Walking through flames (1/100)
This is the first in a series of unrelated oneshots about DL Hawkins from Heroes, for 100heroesfics. I hope you like it!
Title: Walking Through Flames
Fandom: Heroes
Character: DL Hawkins
Prompt: Fire
Word count: 417
Looking up at the smoke spiraling into the night sky, random asymmetrical patterns dancing up to the stars, I felt a shiver run through me. Tonight would be my night. The night I would become a hero.
I watched the flames licking at the house, consuming it. I could do this. I could save a life. Steeling myself, I started towards the house, ignoring the shouts of my superiors and friends. Flames didn’t bother me, I could phase right through them.
I was seven the first time I realized that I could, quite literally, walk through flames.
The fire towered over me, redorangeyellow biting at me, blistering my hands and face. Below me the floor creaked unsteadily, the flames eating at the wooden floorboards beneath, and the oak rafters above. I cowered in my corner, trying to hide from the burning.
I could hear screams outside, screams of ‘My baby! My baby’s trapped!’, but they didn’t register. I didn’t recognize that I was the ‘baby’, and still I hid in plain sight, as the flames inched closer. A beam wobbled then fell, crashing towards me with a deafening shriek. I closed my eyes and wished for a quick death. And then something else happened. My shoulder went cold, and the chill spread down my body, passing my elbow and stomach and settling on my hip, tingling. I cracked one eyelid open and immediately wished I hadn’t. It almost looked like I’d been impaled by the falling beam. It should have split me in two, but instead, it just kind of floated through me. The area around it seemed a little hazy, like the beam had phased straight through me. I stood up hesitantly, but the beam stayed where it was, passing through my knee and then finally obscuring my foot from view. Moving forward tentatively, I waved my hand through a flame. It flickered, but passed straight through me. Encouraged, I moved on, my whole body passing through the fire now, moving faster and faster until I was suddenly running onto the lawn, coughing as my soot soaked lungs reacted to the fresh air. I collapsed on my back, staring up at the sky, grinning. I was alive. And apparently I could walk through walls as well flames.
I took a final breath before plunging into the house, returning a moment later with the little girl, her nightgown singed but otherwise OK.
Walking through flames was handier than I thought it would be. It could save lives.