Fire roared, wild and uncontrolled. The test subjects stumbled free, their eyes empty with pain and confusion.

Then one of them turned to Maya.

A young woman, no older than twenty, with flames dancing along her arms. Her outlook flickered between terror and instinct. And then—she attacked.

Maya barely dodged as a stream of fire tore through the air. The others followed suit, their fear warping into aggression. Ember had conditioned them to fight, to see threats where there were none.

Maya could feel their struggle, their bodies overrun with power they didn’t understand. She couldn’t fight them, not like this.

She had to reach them.

Scene 3: The Fire Within

Maya raised her hands, letting the flames around her calm. “I know what you’re feeling,” she said, her voice steady but urgent. “The fire—it’s too much. It looks like it’s taking over.”

A man lunged at her, his body wreathed in heat. Maya didn’t move.

Instead, she let her own fire pulse—not in attack, but in recognition. The moment his flames touched hers, she reached deeper, pulling his energy into balance. His breath hitched.

The fire didn’t disappear. It changed.

One by one, the others hesitated, their confusion battling with their fear.

Wallace’s voice cut through. “Fascinating. You’re not just controlling your own fire, Maya. You’re stabilizing theirs.”

Her chest tightened. If that was true, then she wasn’t just one of them.

She was something more.

Scene 4: Wallace’s Gambit

A slow clap echoed from the upper observation deck. Wallace stood behind reinforced glass, watching with something akin to admiration.

“I must say, I expected destruction, not salvation.” He tilted his head. “But I suppose both have their uses.”

Maya’s eyes locked onto him. “This ends now.”

Wallace sighed. “You’re thinking too small. This isn’t about a single facility. The Phoenix Protocol is already spreading. These people are only the first wave.”

Maya’s blood ran cold. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” He turned to the room beyond the pods. A wall monitor flickered to life, showing live feeds from other Ember sites—other experiments. People burning, fighting, losing control.

Maya’s stomach clenched.

Wallace smiled. “You see, you’ve already lost.”

Scene 5: Hawthorne’s Move

A gunshot shattered the moment. Wallace flinched as a bullet slammed into the reinforced glass.

Hawthorne.

He stood in the entryway, rifle raised. “Looks like I showed up just in time.”

Wallace recovered quickly, shaking his head. “Ah, Agent Hawthorne. Always ruining perfectly good experiments.”

Hawthorne fired again, but the glass held.

Maya turned to the others. “We have to get out of here—now.”

The test subjects delayed.

“You don’t have to fight,” she told them. “But you do have to live.”

That was enough.

They ran.

Scene 6: Escape Plan

Hawthorne led them through a network of maintenance tunnels. Ember alarms wailed through the facility, but security forces hadn’t caught up—yet.

“How bad is it?” Maya asked.

“Bad,” Hawthorne admitted. “Wallace has more sites than we thought. This was just a test run.”

Maya’s jaw tightened. “Then we shut them down. All of them.”

Hawthorne gave her a look. “That’s a war.”

Maya met his gaze, fire flickering at her fingertips.

“Then we fight.”

Scene 7: The Cost of Freedom

They reached an exit—a heavy steel door leading to the outskirts of the refinery. But the moment they pushed through, a squad of Ember operatives was waiting.

Maya barely had time to react before gunfire erupted.

One of the test subjects, a boy barely eighteen, staggered back. A bullet caught his shoulder. He gasped, his flames sputtering.

Rage surged through Maya. It was quite enough.

She didn’t hold back this time.

The ground beneath them cracked as heat exploded outward. Ember’s forces scrambled, as their weapons became useless against the inferno she unleashed.

Hawthorne dragged the injured boy to safety. “Maya, we have to move!”

The firestorm died down, leaving Ember forces scattered and stunned.

Maya turned away. They had to keep going.

Scene 8: The Chase Continues

They made it to a nearby forest, but they weren’t safe yet. Ember’s drones were already sweeping the area.

Hawthorne pulled out a tracker. “I have a safehouse about fifteen miles from here.”

Maya glanced at the exhausted survivors. Some barely had the strength to stand.

“We won’t make it on foot,” she said.

“Then we steal a ride.”

Scene 9: Fire on the Highway

They hijacked a transport truck heading toward Ember’s supply lines. Maya took the stirring wheel, adrenaline pushing past her exhaustion.

Behind them, headlights appeared—Ember pursuit vehicles.

Hawthorne cursed. “They’re not letting us go.”

Maya’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Then we don’t give them the choice.”

She pressed down on the gas.

Scene 10: The Road Ahead

The truck roared down the highway, as Ember forces came closing in.

Maya took a deep breath. “Hold on.”

She reached out—not just to the flames within her, but to the fire around her. The world became blurred as heat crackled in the air.

And then—

She became the fire.

The road behind them erupted in a wall of flames, cutting off the pursuers

The safehouse was close now. But Maya knew this was just the beginning.

Wallace wasn’t done.

And neither was she.