"Just keep going," she mumbles to herself as she stumbles into a wall. Her steps are clumsy, eyes drooping from exhaustion and lack of breathable air. Her head pounds aggressively on the inside of her skull, a headache not the only reminder from her last encounter with ██ ████. She shakes her head, she can't focus on them now. The wall to her right crumbles inward as the flames eat everything, making it unstable. When it falls a plume of ash fills the hallway and when it hits her lungs she doubles over, wheezing painfully.

The hallway around her becomes blurry. The flames rising around her distort her view of her surroundings, but she can hear the yelling that brought her into the burning tower and she knows that these people need her help. A bomb had been hidden by the ██ and when it went off it had encased the building in an explosion that sparked fires throughout the tower. She can't help but feel responsible for this tragedy. However, she will make this right.

"Elaine! Please listen to me," a voice crinkles on her earpiece, the connection unstable due to her situation. "They say that the whole building is unstable now. It's going to come down- you in it- out- please!" And she sighs heavily, without even pausing in her desperate attempt, "not without these people. I at least have to try to save them."

"But, but like you always say: they haven't done anything to deserve this!"

"Maybe they don't. But you're the one who showed me that I should give them a chance."

"Elain-"

And with that she pulls the earpiece from her ear and drops it, turning to watch it bounce pitifully into a flame before sparking into nothing but burning machinery. Fire rises around her, fighting its way upwards on the thin plaster walls. The heat is more overbearing than any fire she's conjured before and smoke fills her lungs as the flames take the air from the rapidly burning space. Even as the fire becomes violent and the hallway she stumbles through is blazing with such an intensity that she can only see a blurred version of the space she enters, she continues on.

Her powers make her special. She knows this, and the fire should fear her. It can't touch her. The flames can only lick at her skin to leave no marks behind. She can bend the flames to her will if she wants. She can conjure enough fire to burn New York down to a few ashes and unburnable remnants of an awful city hiding in a beautiful place. She doesn't fear fire anymore, nor does she fear what she can do.

She reaches the double doors that lead into the conference room with the people trapped inside. Grinning, it takes a single kick for her to knock the doors inward. The people scattered around the room searching for a way out all turn in shock of the vigilante who has come to their rescue. A banner swinging lightly in the heat from one of the few flames in the room has "VC" written across it over and over again. These people hate her with everything in them, yet here she is, prepared to sacrifice herself for every single one of them.

"Come on! I've come to get you all out," she motions to the doors broken wide open. Whispers wisp through the room, dancing with concern and fear as a section of the roof caves in and new flames rise across the carpeted floor.

"We won't take any help from some, vigilante! We'll wait for the firemen to reach us," one snooty politician informs the teen. "Well then, I'll have you know Councilman █████, that the entire building has been emptied and a perimeter set around it as it's going to collapse any second now. And the firemen and women you're putting all your trust in don't have ladders tall enough to reach you. I hate to inform you all, but I am the last chance you have of getting out of here only slightly crispy," the girl glares at each of the people in the room as she speaks, taking in their reactions. A woman steps forward that she recognizes as Councilwoman █████, one of the few people fighting on the side of peace and allyship, not cages and death.

"Lead the way, █████. I have my children at home waiting on me, and I don't intend on not seeing them again," the woman says, looking her fellow councilpersons in the eyes. With one person trusting her just enough to get them out of this alive, the others soon follow suit. Yet the same councilman as before steps up to halt the blind trust session, "we should be having this girl arrested, not letting her lead us into our deaths." The girl sighs, and before any of the council people or their company can put in a word she responds.

"Once upon a time, I would gladly leave you here. But if you do not shut your damn mouth I will knock you out and let your muscle here carry you out of this building to live." With her statement, the council looks to her for any plan to get out alive, and Councilman █████ actually shuts his mouth while glaring at the few who had laughed as he submitted.

She sets them up in a line, ordering them to each pair with someone and to cling to that person as their lifeline. "The person you stand with now is your partner until you step outside this building. If your partner is injured you are responsible for getting them out and vice versa." Then she had each person from each pair grab onto a person in the pair either in front or behind them, creating a chain that linked the whole party together. Finally, she led two of the hired security members to the front of the chain, "you two should know the schematics of the building, lead them out and I'll make sure no one falls behind."

Reentering the flaming hallway, the vigilante realizes just how much worse the fires have grown. But the people trust in her words and so they keep going. The vigilante encouraging them every so often, reminding them that they are getting closer and closer to safety.

The tower is on its last leg by the time they even near the final floors. The foundation quakes, shaking the entire building and jolting everything and everyone within it. The council still stuck on the second floor stumble into walls and onto the floor as the building screeches in protest of standing any longer. That's when she screams for them to run. The exhausted people rush, partners still tightly connected, for the huge lobby doors forced open and cleared by firefighters.

The ceiling is fallings and the floors above them. Screams from outside echo inside the hollowing skeleton of a building alert them of the tragedies they are about to become. The tower is crumbling from the inside. The top is falling in on them, rushing down with floor after floor quick to collapse. They are seconds away from demise, flames twisting around them on the staircase with holes and missing steps.

And Elaine feels it, the overwhelming flood of power in her veins. The flames around her, the lives dimming in her sights. She can see a woman sob as they all watch, nearly frozen in their stupor as the ceiling of the lobby caves. Crashing for their heads-

Screams pierce the air.

Fire takes the heap of rubble left behind, glowing orange and flickering red like an ember not yet dying.

A boy collapses to his knees at the remnants of the tower. Tears falling fast down his cheeks, mask pulled away. They know who he is, he no longer cares if they see him now.

Councilwoman █████ drops to the ground with the rest of the council, all twisting to look at the blistering heap in awe of the reason they get to go home. Tears stain their ashen faces, bodies trembling from their efforts to survive.

A world on fire, now left grieving its
missing spark...

" we watch impatiently for
the heroes of our world to rise,
but heroes are tragedies in the
act of burning or catching fire "
-katie

welcome to " Missing Spark "
hope you all enjoy!!
( ps - any thoughts? )