The Fire of Hell

The Fire of Hell

When there is smoke, there is fire they say. However, not all fire comes with smoke and some fires are too beautiful to put, others to wild and have to be restrained. Fire, or rather, coal was the business of the folks up north, there mines notorious for their black gold. It was not only black that they dug out of the mines, when you went in you would never be anything different but black, dirty and bent. Once the world was economically thriving but country after country fell into debt and in the end anarchy and disaster struck the world and ripped it of civility and wealth. Of course the top few were left over and bought up the few businesses that did not fall into bankruptcy. The mines never quite went away, even though business was hard and sometimes there was no money at all coming out of the mines, just broken faces and dust.

The mine, located close to a small town, was the only reason there were any humans scavenging around those parts of the woods, most were scraping together a livelihood in the last remaining cities. Funny to see how we once were so relentlessly trying to ban poverty out of the world, supporting businesses in the slumps of third world countries, while now every world is a third world country and even the once wealthiest cities have grown arms and legs of dirt roads tented camps. The folks in the forest were lucky, the air they breathed was fresh and even though the streets were cracked and the main street a patchwork of discontinued stores and in which some of them small markets had settled of citizens selling home grown, baked and slaughtered food, life was better than in the cities. 

Yet, even this at first glimpse, quiet looking town, beneath the surface untold tales stirred, ready to be awoken. Every country has its own myths, but this town had its young ears longing for the tale of the phoenix. It was never a story with a happy ending, but everyone wanted to know the fiery creature living in the depths of the mines. 

The story was old, but the phoenix has become the symbol of their community, a symbol of their coal mines. And even a cruel beast can be beautiful, and this horror was the most beautiful of all. Story goes that there once was a beautiful girl, who was in love with a coal miner, he in return was in love with her. They met on market days and fairs and even though they never spoke openly of their affection for each other, they felt a deep understanding when they looked into their eyes and had their small moment of bliss. “How are you miss? Lovely weather, ain’t it?”, her heart would jump from hearing his soft voice and teasingly she would reply: “I’m sunny, but the rain knows where to find you.” After two years she found him in the living room of her parents farm, the atmosphere had suddenly turned formal as her father rose from his rocking chair and said his words of delight. “This man has asked for your hand, of course, him being this handsome and prosperous, I couldn’t say no” He saw the smile in her eyes, the curling of her lips and for once, he knew he had done right for his daughter, in her turn, she knew that her father had given her everything she wanted.

After the wedding they moved to a little cottage on the edge of the village, overlooking the meadows on the north and the forest in the south. They were happy, her younger sister would come to visit often and they would picnic together on the husband’s Sunday’s off. All the other days he would go to the mines, delve into the depths of the mountain, her sister would go too, because now she was a wife she had to make money for the family they were trying to make, while her sister had taken up her duty of helping out her father by working in the mines. For the first the little  girl worked with her brother in law, she would delve in the hard to reach places and he would dig out the larger parts around it. Suddenly the girl hit a hard rock, a quiet rumble moved through the mountain, first far away, but then louder and closer until the earth shook and the roof came crashing down on their bodies, crushing their bones and exerting the life out of their bodies. The news hit the wife so hard that she fell into a devastating depression, which lasted for almost half a year and when the snow fell down through the cracks in the roof, she stood up, still wearing the same dress as months before and walked to the church. She sank into her knees in prayer.

She sat there for days until her hands started to glow, and the fire of her prayer did not stay in her entwined hands, it spread like tongue upwards her arms, her shoulders, her chest and face. She started to crackly like a hearth and suddenly, without warning, she burst into flames. The heat did not incinerate her, the red tongues because wings and everything they touched they set aflame. Her eyes were no longer the eyes of that ones funny, caring, loving, girl, they had turned completely black, as if they monster, the hatred inside of her had swallowed her whole and out of the ashes of the girl a bird of prey had arisen. This creature, still resembling the girl engulfed in flames, walked out of the church without touching the ground, setting the wooden building on fire. She did not stop her raging march before everything had burned down and the ground was covered with smouldering cinders. The town folk had left their homes and hid in the woods where she did not know how to find them, they could see her wonder the town, flailing her arms, screeching. They saw her heading into the forest, flying on her wings of fire, into the dark mines. They men in the forest did not pause for a minute, they sneaked up to the mines and rolled down as many rocks as possible down the shaft, looking up the beast, the fury of a woman. 

The children loved the story, even the girls did, but all knew that one day they had to go into the mines and make their money there. Some already did, you knew by the black smudges on their faces and the dirt under their nails. Lily, a girl of 12, had been working in the mines for two years now and she still found the mines a scary place. She would often hide in a corner and day dream in the infinite darkness until she could hear the overseer come, then she would quickly pick up her gear and start working. One day she found a beautiful red gem, hidden under a rock, near the shaft of one of the old mines. The overseer had told her that they would reopen the old mines and that she was on the crew of working their way through the rocks and into the old shafts. Lily had already picked up her gear after finding the gem and was occupied trimming the mountain wall down to rock size. It was unusually warm down the shaft and the sweat was pouring down her arms and hands and made holding on to her pickaxe a pretty difficult job. A crack seemed to emerge from the rock before here and the perfect weak spot appeared. So she lifted up her axe and jammed it right in the crack, she had expected the sound of splitting rocks but instead the sound of crackling fire came out of the rocks, now slowly sliding off the walls and onto the ground. A flickering light shone through the cracks and turned into flames, before she knew it her skin crawled, bubbled and burned away in a matter of seconds before the flames raged through the mine. Not even bones were found, only the ashes and several small red birds, picking little red gems from the ground.