Subj: The Ingenue Pt.1
Date: 1/16/99 12:19:03 PM Central Standard Time
From: marcos1

My name is Victoria Winters. There can be nothing more terrifying than to be lost in the middle of a wonderful dream, filled with love, joy, and happiness, than to awaken in the middle of a nightmare. A nightmare, deprived of hope, devoid of any glimmer of understanding of what I had done, to deserve this—a final reckoning, all hope lost.

~~~

The year was 1796. The place was Widows' hill. A creature known to mortals as Jebez Hawkes, moved through the darkness. It was a cold night; the air filled with a light mist that made the surroundings appear to be ethereal, details unclear, this was a night of ghosts and creatures of darkness. A night where the unreal became real. {Hatred} was what he felt. {She} must be destroyed. These thoughts filled his mind, as he moved closer to her. He was in his natural form, a state of energy sensed by humans as an angry whisper, a whisper that grew in loudness to a roar, as he would attack and destroy.

Vicki moved near the periphery of the cliff, the sound of the ocean coming from below, Neptune’s kingdom in a flurry, angry waves crashing against the rocks. It was as though all nature was waiting for some great event. She could hear {him} approaching, fear gripped her heart, but that fear was quickly replaced by a great sense of loss. She knew that soon her life would end and she would be forever removed from Peter Bradford. He was her great love and she loved him with all her heart. Tears ran from her dark eyes, as she was pushed, a harsh shove over the periphery towards the rocks below. She fell onto the rocks, her body ripped apart by the impact. Her last thoughts being of Peter and a sense of amazement at her fate. {This} didn’t hurt. Not at all.

Jeb Hawkes assumed his human form. He glanced down at the sea, straining his eyes, he could barely see a pale white thing floating in the water. He breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that this would be the end, for she was nothing more or less than an {abomination}. She was something that was never meant to be.

~~~

Vicki found herself in a world filled with flames, a conflagration of nothingness, hot embers burning, a terrible void. The first moment expanded into what seemed to be an eternity of time. She noticed very little change. The flames didn’t seem to hurt her. Hurt her? But what was she? She could no longer sense her body. She didn’t have any sense of singularity at all, the flames were her and she was the flames. The stillness of the burning embers was only sporadically interrupted by a great burst of fire, parts of the flame broke away and disappeared into the darkness that was above.

"Are you just going to sit there?" A voice called out from around her. It was a familiar voice, but she couldn’t remember.

"I don’t understand," Vicki called out.

"Your favorite phrase," the voice said. It was a female voice, filled with sarcasm, and pride. "I never thought that {you} would be very good at this." She laughed, slightly. "That is why I never told you the truth. Although, I suspected that you almost guessed it...that night at the shack by the sea. You loved David, but did so very little to try and save him. I thought perhaps you had some sense of family loyalties."

"Laura," Vicki said. "Is that you? Are you out there in the flames, too?"

"My dear," Laura said, "haven’t you realized by now—{we} are the flames?" She sighed. "Do I have to tell you the story of the phoenix? A beautiful story, but one I tire of telling, of a great bird, plumage of many different colors—a creature too beautiful to die. This creature became reborn in the flames, to live forever, a gift of love from Ra, our God."

"No, you are lying to me," Vicki sobbed. "I’m not a phoenix. I grew-up in a foundling home. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard was my mother...at least I think."

"There is a bit of truth in that," Laura laughed. "But just a bit. I’m your mother—not Liz—what a bore that woman was. I never understood what Paul or Burke saw in her. I’m so much more...as are you. But you are right in one thing, you are not a phoenix—at least not completely."

"What do you mean? I don’t understand," Vicki said.

"Would you please quit saying that!" Laura said. "Such naiveté—isn’t very appealing in a creature of perennial existence—in fact it becomes very monotonous and irksome."

"What am I?" Vicki asked.

"You were a mistake," Laura replied, sighing. "Your father was a man that I met in 1949—his name was Strack—a Leviathan."

To be continued—