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A girl stood on the cloudy, island beach, a red cloak draped over her shoulders loosely. Her eyes searched the sky, looking for something unseen. She raised an arm, slightly bent above her head silently and made no intention of moving.

Suddenly, the Island echoed with the screech of a falcon, as a small gray bird swooped gracefully from the sky and landed on the girls upheld arm. The bird had a dark gray black, white chest, and spotted flanks.

The girl lowered her arm to mid-level and stroked the side of its small head. The flacon warbled softly, sensing distress in its master’s aura. The girl looked attentively at the bird with sad brown eyes for a long time, till she turned and began to walk into the thick jungle like nature of the island. The falcon steadied himself on her arm with his beak and cast an intelligently curious gaze at the girl who carried him. The falcon, was no mere bird to the girl; he was her familiar.

As the girl’s familiar, he had a special kinship and understanding with her. He could sense the slightest and most subtle changes in her emotions as all familiars could. And although he could not speak, they need not use oral words, but mental ones to communicate.

But even with such knowing and understanding, the girl’s familiar could not decipher her plan. He could not tell where she was going and why, but could only second-guess. He raised his narrow head and looked ahead and above the treetops. A black pillar of smoke rose slowly, as thick as a building.

Putting two and two together, the intelligent familiar realized that the only place she could be going would be the volcano; Mt. Okibi. It was Mt. Okibi’s doings that had changed the world forever, as the familiar recalled, when it last erupted six years ago.

Once there had been life, on this Island, the remaining ancestors of the fire element tribe. But when Mt. Okibi had erupted, it killed everyone; everyone that is, except one small girl.

The girl had grown up parentless, far away from the island, but she had now come back to unveil the secrets of her past; and her future. As the familiar recalled, not only had Mt. Okibi destroyed the remainders of the fire element, but had also cause damage throughout the world.

Ocean waves the size of tsunamis crashed and pounded against every continent in the world. The billowing smoke had forever dimmed the amount of sunlight the world had once bathed in. Millions…no, thousands had died at the cost of the volcano’s fury.

And soon it would happen again.

There was nothing anyone could do to stop it. No one except the upheld member’s of the fire and ice tribes. But they were gone now. Dwindled away like a retreating tide in the ocean.

But could they return if the ocean tide could? Could they wash back onto the beach with a flicker of hope? Was it even possible?

This, the familiar did not know, and would never know. They were part of the secrets of life, from which life itself was excluded. Suddenly, without a second thought or curry, the falcon spread his broad and strong wings, and lifted from the girls arm and rose with the waves of heat emitted from the nearby volcano and flew out of sight.

The girl stood silently, a light breeze fluttering the hems of her cloak dramatically, as she watched unknowingly as her familiar flew away. She nodded as if permitting or even welcoming his fly away, then turned an with solitary confinement and silence, walked through the dense island jungle.

The girl did not know what she was looking for, but she was being increasingly drawn towards the base of the volcano, led by the billowing pillar of smoke that it emitted.

As the girl walked, a slight film of sweat began to form on her tan forehead from the dense humidity combined with the effort of walking so far over such uncharted paths. Only once, did she stop when she came upon a skeleton. It was not human, she believed it to be in the cattle family.

She kneeled in the rooty soil next to the skull and gingerly touched it’s brilliantly and unexplainably white surface. She stared into the gaping sockets that had once contained eyes full of life and fear all the same.

Suddenly, many soft whispers filled her head, though she could not make out what they were saying. The whispers grew louder and louder as if she were in a room with thousands of people whispering. They were telling her something but she could figure it out and when she couldn’t, it only grew louder and louder until it developed into an unbearable roar.

"STOP! IT!" she yelled to know one, and tore her hand away from the alluring skull. As soon as she broke the connections the whispers stopped and all that could be heard was her heavy breathing.

The girl collapsed into the ground, barely breathing.