The Burning Island

Alternate title: Firebird

Magical realism literature, not web fiction.

[Television Script] [Theatrical Literature] [Ensemble Cast] [Multiple Protagonists] [Game of Thrones]

Emperor Zhou burns a thousand cranes to watch the "meteor shower."

Zi Yu has started having that nightmare again. Flames rage everywhere in the castle, smoke billows, and people's faces twist as if they are screaming with all their might, but she cannot hear a thing. She does not recognize a single one of them. The entire castle is burning, and even the whole sky is ablaze with falling fire, glowing red. She breathes rapidly in terror, staring at the enormous tree reaching up to the heavens. It, too, is red, as if an endless flow of blood courses through it, and it twists upward as it grows with an eerie grace. In this scorching hell, there is no sound at all,