The library was set in one of the nicer parts of town. It had been a very nice building, if not a particularly large one. On the outside the gardeners had made a considerable effort. There was ample greenery, a few benches to sit on, and even some carefully trimmed bushes that provided some natural containment and privacy for those reading outside. Of course, now all that remained were the melted remnants of the benches, the metal guides for the plants to grow along, and ash.

The building didn’t hold up much better. Four large concrete pillars that had helped bear the load of the roof remained standing, but the roof had caved in, and the flammable material had all burned away. If any books remained, which was unlikely, they’d be buried under the remains of the roof.

Climbing carefully onto the rubble was a girl holding a chubby seal plushie in front of her like a shield. Lily was careful to touch each new foothold gently before applying pressure, to make sure it would hold her weight and wouldn’t be burning hot. The view from the inside was more of the same. It was devastation. Nothing had survived. It pained Lily to see, there had been so much knowledge and creativity here that was now lost. Sure, copies of the same materials probably still existed. She would find them too. But, every lost library, every lost archive, every lost database, even every lost personal PC was worth mourning. Humanity might be gone, but she could at least preserve the ghosts.

As she grew closer to the center, where the mass of purple smoke was still rising, she could see flames licking up from underneath it, despite there likely not being anything left to burn. While that was strange enough, the flames were green. She did a quick google search on her phone, but nothing particularly useful came up. Especially not for these two colors together.

Lily drew closer. The fire was emitting some kind of… sparks? Well, no, not sparks. They didn’t look electric. More like the kind of sparks you’d get from one of those hand held firework sparkler toys. But they were smaller and went out quickly.

“Okay… this is definitely not normal. But what is it?” Lily inched closer. Unlike her personal flame, this was putting off heat and she had no intention of getting too close. This was definitely another anomaly. Strange things had been happening constantly since yesterday, and Lily wanted answers! Any answers at all! So, she observed. Then, something caught her eye.

She’d been so focused on the green fire that she hadn’t noticed, her eternal flame was reacting. She lifted it in front of her. It still looked the same, but the flames were quite a bit larger than earlier. “Huh. What the heck…? Do you just like other fires?” She took a few steps away, and held the flame further from the green fire. It went down slightly. She brought it closer again, and it flared up once more.

“Weird…” She stared at the green fire again. Tucking her seal under one arm she took out her phone and snapped a picture of the green fire. The picture came out showing clearly what she saw with her own two eyes. Okay, still not an illusion, probably. Then what was going on? Lily was pretty sure that nothing in a library would normally burn like that. So, there was something more to this. She was determined to figure it out.

“I have to live in a world full of junk like this now. So I’m not giving up! You hear me, green fire? I’m not leaving until I understand even a little bit how you work! So, what are you? Tell me your secrets!” She expected nothing, and was really just speaking out loud for the comfort of it, but the green fire reacted.

She could swear it did! It burned lower for a moment and then redoubled, raging even stronger. That had to be a coincidence, right? She knew human brains were wired to find patterns, even if there were none there. So, she was skeptical, even if it seemed so obviously related to her.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Nothing changed. Okay, so just speaking wasn’t enough. What had it been then? Desire to understand?

“Fire, I demand to know how you work!” That wasn’t it either. Or maybe it was more than just her words. She focused, trying to build the same intensity she had had when it did react.

“I’m not leaving until I understand something. Even one small piece of this puzzle. I worked hard to get here, and I’m not leaving empty handed.” She felt it. It was building inside her. Not just words, but genuine feelings. She stepped closer to the fire, and could feel the heat on her face, but she stood her ground. “I’m scared. I am always so scared. But I’m here anyway! I’ve fought this battle tooth and nail. I broke free of that cage just for a moment to be here and get knowledge. I won’t let that go to waste. What are you? Show me!”

The flame shrunk drastically for just a second, and Lily felt herself get pulled toward the center of it. With a cry of surprise, she tried to hold herself back but stumbled forward despite herself. As she felt herself drop to her knees roughly, the flame burst back to life twice as strong as before. Pain. Searing pain covered Lily for a moment and she screamed. She scrambled back away from the fire as quickly as she could, sure that she was burning alive. But, as she got some distance she realized the flames hadn’t touched her. Despite that, she was certain she had burns, even if minor. That had been painful. Inventory check! Her phone was fine, the glass of her everburning vase had chipped slightly where it scraped the ground, and her seal was… covered in ash but unharmed.

Lily let out a nervous laugh. She was… okay! Well, okay enough. Not dead! Not burned beyond repair. She’d take it! She looked up at the fire. It was still burning brightly. Okay, well, that had been a reaction. That had definitely, definitely been the flame reacting to what she had said and done. Was the key emotion? No, it didn’t feel like that was quite right. It was more than that. She tried to hold onto the feeling.

There she sat, staring at the fire, covered in ash when she realized something else. The fire was doing something new! It was subtle, but it was there. She could see it. Just barely. It was… breathing? No, that wasn’t quite right. It was more like a whirlpool. Or… She couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. But, she watched carefully. It was drawing something into it. She couldn’t see what. It was like the air around it was being sucked into it. But it wasn’t the air. Well, the air was as well, because that’s how fire works. But this was something deeper.

She concentrated, and tried to see. The fire was growing larger. It was pulling more and more of this… stuff into it. At a faster and faster rate, and as it pulled the stuff in faster it was burning higher and hotter. She could see it. She didn’t have words to describe it, but she had a sense for it now. This… fuel. Whatever it was, was pouring into the flame, and the flame was burning it! That’s why it wasn’t burning anything else to sustain itself! There wasn’t anything left in the library that was on fire, this fire was burning this stuff out of the air! And it was going faster and faster. Exponentially. Wasn’t that… bad?

Lily’s eyes went wide. “Uh oh.” She jumped to her feet as fast as she could, and ran across the rubble. Stumbling a little bit, and slightly twisting an ankle she jumped clear of the ruined library, and made a mad dash to her van. She got it started, threw it in reverse, and swerved out into the street.

Lily floored it. She wasn’t sure what she thought was going to happen was really going to happen, but if she did she wanted to be nowhere near–

THOOM

Her van shook with the impact of the blast, throwing off her steering for a moment. The van fishtailed as Lily struggled to get a hold of it again. She was lucky she didn’t flip! But, once she got control she hit the gas again. She wanted to be far away before she turned to look. Chancing a glance at the rear view mirror, she saw a wave of purple smoke pouring down the road after her. The Van wouldn’t accelerate fast enough! It was going to hit her! Well, she could at least be as far away as she could!

It was catching up. It was gonna catch up! Three. Two. One. A wave of dark purple engulfed her. It was impossible to see through. She kept going, blind but unwilling to stop and see if flames followed the smoke! For a few agonizing seconds, she floored it into the abyss. Then… THUNK. She hit something. The van popped up as it hit the rubble in the road. Lily slammed on the breaks to try and mitigate the crash, but she was no expert driver. The van immediately went into a spin. Lily screamed, and held on for dear life.

The van came to a stop. She wasn’t even sure which direction she was pointed in this smoke, but she was just thankful not to be dead, or upside down. But now she was trapped. The purple smoke was so thick around the windows and windshield that it was as if someone had painted them. There was no telling what direction was safe to drive in. So, she waited to see if she’d start feeling heat.

Tense overwhelming silence for a few minutes was Lily’s entire world. All she could see was purple black smoke. All she could hear was her own ragged breathing. What if… it was permanent? Just as she tried hard not to have that thought, she caught a sight that gave her hope. She thought she could sort of make out the sky!

She put the car back in drive and inched forward. Yes! She was sure now, the smoke was starting to clear a little. She patiently waited until she could make out the road a little, and then turned onto it. A few minutes later, she was driving clear of the smoke.

She parked and turned to get a good look back. It was clear where the explosion had been. A large purple black crater was visible from here. It’d taken out at least a block. But, it hadn’t gotten her.

She carefully climbed back into her van, and looked into the passenger seat. Her seal looked back at her, covered in black purple ash.

“Hah. Rough day huh?”