FOREVERMORE FLAME
My name is Lewis Pollsen. I stand in the center of Central Park on Main Street. I’m not sure where I am other than that, but I know what I am to do. The voices have told me, and these voices do not lie. They can tell me anything about anyone, and it will all be true. And now they call on me to do their bidding.
I cannot remember anything from my past life, and my name was told to me by the voices. I’m not sure why I was chosen, or where I come from. But I do know one thing; I must do the voices’ bidding. They are all I have; I have no family, no friends and no life. The voices can’t change that, but they know how to make me happy.
They have told me some things which I am confused about, but they somehow seem familiar. They tell me I have powers, and that man has wronged me too many times. They want me to do their bidding, and who am I to deny.
I now pull a match from my pocket, and I stare at it. They told me to do this; they told me it would work.
And it does.
The flames burst into life on the tip of the match, and I can move them. I can make the flames flicker and sway, and I can make it bigger. After all, bigger is better. And the bigger the flame, the more it burns. The more it burns, the more the voices are happy.
I throw the match to the ground and it goes out immediately, the morning dew held in the grass dampens the flame and I hurt inside. It always hurts to see the flame die. But soon the flames won’t die, they will stay forever. I am to make the Forevermore Flame. They tell me the flames won’t die if I concentrate enough, that they will stay forever.
It isn’t the exact right time yet, it needs to be the right time. At the right time more will burn, more will suffer, and most importantly the voices will be happier.
I was wandering the world for a while, going wherever the voices led me. I saw nothing important, except flames. There were flames before my eyes everywhere I went, burning their light into my mind, mesmerizing me. The voices told me it was right to burn, that the world deserves to burn. And that’s right. As I wandered I saw people living their boring lives, never stopping to see the flames, to let in the voices, or even to listen to them. They all deserve to burn, and now they will.
The time draws ever closer, the moment of the Forevermore Flame is coming. Soon it will be here, and the voices will be happy, and I will be happy.
A man across the road is staring at me strangely, as if I was some sort of weird animal, locked up inside a zoo. His gaze makes me think something that I have never thought before.
What if this is wrong?
The voices have whispered reassurances inside my head; they have guided me everywhere, telling me when to do everything. But does that make them right? They were right about everything else, but what about this?
No, they are right; they’re the only thing I can trust in this world. They have been the only thing with me for my whole life. I never had a family, I don’t know where I came from, but I never had one. They aren’t dead, they just don’t exist. The voices are the only thing with me, and they will be with me forevermore. They will burn inside my soul like the everlasting flames I am about to plague the Earth with.
The time is nigh, the voices tell me so, they tell me to concentrate.
I stare at only one thing, a single blade of grass on the ground. I can feel the flames surge beneath my skull, the energy of the fire wanting to escape, but I keep it in, for just a minute. Building it up, making it more powerful. The voices have quieted, and for the first time in my life I can think clearly. Now I know the answer to the question that I asked myself before. This is all worth it, it must happen, the voices are right.
Now I let the power escape, the flames flick inside my eyes as I unleash the power I was building up. The grass in front of me explodes into flames, and the fire flickers before me. I push it with my mind, making it bigger, spreading the flames until the park around me is a fiery hell. The voices are back, and they now cheer, they are happy, and so am I.
I can hear the screams of the people, the flames taking over their body and taking them from this Earth. I smile, and I feel the flames inside my body, the wonderful warm surge taking control.
I push the flames further, now the city is on fire. But I know that this is only the start. To make it all worthwhile, to finish the job completely, I need to become part of the fire.
Now I will do that, become part of the flames, become part of the Forevermore Flame, and become one of the voices…
And so I step forward, into the flames, and they surge high and explode along the roads, the fields, and the cities of the world. I have done what I needed, what the voices needed, and now I am just another part of them. I have become the ultimate being; I have become the voices…
The flames that spread over the Earth killed most of the population, only 0.2 percent of mankind and animals live on. Robert Green was 22 years old when the fire surged the world, and he was swimming while it happened. He survived, and now he walks in the shallow waters of a beach, keeping well away from the fires that still burned around the Earth.
And he begins to forget his past, everything about it.
And he begins to hear voices.
And he feels fire deep inside him.
He looks into the flames, and he knows what he must do. He must sacrifice the other humans, the survivors, to the voices, and start the second Forevermore Flame…
