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gale gingerly closed the screen door behind her, trying to muffle it's habitual squeak and slam. as she stepped, barefoot, into the wet grass, she felt like an intruder; any noise would be sacriledge, desecration. standing, hesitant, in the dew and dirt, she watched her sister's flickering form, orange and shadowed from the fire's light.

melissa, smoking a slim brown clove cigarette, stared slitty eyed into the flames. her only movement was the rhythmic rise and fall of her forearm, bringing the cigarette to her lips. she inhaled the smoke silently and let the liquid smoke pour from her nostrils and mouth, mingling with the thick, graceless smog of her makeshift bonfire. to gale, melissa looked calm, saintlike. the fire only added the drama. fucking joan of arc, thought gale.

but with a twist. burn everything else, or you burn. no martyrdom for melissa. only purity. only cleansing.

"hey," murmured gale, making her way through the lawn. she felt the flames heat as she approached. too hot - she couldn't stand as close as melissa did, and backed up a few steps. if you can't take the heat...

melissa exhaled; gale smelled her sister's familiar trademark scent of cloves as tendrils of her smoke curled around her head, a gentle veil. "hey." still she didn't move, but continued to stare serenely into her fire. "do you think they'll be pissed?"

gale kicked a stone, missing the glowing logs crawling with bright red embers by several feet. "probably."

melissa allowed herself a small smile. "good." she turned her head, features falling into shadow, and laughed, just once. "good."

"you, uh, you're really not gonna miss all that stuff?" gale thought of the clothes, the cd's, the electronics, all eaten by the hot, crackling beast in front of her. shit, she mused. could have at least offered me some of it before she went all pyromaniac on a couple thousand bucks worth of her posessions.

"i don't know," said melissa, still smiling that tiny mona lisa smirk. "i'd like to say no. i'd like to say that destroying all this useless shit will make me, like, perfect. pure, you know?" she shook her head. "but it's not that easy. no."

gale shuffled around on her feet. shifting weight, drawing back from the blaze, which seemed to bake her skin, her clothes.

melissa tossed her cigarette into the flaming contents of her bedroom; within five seconds, it was indistinguishable. "but it's a start." she put her hands in her pockets, smile fading. "it's burning stuff away. stuff i can maybe replace with something better, you know?"

she swept her hands over the flames, fighting the urge to recoil. "it's like forest fires. they're part of, like, the natural order. they burn away the dominant trees and, you know, the, uh, underbrush, that block the light from the little dying plants underneath that never get to see the sun." she pulled her hands back and put them in her pockets. "if there are no forest fires, there's no growth. everything gets choked out."

"so this is your own personal forest fire?"

"yeah," said melissa. "yeah, i like that." she grinned. "burn it all down and grow something different up in its place."