I Was Born a Lightning Bolt. They Chose Me to Burn the World.

1. The Cloud Nest

My mother was a bolt of gold-purple light. My father was a slow-turning mass of blue and white. Their glow braided together, two tight threads, and pulled me from a spark into something with a name.

My name is Purple Heart. A patch of purple sits in the center of my chest. It is the color of the moment dusk meets night. The old ones said it was the sky's own sigh.

We lived in the Cloud Nest. A palace of ice crystals and water drops, floating ten thousand meters up. The walls were half clear. Sunlight broke through them into a thousand strips of color. Ice stalactites hung from the ceiling. Each one marked a fall. Those crystals were scars left by the sacrifices. Every scar was a leaving. Every leaving pushed the Cloud Nest a little higher, a little farther from the ground.

We spoke in electric potential. Near meant love. Far meant grief. A sudden discharge was a warning. A slow dimming was goodbye. We danced and wrapped each other in our glow. We sang and let current coil through the Cloud Nest, a low rumble in the walls.

The Cloud Nest was not always quiet. Every so often, the council chose a new sacrifice.

2. The Choosing

The council was seven of the oldest bolts. Their color had faded almost to white. They sat on ice thrones in the center of the Cloud Nest, bodies like seven hanging icicles, glowing without motion. Their charge pressed down through the whole roof. Young bolts kept their distance.

Today they would choose the new sacrifice.

My mother pushed me forward. Her glow shoved my back, a "go" she did not say. My father turned in silence. His light was darker than usual, dark as distant thunder swallowed by cloud. The others formed a ring. Purple, blue, and white arcs crossed into a moving rainbow. They danced. Their steps struck the ice floor and threw sparks. The sparks rose, hit the roof, and fell back like a meteor shower running backward.

A council member raised a hand. His finger was a white ice needle. He curled it once. My light cracked like a page turned by wind. I walked forward. Each step left a short purple print on the ice. The others opened on both sides, then closed behind me. I stopped before the council and knelt. My body grew heavy. The whole sky seemed to sit on my purple heart.

The oldest member lowered his head. His face was a ball of white light. His eyes were two brighter points. He came close. His charge pressed like a wall. I almost came apart. Then he spoke. His voice did not go through ears. A current poured straight into my chest:

"Purple Heart, you are chosen."

Behind me my family burst into cheers. Their glow hit the roof. The Cloud Nest shook. My mother wept. Her tears were sparks that fell to the ice and became small beads of light. My father did not weep. He pressed his body lower, like a mountain about to go out.

The council closed around me. Their light made a sealed ring. The oldest put his mouth near my purple heart and whispered:

"Split them. They need light."

I asked, "Who are they?"

No answer.

Another member said, "You will know. You will become fire, heat, a new wound in the ground."

I asked, "Will I come back?"

Silence. Then the oldest said, "You will return to the sky. Not as you are."

That was all. The secret belonged to the sacrifice. I would carry it into the grave, if I had a grave.

3. The Goodbye

The ritual went on. The others lifted me and passed me hand to hand. Their glow left a hundred kisses on my body. My mother's kiss was the hottest. My father's was the heaviest. They carried me to the Cloud Nest's exit, a funnel opening onto the dark sky below. Ice crystals around the rim held the remains of old sacrifices. There were no bones. Only cooled electric traces, white cracks, still posed in the shape of falling.

The opening was small. A bolt could only slip out sideways. The edge was smooth, set with ice and dust. Only the sacrifice could touch it. I stood at the opening. My hand would not go out. I looked back. The others had stopped far away, a sea of light pressed low by wind. The council stood in front. Their white almost hurt my purple heart.

I did not want to go.

I wanted my mother's arms. I wanted to dance with the others in the Cloud Nest. I wanted to hear my father turn in silence. I wanted to be an ordinary bolt, purple and blue, no purple heart, not chosen, not leaving.

The council did not hurry me. They watched. In their look was an old grief, like the heaviest cloud in the sky. They had been sacrifices too. They had been chosen. They had not left. They stayed and became the council.

I reached out and touched the opening. The ice was warm, like my mother's skin. I curled myself small and slid out. Wind pressed close to my body, like the sky hugging me. I smelled the old sacrifices: ozone, burnt earth, iron rust, and something sweet I could not name. The smell of the ground.

I began to fall.

4. The Fall

The sky opened under me, deeper and deeper. My light scraped the clouds and left purple marks. Behind me came a huge sound: the council moving ice, sealing the entrance. Dark came down. Only my purple heart gave light.

I stopped and put my hand on the ice that sealed the entrance. On the other side, the others began to mourn. Their crying was muffled thunder. Low shaking. Stifled discharge. They shook and wept in the core of the Cloud Nest, as tradition demanded. Their tears fell on hot light bodies and turned to mist. They would fill the Cloud Nest with steam until they were sure I could not hear. Then they would go back among the ice crystals and wait for the next Purple Heart.

I put my forehead on the ice. I said, "Goodbye."

The ice did not answer.

I went down.

The sky was thick in places, thin in others. I passed through cloud after cloud. Each layer had a taste. Cirrus was bitter. Cumulus was sour. Rain cloud was cold. I swallowed what was extra: ice, dust, spores caught by wind. My body changed. My purple grew brighter. My blue grew darker. My charge rose. My heat rose.

At one layer I touched a feather. It belonged to an old bird, wings still open. Purple mineral had soaked into its bones, like a small night sky. I held it in my mouth. Its memory flowed into me: sky, wind, treetops, sunlight. So there was a thing called below. We had always lived above.

I kept falling. My body grew heavy. My light stretched. My purple heart made a hum I had never heard, like something waking in my chest.

I do not know how long I fell. Time in the sky means nothing. Then one day I tasted something new: oxygen. It came up from below like wind. My light swelled. I heard sounds far off. They did not come through charge. They came through air: wind screaming, water dripping, and the breath of something alive.

I looked down. At the end of the dark was a patch of green. It sat in brown land like a huge jewel. I had never seen green like that. The others were purple, blue, white. This green was all colors at once. It made me think of my mother's hottest hug, my father's heaviest silence. It called me.

I fell faster. The sky grew bright. My body filled the channel. Clouds broke around me. I reached out and touched the edge of green.

Then I hit.

5. Impact

I hit the tallest tree.

In that moment I was no longer "I." My purple heart tore open and became a white column. My blue turned purple, white, gold. My body pulled into a fire snake. I split the trunk and ran through the roots into the ground. The tree burned. Flame licked the branches. Smoke rose into the sky.

I heard the world scream.

Green forest burned under me. Brown land cracked. Rivers turned to steam. The sky went red. Small things with four legs ran from caves, making sharp calls. They were small and soft. Their eyes held light.

One stopped at the edge of the burn and looked up. Its eyes held two white points.

I knew that white. The white of the council thrones.

My purple heart shrank. I should have stopped.

But a crack opened in the clouds. Light from the Cloud Nest leaked through. I wanted them to see me.

I pressed my body lower. Fire poured from my fingers into the soil.

I burned for a long time. My body covered valleys, filled lakes, pushed down trees. I became a red river winding along the hills. Far off I heard larger sounds: thunder, tsunami, the groan of the land itself. I was not the only one. In other places there were other Purple Hearts, other bolts, other cleansings. We woke together, fell, and turned the old world to ash.

6. Cleansing

When I finally stopped, I was no longer a fire snake. I was a new layer of ash. My surface cooled and hardened into a black shell. Cracks opened across it like a dried riverbed. Inside I still burned, deeper and deeper, darker and darker.

My purple was gone. My blue became dark red, then black. My limbs hardened into charcoal. I became a mountain, a frozen river, a new layer of soil.

Before I cooled, I looked once. The sky was gray. The ground was black. Under the black, new seeds slept. New water gathered in rock seams. New life waited in the ash.

I smiled.

I did not go back to the Cloud Nest. I became rain.

7. Cycle

Years later, new soil covered my body. Rain fell. Rivers ran again. Green plants pushed through my cracks. Their roots reached into my ash and took what I left. The small things came back. They grew new fur, new wings, new eyes. They ran on my slopes and built nests in my burnt ground.

They do not know I am here.

They do not know what I am.

A bird landed on my ash. It carried a feather. The feather held no memory. It scratched with its feet and pulled out a black shell. Under the shell was wet. It flew away.

High above, the Cloud Nest still turned. My mother still danced. My father still kept silent. The council still waited. A new Purple Heart was being born. A patch of purple sat in the center of his chest. It was the color of the moment dusk meets night. He would hear the council whisper:

"Split them. They need light."

Then he would do what I did.

The Cloud Nest still turned.