Chapter 3- The Sunset Blossomer
The bright light of the afternoon rang throughout the air, Janna stepped out of the swinging door of the town bookstore, carrying with her a stack of purchased goods. On the dirt road stood her father next to a wooden cart.
"Find everything you needed?"
"Just about," she huffed, plopping the books into the cart. "The aptitude test is in six months, I think these'll keep me busy until then."
The stocky man turned to grab the cart's wooden handles before his daughter beat him to the punch. Smiling, he watched her steadily guide the wagon down the unkept road, precarious for a wheeled object. The horizon was visible from the corner of his eye, all the way down the main street and into the wastes. From that absolute shore there appeared a speck of black.
That speck quickly became a shadow; a spectre veiled by dust and the waving fingers of heat that emanated from the Earth. Within moments proximity had ripped the veil from the specter, which revealed itself to be a single man on horseback. The central figure leaped from his horse to face the father and daughter; he was clad in a brown leather vest, his mouth obscured by a red bandana tied firmly around his head. His hair was short, dark, and spikey, his eyes a piercing blue.
"Where's that man, Gallow?" His voice had a sickeningly cold quality to it, as if he was speaking to the dirt.
"W-what do you want with him?" trembled Janna.
"I'm here to kill him, if not him, this place," came the reply, cutting deeply into their stomachs.
"So? Where is he?" The faintest hint of hostility in his tone was enough to rock the two to their hearts, like a spark to gasoline. His eyes were turned to the older man.
"He- he's-" he choked out.
"He's upstairs."
The mysterious rider turned around to find Gabriel standing in the saloon's entrance. He turned his gaze upwards, towards the upstairs window of the building and gazed through the glass to find a gun barrel pointed in his direction. In an instant, a shot blasted through the glass, launching shards of glass to the street below. The bullet found a home in a wooden beam behind the trespasser, who had pivoted to the side just in time to avoid the deadly assault. He snapped his attention to the window once more to see Gallow, shirtless save for the bandages around his abdomen, staring directly into his eyes with a cold glare.
"I have no need for you now, go" he commanded without breaking eye contact. The girl and her father ran away once more.
"Dad, why is this happening again?" she beseeched.
"I don't know, I don't know," her father huffed, running.
---
"My name is Fiemme, I've come to burn you to the ground."
With those words, he raised his hand, revealing an orange tulip. Gallow's eyes focused, realizing that his enemy had seemingly pulled this flower out of thin air.
"Adesso, dare fuoco!" his words drifted from his lips, catching the petals of the tulip and picking them from the stem. As the petals floated towards the window, they seemed to stretch and grow until suddenly they were not recognizable as plant, but instead tongues of flame.
Panic filled Gallow’s heart, an almost supernatural guiding force pulled him not from the window, but toward it. The sigil on his hand tingled, his legs moved with a sudden speed, leaping from the floor out through the opening and into the open air. A crippling agony cut into his side, his injury throbbed, but he was afforded no time to think about pain as he fell towards the ground. A sudden wind caught him beneath his feet, breaking his fall and letting him drop safely.
"Now what was that?" Fiemme asked stonily.
"I could ask the same of you," Gallow retorted, "but I have a feeling I already get the idea."
"Talk is useless now," the assassin remarks, producing another tulip from nowhere.
Fiemme blew the flower intensely, petals raced towards Gallow, who swiftly dodged the flames that now dissipated into the air. The black gunman quickly raised his pistol, launching another shot at the rider. The bullet cracked through the air, whizzing past its mark's ear close enough to shock a weaker man to death.
Fiemme turned his vision to the nearby bookstore, pulling out two more tulips and extending his arm in the building's direction. Gallow could read his opponent’s intent immediately.
"No!" he shouted, firing once more, desperately trying to disarm the man.
"That arm! I'll shoot that arm!" his mind raced while his bullet flew through the air. The projectile closed in on the flame-wielder's forearm, if only it could move a millisecond faster.
Five inches.
Three inches.
One inch.
Fiemme's arm lowered by seven degrees.
The bullet misses. Fiemme turned his head and a wry smile crosses his lips. Petals barrage the wooden walls of the bookstore, a tongue of fire caught in the dry air. In seconds, flames had engulfed the front wall of the establishment.
Anger filled Gallow's mind. It was a big enough risk the first time, now others were involved in his problems. This was unacceptable.
He cried out in rage. The hammer of his gun knocked back a blistering amount of times in a single second, lead filled the air like gunsmoke. Blinded by anger, Gallow burst across the distance between them, sigil tingling. Fiemme was nothing but a black shadow in a smoky world which Gallow struck with the palm of his hand. All of his fury was discharged into a single physical blow, something the crack of gunfire could never replace.
The smoke cleared, revealing what remained of Fiemme. His body, ridden with bullet holes, he barely clung to life. Slowly, he fell back, hitting the ground with a hard thudding noise. Blood streamed from the wounds covering his form, crimson streaks fell to the ground, soaked up by the dirt.
Gallow heaved, his breathing still strained. As the adrenaline wore off, pain returned to his body. He grabbed his side, the terrible ache filling him once more. The pain was so intense he could barely move, his legs shaking, his eyes clamped shut from the experience. From the peripheries of his blurred vision, he could see Fiemme open his eyes one last time. From the dying man's hands suddenly appear six tulips held between his fingers. Gallow's eyes filled with a sudden killing dread.
"Inghiottite..." he choked out, his words fading as the blossoms fly out.
"No!" screamed Gallow as the petals transfigured into great breaths of flame. The heat was instant and scorching, Gallow's body engulfed by the bright orange ignition.
The fire suffocated him, his whole being was trapped in unrelenting pain, death appeared swift and inescapable. He could feel his body floating in a pit of agony. Within such a torturous realm he could feel only the back of his right hand, the sigil, tingling, guiding him. With the grace of a bird, he extended his arm outwards and pushed off. In the midst of his hellish pain there was suddenly a serene goal with which he felt the tides of fate were rushing him towards.
The flames of the bookstore caught to the nearby buildings, within minutes the fire was spreading throughout the town. At first one citizen stepped out, and soon cries of “fire!” bounded across the small municipality. Panic ensued as they rushed about, dumping their limited supplies of water onto the flames, hoping to douse the terror away, but to no avail. Gallow was being pulled to the outskirts of town.
---
"Dad, is that fire?" Janna's voice filled with fear.
The sound of concern in her voice triggered a parental urge in Eli; he turned around to witness smoke rising into the air.
"Dear God," her father whispered from the front yard of their home.
"What's happening?! Is the town going to burn down?!"
"How much water do we have stored?" he said gravely.
"You mean our drinking water??" she asked, panicked.
"Yes, yes!" he said, beginning to lose his calm demeanor.
"God, I don't know!"
Suddenly, she made out a blazing figure racing towards their home. From within the human inferno, she caught Gallow's eyes, unmistakably. She ran out towards him.
"Wait! Wait!" she cried.
Her distressed call seemed not to reach him; he was in another world. Or, at least, another lens of the world.
Janna had never seen a fire that raised smoke over more than half the town, this moment had been unprecedented in gravity, her confusion and fear had taken rule over her mind. Within that own world of frenzy the only thing she could think of was to follow the flaming idol of the man who had saved them once before.
After a moment of running, she caught up to him. Suddenly, the gunman's fiery form lurched forward, at the same moment, Janna's foot caught a stray rock, and both of them fell face-forward into a dead tree.
---
Janna's eyes snapped open to attention, a warm, peaceful light filled her vision. She sat up and observed the world around her. Surrounding her was a lush garden of green grass and flowers. Trees of species unknown to her extended up into the sky, their branches casting a cool shade over her. A few feet from her was a spring from which fresh water was flowing.
"I'm dreaming" she thought, "I must be dreaming. I hit my head and I'm imagining this right now."
She sighed. "I suppose I may as well make the most of this dream, then." With that, she rose to her feet and walked over to the spring, which pooled in a small pond at its base. In the waters lay a body, facedown and seemingly lifeless. She quickly kicked her shoes off and stepped into the pond to lift the body out. To her surprise, it belonged to Gallow, the man who had saved the town not but a few days beforehand. She quickly pulled him to dry land, laying him down. Immediately beginning CPR on his body, she knelt before him and worked for two minutes to save him. Finally, his body heaved and he coughed up a large amount of water.
Groaning, he looked up at her kind face.
"Where the hell am I?" he asked.
"My dream."
"Really?"
"Yes, it seems so."
"Tell me if this hurts then."
"What?"
He reached up and delivered a flick between her eyes.
"Ow!" she cried, rubbing her forehead.
"You don't feel pain in a dream, that's the best part, girl, so unless you have some real bargain bin dreams, this ain't one." He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"Hey," the gunfighter noted, gazing upon his bare chest, "I don't feel any pain right now." He grabbed the side of his broken rib. "What the- there's no pain left."
Janna gazed at his form, somewhat embarrassed, but curiously.
"I don't have any burn scars either..." he observed. "Just where the hell is this place, anyway?"
The sound of rushing water caught both of their attentions, and they turned to the Spring to see streams of clear liquid rising and swirling about, as if by magic. The swirling waters congregated into one recognizable mass. Before them, composed of water, was the form of a woman.
"Greetings," a cool voice whispered from parts unknown. "I am the Garden of Armony."