The Firebird

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The Firebird is the Phoenix, and MYSTERY. The Firebird is the fire that inspires the story. It is the Shadowlands and more, born with the first breath of every “once upon a time”, and dying with every “The End’. The Firebird sits just outside of understanding, pushing back the mystery just deepens it.

Excerpt:

“I’m never lucky.” Marion said quietly as he pulled the last big glass shards of the window and began squeezing through the window. Half way through, Marion realized he could have opened the window now that it was broken and not risked cutting himself on the shatter glass still in the frame. He realized this as the glass cut his thighs in neat angular little grooves. The pain in his thighs was excruciating as he pulled himself through. When he finally stood inside his apartment again, he found himself wondering if Mrs. Trilby was right about that tumor and his attention to detail.

He walked to the sink and washed his knuckles and his thighs, delicately putting X-Men band-aids over the cuts, using a whole box of band-aids in the process, since he didn’t have any larger bandages, his last box of band-aids in fact. He felt a bit woozy and wasn’t too pleased with the day’s current performance. Marion splashed water on his face to hopefully clear his head. But when he removed his hands and looked at the mirror, his reflection was gone.

In place of the mirror and the expected reflection, Marion was staring at a bird, much like a pheasant or a peacock with a long sweeping tail, but also impressively expansive wings. The bird was an iridescence of reds and golds that moved in waves over a black backing like fire over hot coals. Actual flames licked the air around the bird and it looked at Marion intently. Then it cocked it’s head away into the distance and took flight, a nimbus of flame surrounding it. Marion debated following it, but found that it didn’t matter. He was flying behind the Firebird- coasting on its wake.

They flew out over a lonely highway, passing a worn down old diner out past the end of the highway into a vast wilderness and then on. They flew over a small village built of mud or clay with grass on the roofs and further on into a blasted landscape of burned fields and shattered homes. The land below took on the appearance of a war zone or the aftermath of a zombie outbreak, slowly becoming increasingly urban until the firebird’s flight took them straight into the heart of a city under siege by its own people, with fires in the streets and upturned cars. The Firebird aimed its path for a huge skyscraper in the center of the city and Marion held his breath as they aimed straight at the shimmering glass facade.

The scene shattered to sound of exploding glass and Marion found himself floating in darkness.