Ellie emerged from her bathtub as quietly as she could. Maintaining her silence, she walked to the door of the bathroom. She slowly stuck her head into the bedroom to spy on what Liv was doing. She found her cat sleeping in a sunbeam on her hastily made bed.

Seeing her target was asleep, Ellie gave up all pretense of subtlety. She walked across the room and planted a kiss on top of Liv’s head. The surprised cat’s eyes shot open, and she scooted backwards off the bed. Ellie couldn’t help but laugh as the surprised cat retreated under the bed, no doubt trying to save face.

“Oh my gosh, you’re such a scaredy-cat, Liv,” Ellie said, the thought of the cat’s reaction still making her giggle.

Once she had composed herself, the grumpy cat emerged from underneath the bed and properly greeted her roommate. Ellie made her way into the kitchen, with Liv close behind.

“I just learned about a situation up north a bit, in Pennsylvania,” Ellie said while fixing her cat some food. “I think I might be suited to help.”

“I don’t know really how I’ll help, or if I can—but the timing seems too perfect to be just a coincidence. I get chewed out for not knowing my place in life—and then I find out about a fire I could potentially put out!”

Ellie placed the bowl of food in front of Liv and immediately lost the cat’s attention.

“I’m going to give it a shot. At least scout the surroundings and come up with a plan. We’ll see. I don’t think it should be any issue—there’s a river nearby, and it’s raining in town, so there should be plenty of water.”

Liv continued to absentmindedly scarf down her food while Ellie packed herself some provisions—throwing granola bars and a couple of water bottles into a back pack.

“I’m sure I’ll be back by dinnertime, so don’t you worry about a thing!”

Liv froze mid-bite, as she felt Ellie’s face pressed against her head for the second time that morning.

“Twice in one day! I should come home during the day more often! Bye—love ya!”

Ellie threw the backpack onto her back and jumped into her bathtub for her longest trip through the Wet yet.

Ellie plunged into the dark murky world she called The Wet. In it, she could instantaneously travel between two bodies of water. She learned about this ability the same way she learned about the rest of the powers she got after the shipwreck—completely by accident.

She had been rushing from the bus to her apartment during a rainstorm and tripped. She fell face-first into a massive puddle—but instead of getting wet, she entered another dimension. She immediately panicked, assuming she would suffocate—but when she gave in and took a deep breath, she found she could breathe.

To exit, she pictured her destination and swam to the surface. No matter how deep she thought she was, she quickly reached the surface. When she pierced the surface, she would be on the surface of Earth again, and emerge completely dry.

This time when she exited, she found herself standing in a church. Above, she saw that the ceiling was falling apart, and rainwater collecting in a puddle on the floor. She sat in a pew for a moment and enjoyed the soft pattering of the rain outside and the trickling from the leaking roof. When she was ready, she exited the church through the front door.

She found that the church was located at the top of a hill overlooking the abandoned town. If she hadn’t heard about it from Brendan, she might not have realized there was even a town here at all. The clearest indicator was the uniform streets laid into blocks. But most of the buildings were gone.

Realizing she had no idea where the mine was, she used the rain to help. She closed her eyes and focused on the rainfall. She could feel the drops hitting the ground, and formed an image of her surroundings in her head. Soon she found what she was looking for: a crack in an abandoned section of highway that led to the mine below.

She walked across the town and wondered what it must have looked like before the fire. How long had it taken for it to degrade into this condition? She found disaster seekers exploring the town as well, marveling at the Earth’s ability to drive man away and reclaim the land for itself.

After a bit of exploring, Ellie found the abandoned stretch of highway. Since being closed off, it had become something of an attraction in the area. Every inch of the highway was covered in graffiti.

Ellie was impressed by the creativity—some of it, at least. For every beautifully spray-painted piece of art, there were at least a dozen phalluses—and sometimes the phalluses were painted over the work of art. Ellie giggled the first time, but after a couple hundred, it got old.

It felt surreal to Ellie to be walking on a highway. It was not something someone would normally do so casually. Maybe after an accident or an emergency—but never to explore, and never on an adventure.

The trip was really hitting home—the power Nature still had over man. Highways were perhaps the quintessential achievement of man. How many forests did they cut through, how many great bodies of water did they pass over, and how many mountains did they go over, divide, or go under? It seemed that nothing could stop their spread or expansion—yet this stretch of road was abandoned because of an unseen fire.

After walking down to the end of the highway and seeing all the graffiti and stretching out her time safely above ground as long as possible, she doubled back to the crack in the surface that was to be her entrance to the mine. She paused and sat by it for a minute—partially to make sure she was alone but also to make sure she was ready for this. She told herself she didn’t have to do anything today—this was a scouting mission. Get some ideas and figure out how to tackle the problem. Get her toes wet, as it were. She could do that. She was ready to make a difference.

Content that no one could see her, she stood up. It was as if she had activated a powerful magnet within her body—all the rain in the area fell directly onto her. It collected on her skin, creating a layer that covered her completely. When the process was done, she and the water mixed homogenously. Her body was gone, but she was still Ellie, albeit now composed completely out of water. Then she stretched herself incredibly thin, and slipped through the crack, into the mine.

When she hit the ground, she splashed a little, but no harm was done. Absentmindedly, she placed her hand on the wall. Steam rose from it. The boiling stung, and the loss of water noticeably shrank her hand. She focused on the rain above, and willed it down, into the crack in the Earth. After a minute or two, she had a steady little stream of water flowing into her replenishing her at roughly the same rate the heat was causing her to evaporate. The stream also worked as a lifeline, instant access to the Wet should she need it.

Satisfied she was as ready as she could be, she ventured deeper into the mine. On the inside, the mine looked about as she had expected. Chunks of black rock had been chipped away. Massive columns held up the ground above. From here, she couldn’t see the fire itself—only its light in the distance. But the atmosphere was thick with the smoke and fumes it was creating. Since her transformation, she didn’t need to breathe underwater, and it was no different when she took on this water form. She took it as another sign that this was a task she was perfectly suited for.

She wanted to see the fire for herself, so she would know what she was dealing with if she decided she was ready. The water flowing into her was keeping her cool, but her body was losing water at an alarming rate. The dull stinging was now all over her body, and she wasn’t sure how much she would be able to handle—she didn’t want to find out how long she could last if her body evaporated completely.

Believing the fire was just around the next bend, she pushed on. But although the light kept getting brighter and brighter, she never seemed to reach the fire. She was giving herself one more corner before she pulled the rip cord and traveled through the stream behind her back into the Wet.

When she went around the last corner, the light was so bright she could hardly make anything out. She had finally made her way deep enough into the mine to find the flame. The light was so intense she could barely see anything. The chamber must have been several hundred yards deep and wide as the fire worked to burn away more coal, further increasing its size. She pressed on, excited that she had finally found the decades-old flame.

A couple hundred yards in front of her and almost directly in the center of the chamber was another column like she had seen throughout the mine.

Shielding her eyes, she realized that the black column wasn’t a column. It was more of a spire reaching up to the roof—but not quite reaching it—and at the top was a flame, burning a dingy greenish orange. Pushing even further, she realized the spire had been ornately carved. The top of it, nearly fifty feet above the ground, was shaped like a massive throne.

Then it occurred to her that the throne wasn’t on fire, but something, or perhaps even someone, was sitting on it. The creature was humanoid in shape, but made of fire, and had one leg lazily hanging over the side of its throne. When it noticed her, it turned its attention to Ellie, and Ellie felt it look directly into her eyes.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4