He thought today was the same as any other day. He woke up, followed his morning rituals, and had cereal in his towel while letting his hair drip dry. Shredded Wheat with lots of sugar. Afterwards he got dressed. All blacks, his favorite color, with a custom trench coat to match. His steal toed boots were pointed, not rounded, and well maintained.

He was on his way to work when it happened. First he heard the noise, then he felt the heat. The explosion was immense, overwhelming the everything surrounding it. He had been suddenly consumed in flames before he even knew what was happening, where did they come from, his mind raced searching to understand what was happening. He looked around to assess the situation, to figure out what came next. He was not yet aware that he was in fact on fire, though he had not been burned.

He saw a nearby building burning, but it was not the source. The flames had come from a van, parked on the street, which seemed quite obviously to be the source of the explosion. Finally he noticed that his coat was burning through, and even his hands seemed to be on fire. No, that wasn’t the case. His hands weren’t burning. The flames was centered in his palms, as if he were holding them. He threw off his coat and raised his hands in front of his face. Though he could only marvel at this thing which he could not understand. The flames were not causing him pain, they were not spreading across his skin, they were merely there. That was my favorite coat, he thought, just before he heard the cries.

Someone was trapped in the building, a child from the sounds of it. Before he knew it he was rushing in, no time to hesitate or plan ahead. He bashed through the smoldering door, and ran up the collapsing stairs. He pushed himself through every obstacle ahead of him, thinking only of the little girl crying for help. When he finally found her he reached out, but his hands were still aflame. As he clenched his fists, wishing only to quench the flames, they subsided. It was almost as if he had absorbed them, or that’s how it had appeared to him. He reached once more for the little girl, panicked and bawling on the floor, surrounded by flames. He picked her up into his arms, she was perhaps 4 years of age. She was crying, coughing, and covered in soot, from the thick smoke. What had been in that truck, he wondered, and where was the girls family? She had been crying for her mother, was she trapped elsewhere in this growing inferno? As he headed back, the flames rose to block his path. As if by instinct, he stretched out his hand in front of them. The flames were drawn to it. He imagined himself clenching his fist, drawing in the flames, as if he suddenly understood what to do. The flames began to respond, and began to diminish, but they were growing faster than he could absorb them all. He did his best to shield the girl from their touch, and hurried her downstairs and out the front door.

“Mommy… mommy…” the girl whimpered, clearly spent, exhausted from all the smoke and crying out. He had to go back, perhaps he could find the mother. with both hands free he found himself better able to control the flames, but he still could not save the building burning down around him. He could hear the sirens approaching from the distance, but they wouldn’t reach it in time. In truth it was already too late, the homes to either side had begun to catch fire, and the firemen would likely try to save them first. They had to stop the spreading after all, before the whole street went up.

He continued searching the house, until he found her. The mother had collapsed at some point, perhaps from smoke inhalation. She was at least seven or eight months pregnant he imagined. Somehow she hadn’t been badly burned. She was in a bath robe, perhaps she had been wet from bathing, her hair did seem a little damp. The soot was almost muddy. her robe was covered in this damp black pitch as well. maybe she had been smart enough to soak it before she ran to save her daughter. Perhaps she had tripped and lost her cool. He lifted her up, but imagined it was probably too late to save her. Yet maybe the baby could still be saved. He would get her outside, that’s all he could do, he had to jump downstairs at this point. He’d twisted his ankle in the process, but managed to ensure no more trauma would come to the womb. A womb which he hoped might still hold a living infant.

As he hobbled forth, dragging himself and the mother from the ruined building, he was met by one of the paramedic units. They had already taken the little girl. For that he was thankful. Both because she was being cared for, and because he could not bare to see the face of a child who had most likely just lost her mother in such a terrible and sudden way. They took the body from him, but before they could look him over, he had wandered away, no longer interested in being anywhere near it all.

The next morning he woke up, his shower covered in black muck from the night before. He wondered if it was a color he could even stand to look at any more. He decided to eat breakfast before he tackled the rest. He still had to explain to his boss why he hadn’t made it in, though that still didn’t seem too important to him. As he sat at his table eating, he saw something that didn’t belong. A card, with “WyldCard” written across its face.