35. Like Fire | Beyond the Firmament: Tales From the Cosmos

Beyond The Firmament

Tales From The Cosmos

35. Like Fire

- Written by Gift C Enyadike Jr

Ihri's dominant species are what we who know call the Ingyanites (Like Fire), though they have their own names for themselves in their own languages. 

The first of them were a beautiful people with skin like marble, blessed with absolute immunity to the planet's scorching heat, bathing and drinking the boiling water, playing in the molten rock as one would play in the mud. Faatura walked along the planet's surface and taught them how to cultivate the land, bringing about fruit and plant life that would melt your insides. 

They loved him, and he loved them, though he warned them to never touch him or they WOULD burn. He pointed his colourful, spiralling form upwards at all times, reminding them to give thanks and praise to Da Vaada. He would often sleep, claiming that doing so tired him.

It was during his slumber that the Paadlan, who had never dared to approach while he was awake, would descend onto Ihri. Sevaasi gave his minions his greatest weapons: questions and half-truths.

"Did he not make you immune to burns?" 

"Do you even know what burning is?"

"You're burning right now, and you don't know."

"What if you did touch him?"

"Would you not gain some of his power?"

"He doesn't want to share."

These were directed at the most vulnerable. The young, the bold, the curious, the greedy. It was a faction of these that tried to harvest pieces of Faatura while he slept. Their entire bodies were covered in flame, and in their panic, they ran back to their settlements, spreading the flame like a plague until it engulfed them all.

It was at this moment that Faatura awoke and saw them, screaming as though they were in pain. They were not, but they would continue to burn, and still do to this day. Hotter than the boiling water. Hotter than the molten rock. From birth until death, always with the lingering memory of who they once were.

But there is a hope, a seed planted on that fateful day when Fatuura, feeling sorrow and shame, called out to Da Vaada.

Now, every Ingyanite child is born with a "double-fire", one that is all-consuming, wrathful, destructive and one that is cleansing, purifying and pleasing to the eye. Those who remain steadfast, faithful and kind will become a small white light, carried up to Udamu by the Emotar upon death. Those who are full of hate, who harm others, who take what is not theirs, will be too hot for the Emotar to hold and will burn through their world on their way to Pla'daali.

There is a prophecy among them that one who carries only the purifying flame will walk among them and burn their world clean.

"Fire will meet fire, and they will be remade as they once were," so says Da Vaada.