The Phoenix Cannot Rise

by jmj

Burning Bright

The doctors say it’s a miracle I’m alive. Heh … some miracle. What has my continued existence amounted to? More misery than my wildest nightmares.

I stand here, water ebbing down my cheeks, the eulogy of memories. My hooves flirt with the edge of the cliff, coy, inviting the accident they lust for furtively. This place always served to help me forget my troubles. The view of the Everfree and the turbid river snaking through it has an almost hypnotic effect on me. There I discovered myself, my love of painting and my cutie mark sealing away any doubt of my life’s purpose. I have graced many canvases with its likeness, some as exact down to the tiniest detail, but they never have that spirit, the healing nature, that the lone, bare mountain has upon me. It’s fitting that I return here, where my life truly began … to end it.

Memories of my world’s collapse flood back into my mind on a strong gust of wind. I wobble as the pain in my legs threatens to topple me from the precarious precipice. My breath catches for a moment, this could be the moment I have come for. But no, the raw muscles cease their quaking cries of agony and equilibrium returns. My head lowers, am I truly such a coward? A single orb of salty sorrow slides slowly from my muzzle. I watch it plunge from such great height and tell it that it will not feel the impact on the ground so far below, it will be free of this cursed world very soon. I wish I were so brave.

The fire was bad. I don’t know how it started, but it spread so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to escape my home. Billowing bouts of black bellows bustled from below to belie my bedroom. I awoke to choking, as if somepony were stepping on my throat, cutting off the cool air and blowing caustic smoke into my lungs. Coughing, I rolled from my bed, eyes smoldering and blind, gouging my hooves for purchase upon anything to guide my way from the house. Instinctively, I knew it was a fire. Smoke singed my lungs and eyes, I had to escape before it was too late.

The roiling smoke plumes filled the air and stole pieces of my consciousness at a time, fogging my mind and blurring my frantic thoughts. I didn’t even escape my bedroom before I sunk to the carpet, one more thing for the fire roaring to consume. How I wish it had.

Fate is far crueler than death. Death knocks once and forever more is silence. Fate steals your soul a piece at a time and taunts you with a sadistic grin splayed across its smug face, salt water to those dying of thirst, a foal born dead to an expecting couple, or forgetting how to use your special talent.

They found me before the lusting flames could embrace me completely, their heated throes incinerating my coat and spreading the skin beneath like roiling plastic. The pink meat never stops reminding me of the trauma it has experienced, raw, dripping, and possessed of an oily sheen the color of misery. The doctors call me lucky.

My hind legs were the worst. The rest of me is like a field of freshly fallen snow compared to the flashfires that are my back legs. The pills help and they say the pain will dissipate over time. Until then, to just swallow the pills on time so the nerves remain comatose, asleep to the terror they have become. They say there is no reason I shouldn’t live a normal life after this. A furless freak. A living blister. The puss oozing back side of a scab.

I could have lived with that, you know. I’ve never been conceited, never believed in narcissism the way others have. I have never entertained the thought of marriage or foals. Those were always dreams for another mare. A mare who wants subjectivity, to be a wife and mother. No. My physical beauty has never been important to me but the reason I cast my eyes to the rocky bottom of this mountain ledge is the loss of my talent; the only important feature of myself is now rent, burned out and a smoldering memory. The loss of self is the most frightening thing imaginable and I no longer know who I am now that my cutie marks are only painful memories, charcoals.

They say it’s the trauma. That my mind needs time to heal. That the loss of a cutie mark does not really effect the talent it represented. Lies. I have stared endlessly into the blank canvas that my life has become, confused and bitter. The few inspirations come from the wormhaunt of my mind but my skills has all but died. The sloppy strokes strongly suggest slavish slurs of what should be. The canvas appalls me and I toss it to the fireplace, watching the glowing cinders consume what remains of my soul. I am nothing. They say I’m lucky I kept my legs, that the burns could have been far worse. What do they know? Without my ability to paint I am just a lump of dead meat anyway, sizzled and crackling like coals in a furnace.

And so I brought my easel, canvas, and paints to this peak. To this last place of refuge from the haunted world, seeking salvation or even the faintest glimmer of hope. I set my easel to the usual place and closed my eyes. I forgot the pills this morning and the sizzling sensation returned. I pushed the fire eating my legs from my mind and concentrated on what I would see. My inspiration for life, The place that brought my talent in the first place. I prayed to Celestia. I prayed to Luna. I prayed to the heathen queen Chrysalis. I prayed to anything that would grant my talent’s return.

I felt the breeze, warm and gentle like a mother’s muzzle nuzzling her foal. My heart swelled and a smile came to my lips. I felt the healing power of my refuge and let the swaddling currents sweep me in their love. I opened my eyes …

… and saw nothing. The husk of my talent fell to dust and I knew that my life was truly over.

That’s why I stand here now, praying to those gods again for the courage to take the only step that matters. The step from this cliff to the forgiving ground so far below. I close my eyes once more, greeted by a sour drift of current. The gentle heat is gone, all that’s left is the searing of my burned body and the dementia of who I am.

I feel the updraft roaring around my plummeting body and I can’t help but smile. Thank you, Celestia. Thank you, Luna, Chrysalis, whoever you are that gave me the push I needed. I can’t open my eyes, I don’t want to. I hear my laughter over the shrieking wind and instinctually feel the ground’s eagerness to grant the end I so desire. Closer … closer …. So close.

I wake up to endless flames roasting what is left of my body. The drugs must have worn off. I wiggle my stumps, the plugs of scorched meat where legs used to inhabit. I can no longer see, my eyes melted from my skull in the intense heat of the fire. I was dreaming again … I think. The pain is so poignant and the drugs are so strong that I cannot tell what is my dream and what is my nightmare anymore. I wiggle my trunk, for I am little more than a torso, and hope the doctors see me. I yearn for the prick in my neck that blurs the ache and returns me to the other world. The world where I can move myself and attain what I so long for. Where I can be at peace.

Where I can kill myself.

Comments

[jmj]

Another quick and fun story. I rather like the nameless protagonist idea. For these short fics, it really adds something.

[Dainn]

So the whole time she was a burnt husk inside the hospital.
Wow.

[Magnum the Critic]

I can't say I liked this one as much as your other works.

[bats]

Wonderfully vicious. I missed you, jmj.

[Web of Hope]

wow.
just wow.

[BIGBLACKINTOSH]

I dont know about these guys but I loved the theme of this and the ending.

[jmj]

3008879 Missed you too. Glad you liked the story. I like the ending. I don't think anyone saw it coming.3008903
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
3008922 I tried on this one. It was just a thought that came to me and I thought it could be adapted into a story pretty easily. I appreciate the comment. Thanks Big Black.

[Oniram]

Nice twist at the end, i liked it .

[jmj]

3010426 thank you sir. I hope you read more of my stuff.

[ScarlettBlade]

Deliciously haunting. Thank you for the read jmj

[jmj]

3011176 Thank you, sir. It's a pleasure working with you.

[xombiepanda]

I can honestly say, that this story draws you into the dramatic tragedy and makes you feel her sorrow. Exquisitely executed and beautifully written. Taking you into the mind of someone so bent on destroying what life she has left, not for the physical loss, but for the loss of her talent is riveting. I couldn't stop reading. The most haunting part of it all is realizing that what she thought was the worst thing imaginable, was only a pleasant dream compared to the reality of it all.

[Ra1nbowCrasH]

Holy fuck... that ending. I know I would rather be dead in that situation. Lucky to be alive my ass.

[Thought Prism]

A tad heavy on the purple prose, but this is still by far the best story of its subgenre I've read.

[PresentPerfect]

Well, that was pretty bleak. You weren't kidding.