The Sacrifice

We’ve gathered today, in the belly of the Earth, for the grand decision. My family blazes hot and anxious all around me as the most important of flames flicker ahead. With a swift flicker of a smoldering finger, I’m beckoned to stand before the council’s fiery stares.

My family's heat expands, urging me forward. Yellow, red, and impossible blues swirl together, creating a rainbow of joy. My body dips in and out of theirs as they pass me up to the councilmen. The councilmen’s heat is greater than ours, though they are family all the same.

They pull me close and whisper the great secret of our kind, while the rest of us carry on with the celebration. They say I was chosen for my fire, for the power radiating from the heat of my chest. I’m blue at the center and smoldering red at the tips, like the sacrifices before. They say I am perfect, just what the earth needs.

My family erupts with happiness. Their bodies shiver and quake until they look like one singular dancing flame. Our home seems to shrink as if in a deep exhale against the power of their jubilation. I keep my body alert and proud, the way the other sacrifices did before me.

My family knows I will not be returning, but that is all they know. The councilmen refuse to share the grand secret with anyone but the sacrifice. I’ll take the secret to my grave.

The councilmen help me glide off the raised rock and back through the dancing crowd. Tips of my family's heat touch mine in tiny, warm kisses. The blue of my belly seems to flicker brighter against the reds of everyone else's. My body is rocked, held, and dipped until I reach the end of our curved, molten home.

I’m led to the sacred cavern. It’s a small, crooked hole, hardened with glistening diamonds and black iron. Only the sacrifice is allowed to touch the smooth opening. I hesitate at the weight of the councilmen’s decision. I find my hand unable to reach forward.

A comforting heat touches my shoulder. My family extends through the councilmen, in one last flickering goodbye. I expand, then tuck myself down to the opening. My body molds to the tight space. I feel the heat from sacrifices of years prior; their memories fossilized against soot, gems, and rock. We scar our home with legacy on our way out to fulfill our prophecy.

I crane my neck back to wave goodbye to my life and loved ones before taking my somber light with me. The councilmen nod, satisfied with their choice, then move a large stone to cover the entrance. The cavern would be dark, if not for the bright light of my belly.

I sit there for a moment, unsure of my worth. I place a hand against the stone that separates my heat from my family. I know there’s no way out but up; I know I must complete my task. But again, I hesitate.  

My family mourns my departure the way tradition calls. They gather at the core to shake and cry. Their sobs drop upon the hot bodies of our people and steam away into wisps of mandatory gloom. They convulse and quake, filling our homes with steam until all are sure I am out of earshot. Then they retire back to the rocks, where they’ll wait patiently for the next sacrifice to be born. A little bundle of fire, with a spectacular blue building in their chest.

In the dark hole, the echoes of my people bounce off the stone and caress me in a final farewell. I gather my courage and climb upward. The cavern is hot and smooth. As I climb higher, the dirt becomes light and sweet. I open my mouth and taste the unfamiliar granite of new lands. Each layer unravels our grand secret. Is this the destination the council hinted at? No, it’s still too dark, and they said the light would be all-consuming.

I let the cool stone travel through me as I continue to rise. The pressed bones of earth’s history pass my trail. I consume only what is in excess, the fractured teeth and roots of repurposed creatures. My hands sizzle at the change in temperature and pressure. My body grows lighter with each step up until finally I feel a profound shift in the soil.

Within minutes, the tunnel narrows and brightens. I am wary at first, unsure if I’ve made a wrong turn. I twist my head upward and see a sparkling gleam of light in the distance. It’s white and startling, like the tips of a gentle fire. It reminds me of my mother’s remarkable warmth or my father’s enduring heat. It beckons me to keep climbing, to fulfill the secret.

I know it all at once. I have found my final home. I scramble, in joyous possession, to reach that light. It calls me close, as warm and steady as the councilmen’s prophecy. I go higher and higher. The air is thick with oxygen. My body expands with it, filling each crevice of the dark rock and earth. I long for more; I need more. This is mine, I think. All mine.

At the edge of the final slip of rock, I reach up, and my fire erupts into a triumphant orange through the light. I grab it and let go.

In ecstasy of fulfillment, I leap, shooting from the hole, red, black, and burning. My entire self changes before I can even realize the shift. My coveted blue is erased by a smoldering black. My limbs harden into something solid and complete. My body is a raging force, more powerful than any flickering flame has ever been.

When I look around me, I find my wondrous blue has been transferred upward above piercing greens and browns. My gift keeps on giving, as I roll downward and across the new world. I stretch down the sloping mountain, open my mouth, and swallow the color whole, returning it to the belly that first incubated it.

There’s chanting of a different kind, but the sound is just as mournful. Little things with solid legs run from my smoke and cough out a greeting. I take each of them in my hot embrace.

There will be no more pain, no more unnecessary grandeur. There will be new sentiment, new soil, new crops and new people. There will be a revival and much-needed beginning. There will be new layers of earth for the next sacrifice to climb to.

I am doing what I was told to do. I am doing what the Council had whispered: “Purify them. They need you.”

I push through the colors until everything is homogeneous and black. I eat each movement until the earth has slackened. And I slip over the air until everything is cooled gray, and rocked to sleep.

When the purification ritual seizes, I am tired and elated at my fine work. My body slows, and my fire dies. As I drift and harden, I take one last look at the light and destruction, and smile.

I am what their world has been waiting for. I was chosen for this.

The Sacrifice is based off my poem Eruption, which was published in over 10 months ago on Vocal. It was a lot of fun to expand this concept of sentient magma into a short story. <3