Boiling Point

In Promo by Pyre

They say anyone can do it. Just do the right thing at the right time, and voila…

Success.

So let’s boil us some water.

First, we need a pot of water.

Cold water, water that has been restrained from its true desire. Given the chance, it will touch all corners of the pot, ready to be unleashed. Because that’s what we all want, right? To be unleashed.

Boiling the water will seem pointless at first, until you see the bubbles beneath the surface. The water is consuming itself, feeding like a ravenous wolf.

Then you wait. You know how this will end, but as you wait, you question yourself. Because there’s no recipe you follow for this, no holy book to referentially quote every time you’re stumped.

It’s primal, if you can’t understand it now, you never will.

But I’m forgetting something. The one item that makes this whole thing happen, the most primal of powers. People take it for granted, just assume its role in the process, but without it, there is nothing.

Fire. You can’t boil water without lighting the fire beneath it.

It’s what provides the searing energy that seeps through the walls of the pot to the water inside. It’s what that water consumes, letting it unleash its true potential, transforming it into something more.

As the bubbles break through to the surface, the water has reached its boiling point. It’s the moment where success hangs on the brink. All of your focus has been on getting to this point, to finally reaching that precipice and achieving your goal.

But the fire doesn’t give a fuck about your goal.

No, the fire has no boiling point. It always burns, hotter and hotter, until it’s taken what it wants.

Your precious water, now boiling, is being taken away. Smoke begins to rise into the air, a transformation occurring, but not the one you wanted.

The one the fire always intended.

That smoke begins to climb higher and higher, your water evaporating quicker every second.

Until it’s all gone and your pot is empty.

You did the right thing. But it wasn’t the right time. Your goal was in sight, but you failed to stop the fire from taking it away from you.

It’s primal, but I don’t think you understand. You never did.

None of you.

Invasion is the pot of water, and each of you believe that you’re going to boil that water perfectly.

But you find yourself too focused on the transformation itself, the unleashing, the consumption, that you cannot see that all roads go through the fire itself.

They say anyone can win Invasion.

But they’re wrong.

The written word you follow has no bearing on what happens at Invasion. The same result will occur no matter what the time.

Because the flames decide your fate.

They always have.

I always have.

And at Invasion, just when the water reaches its boiling point, I will not relinquish my hold on that briefcase. I will turn up the heat, and all of your hopes will be the same as the water you started with.

Up in smoke.