Word count: 2598.

Prompts used: Glass, defiance, legacy

Aly returned to that fateful memory many times, and many times she wished that someone would stop her in the present. She had only known the potential of her power for two years, and the almost eternal pain of being a woman. She doesn't remember who, but during lunch a friend sent her a song by a relatively unknown artist.

She thought little of it at the time, but the more she listened to it, the more it fascinated her.

"I will look for a new reason to live,

I will ignore every reason to stop,

I will always try to live,

I won't listen to anyone who claims to be happy".

His heart pounded every time she heard the chorus to the sound of the acoustic guitar. It was her escape from reality, her calm room, her safe zone. Before she knew the song, Aly's mind was filled with perfectionism, pressure from her parents, constant harassment from her peers because of her sand power, and most of all, the constant imprisonment of imposter syndrome.

Shortly after Elemental Song came into her life, she had her first fight with her parents. This was followed by a lot of resentment, words that were not meant to be said and a lot of threats that, once carried out, turned into a storm of guilt and whys and wherefores.

Months later, Aly reached her break point. She grabbed her skate and ran away before the sun set. She barely trusted her strong legs to carry her anywhere nor the hell she was leaving. That's how she ended up on the edge of a cliff overlooking the night lights of a godforsaken village. His gaze was lost in the lights, and he was sure that he had come there to end it all with a single action.

His life stopped for a moment and then resumed with the call of a fiery voice. It came from an adult with absolutely no grey hair, calling to Aly from a distance. She didn't turn, but she was about to fall. There was no time to convince anyone. She was lifted by one arm and carried to safety.

— It would be a shame to see such a pretty young woman in the tragedy section.

He said, inviting Aly to get into the car.

Aly always thought that moment was the beginning of her second hell.

He didn't have to say much to drag Aly into his aimless life. He taught her the darkness of lust in every appearance of the moon in the sky. He taught her the oldest methods of making easy money for man and woman. He instilled in her the most contradictory values that can be listed in the desires of maternal love. He embedded her in foreign dreams, and little by little she forgot who she was and where she came from.

One day, she tried to use her sand power to sneak away from an armed robbery. This was her body's first betrayal. Instead of becoming sand, she became an empty crystal statue. She was trapped in her body and in a circle of criminals full of resentment. Little by little, they tore her apart amidst insults and curses... Until all that remained was a mountain of tiny crystals.

Against all odds, Aly was still alive. But it was impossible for her to return to her human form. She begged the man she knew only as "Rhodes" to help her get out, but he never returned. She spent several cold nights watching a homeless man looking at erotic magazines next to a mangy dog, and many days in the rain, letting it wash her away in various corners of the city.

No one seeme the pile of glass rolling around aimlessly. Aly felt like a stray animal, even a dead one, who only saw others being happy. At the time, she blamed her forgotten parents and life for treating her this way.

One summer's morning, the wind and the sea roared through the streets of the city. The pile of glass got lost in the flooded streets and travelled many times through the depths of the overflowing sewers. Aly saw the despair of many, the death of thousands and the tears of a few. Yet her bitterness reached such heights that it was ridiculous to think of the welfare of others.

Without realising it, the water carried her to the shores of a lake, the same lake near the village she had glimpsed on that night of suicidal desires. She spent a few weeks admiring the quiet of the place and trying to imagine a new life if she ever regained her normal form.

A young man who could easily have been a child in front of her was surprised to see a mountain of crystals in front of the creek. He decided to pick them all up and put them in a leather pouch. On his way home, he felt a strange tingling sensation coming from the bag. Calming down, he tried to use his water power to reconstruct the glass into what he thought was a window or a vessel, but try as he might, the pieces would not come together. It was as if the material refused to take the simple shape of an object, or perhaps his power was not enough to bind the tiny crystals together.

The young man Aly knew as Soner spent several sleepless nights trying to figure out how to put the pieces together. He did this at the expense of his grandmother, who measured his habits with a magnifying glass. And after several months of failure, he finally managed to piece together a small part of the crystals.

It was a woman's hand. For Soner, it was like discovering the heart of the sea. It was all uphill from there. He analyzed several sculptures and was able to reconstruct some limbs. But he got stuck in the middle, something seemed to be missing. He began to study several books on human anatomy and in less than a month he had reconstructed almost the entire body.

It was more than four years of hidden work, admiring the wonder in the curves of the sculpture and the face. He was a little saddened to see her expression, but that didn't stop him from continuing.

Before putting the last crystal in place, he took some of his grandmother's woolen clothes and put them on the sculpture, cleaning off the stains and scratches from his trial and error. To the surprise of the sculpture and the artist, the glass became flesh and the flesh collapsed in the middle of the room.

Aly awoke in a room made of wood, with the scent of lavender and archaic lighting. Next to her was the 18-year-old who had poured his soul into rebuilding her, and a plate of stew that had grown cold from waiting for her to wake up. She managed to leave the place with food in her hand and a white dressing gown for clothing. At the front door she admired the deadly dance of the fireflies and the incessant hooting of the owls. With his sustenance finished, he decided to leave the place.

There was no place for her in such a perfect place. Her sins had dragged her into the recent past, and she deserved it. The owners of the dwelling were also in danger, and most of all: She could not disagree with her favourite song. "I'll ignore all reason to stop, I won't listen to anyone who claims to be happy.”

His plan was interrupted by the warm voice of Soner's grandmother.

— You shine brighter than these fireflies, my dear.

—I’m like a face in the events section.

The woman fell silent and embraced Aly.

—Don't leave, or you'll go back to what you were.

Aly stayed in the hut by the lake for several years. Soner loved her like a big sister. She told him stories he thought impossible, taught him various escape tricks, and he shared her hunting and sculpting skills. They shared everything and nothing, while the sweetness of a time about to end watched over them.

The Grandmother died smiling as she listened to the young people discussing what they wanted to achieve and how to do it. She left quietly, thinking that her grandson was in the company of the world.

Aly did not use her power while the lady was still breathing, her fear preventing her from even thinking about it. But she tried to use it at the funeral. To her surprise, her hand turned to smooth stone and she could move it with ease. Soner laughed at this and, out of curiosity, asked her to try using her skill to dig the hole. He did so, manipulated several stones to dig them, and then put them together to form a heart-shaped gravestone.

—Good work.

—I learned from the best.

Soon after, they moved to the big city. Soner always doubted her friend's claims: "I’m no longer affected by the past, I just want to live today and see tomorrow. But they went anyway.

He enrolled in the university to study architecture, even though he did not have a high school diploma, and started working part-time. He scored well above average in the entrance exam. Aly, on the other hand, decided to support herself with a part-time job, sharing the costs with Soner. For her, it was like living in a strange time; for him, it was the most pleasant experience of his life.

Life went on as usual until she saw a shadow of the past. It was the heat of a flame that she could feel burning, even on the other side of the street. A withered resentment was reborn in the girl who had once been the flimsy sand. Dead years came back to haunt her. All in an instant that could have been insignificant to anyone.

Aly couldn't get it out of her head, Soner could tell, but she didn't dare ask. She neglected herself in a thousand ways and almost fell into an old vice. She took it out on Soner, and he did little to defend himself.

The turning point came when she threw an object at him as he entered the flat. It didn't hurt him badly, but he knew that if he took a step forward or even said a word, things would get complicated. They stared at each other, she in tears, he in fear. Finally, Soner withdrew. When he closed the door, she collapsed on the floor. This small moment reminded her of the first fight with her parents and how it ended. The guilt came back and ate her up inside.

She decided to disappear from Soner's life, she didn't want him to end up like her. She had a great future ahead of her and many people to meet. She left with only the clothes on her back and some money.

There was no plan, just to drift like a leaf in the wind. But she decided to return to the place where her rebellion began.

She hesitated in front of her old house, almost like she did as a child when she wanted to ask for a treat. She didn't have to knock because a rather young woman came out of the house. She asked if the Reese family lived there.

They died in each other's arms, full of grief and regret. At least, that's how a small clipping in the local newspaper told the story.

Aly never thought she would see her parents again. In fact, all she could do was look at two pieces of marble and tell them she regretted being a dumbass with no common sense. Her only answer was written: "Reese family".

From then on, madness almost consumed her. She came to the conclusion that she was dead and that there was nothing left to lose. She decided to track down this monster called Rhodes and make him pay for everything he had done to her.

Out of a thirst for revenge, she went back to her shitty life. It turned out that the guy already had a dark empire of his own, so it wasn't easy for her to track him down. She tried as hard as she could to stay away from vices and explicit scenes. Ironically, it was not difficult for her to hide his name or change his appearance.

She saw him again on a hotel terrace, climbed high enough to meet him face to face, though she cared little for prestige at that point in her life. She had everything she needed to blow up the building. But first she wanted to get his name on the table.

— Who’s that bitch?

Aly froze for a moment. She did her best to hide it. She had to go to the toilet to vent her anger. She broke a couple of mirrors, then saw the detonator. She flushed it down the toilet and left, staring into space.

She was running away from everything he knew, he had no choice. It was very dangerous to get out, although she did it without too much difficulty. Landed in Asia, she thought about everything she had done.

She thought about the elementary song again. In his 35 years of life, she came to one simple conclusion:

- She refused to listen to those who claimed to be happy and listened to them like a little girl.

- She always tried to live, and lost herself trying to find the way to reach the death.

- She ignored every reason to stop, and she listened in the last chance.

- She looked for reasons to live, even though she knew there was little chance.

She contradicted the wishes of an innocent girl and fulfilled the wishes of a grown woman.

One winter morning, she decided to climb to the top of a skyscraper in the capital. She could see the lights of an almost forgotten village on the horizon, and saw a little girl crying for help. There was no desire to die, on the contrary, she was now looking for a breath of life.

After much thoughts, she decided to write down everything about her life. From the fact that her parents had earth and water powers, to how she acquired her ability to manipulate raw minerals.

Ten years later, one of the best architects and sculptors in the United States received a cardboard box full of yellowed papers signed by Aly. One of the first pages read:

"This is yours. Without you, it would be just a crystal divided among a thousand fish".

Little is known about the end of the adventurous Aly Reese. Reporters and the curious say that she devoted herself to Japanese gastronomy, others that she committed suicide after sending the papers, and others that she was found by the Mafia during her research.

Her first and only paper is a treasure for the scientific community, in which she explains in detail the first theories on the metamorphosis of the elements and the probability of acquiring new abilities that no other human being shares through Mendel's laws. It is also a treasure trove for more than one innocent young girl and a few parents; some laugh, others are disappointed... But the most important thing was Soner's reaction.

He just looked towards the horizon, towards his first home, still smiling.

— You were right; she shines more brighter than fireflies.