Before a pheonix can be reborn

The cold December wind cut through the warmth of Robin's zipped-up coat which sends an involuntary shiver down their spine.  Tucking their hands under their armpits, Robin looks up to the bright sunny sky, letting out an exhale, a small stream of steam flies out to the sun and the sky.  Robin closes their eyes for a moment, basking in the warmth of the sun before casting their gaze before them.

"Thank you Mother Nature for the warmth that makes the cold bearable." muttered Robin as they resumed walking down river along the sidewalk, taking glances at the beautiful, if somewhat muddied, blue of the river with the early morning sun's shine amongst the water's ripples.  Robin makes a short stop at a local bakery to grab some bread for breakfast before arriving at the Veteran's museum.  Robin checks their phone, muttering "Seven thirty" before putting it up and entering through the employee entrance.

Going through the motions of setting up the museum for opening, Robin physically goes on auto pilot as the dullness starts to eat away at them mentally.  For a history nerd, working for a museum would seem to be a kind of dream; but to Robin it was the same as being a food gourmet and working at a pizza place.  The food, enjoyable of course, but dulls over time as one has it every day instead of being at a fine restaurant with a wide variety of meals one can consume and sample, and even then the suffocation of a single establishment's menu would become dull over time.  They muse to themselves, passing the hours away, just thinking about all the other portions of the era that they could enjoy, and other decades that are all also filled with so much: music, fashion, technology, cultural differences, politics of the day.  Just that there was so much out there, so many topics Robin could teach to the visiting kids and adults, and enjoy with them; yet it is only ever the same few topics, in such a small amount of time.  Before Robin knew it, their shift ended and they left closing in the late afternoon for their colleague.

Plastered smile on face, Robin picks up lunch downtown, a fast food burger joint, far more expensive then it should be, and used to be.  Grumbling loudly as they pick up their order, Robin grabs the carry-out bag, jogging as they exit the building having caught sight of their bus headed for the nearby stop.  Usually the busses are inconsistent in when they arrive to any stop, but today, the timing was on Robin's side.  Climbing into the bus, and scanning their month worth of ticket, Robin finds a seat in this crowded bus, and just as quickly as they sat down, Robin got up again, much to the protest of their knees.  "Excuse me miss, here take this seat." speaking up to a pregnant woman that just paid their fare and whose face was looking a tad downcast at seeing every seat filled, gesturing to the seat Robin had just vacated as they grab the standing railing with one hand, the burger bag still firmly held in the other.

The ride felt like it took several times longer than it normally does, which while in part was due to traffic; most of it was that Robin couldn't zone out as the woman kept talking to them.  While at first it seemed gracious, she seemed to want to dominate the conversation and exercise her speech until Robin's ears fell off from overuse while his tongue shrivels from atrophing.  Every topic from this to that, topics from bad men, horrid women, those noisy kids, annoying old people, terrible service clerks.  Robin couldn't disagree on some of these, but even a more dour outlook on life she went extreme and seemed to blame everything on everyone, everyone but her.  Still though, Robin's plastered smile stayed on all the way to their stop, tugging the cord to let the driver know to let people off.
Robin: "It has been a pleasant conversation Ms. Karen Jackson, but I must be going."
Jackson: "Oh indeed it has, you have a deserved day stranger."
and with that, Robin vacated the bus.

The journey to eat a late lunch on a bench looking over a lake is interrupted merely a few blocks off the bus when Robin smells something burning before passing an obstructing house where Robin's face twists in horror as they see a school on fire.  The inferno seems to have been relatively recent as there were no fire trucks yet, nor sirens in the distance.  Screams fill Robin's ears as perhaps this was an act of arson as Robin also sees some male figure fleeing the scene.  Time both seems to freeze and fly forward as Robin just... stands there, for about a minute; until a child breaks a window, emboldening the inferno.  Robin stopped thinking, and started moving straight into the burning building.

Five minutes later, several  fire trucks had pulled up with fire fighters getting out to start spraying the building with water.  A teacher and about sixty students were evacuated and the front doors to the school open.  As some fire fighters were approaching it to enter, a burning figure runs out, falling to their side on the ground, and a child rolls out from the arms of the soon to be dead.  The firemen put out what flames were on the child, first and second degree burns that will recover in a few months, but could not save the one who began the rescue operations.  Robin the burned figure dies with a pained smile with only a minute more of suffering.

Due to Robin's actions, an additional twenty people, primarily school children would still live long lives.  But that would be a different story, one Robin would never know.  Their soul is transported to somewhere else, some place distant, to their left, an endless sea of white clouds.  To their right, a void of black with streaks of red.  Robin could feel as if their soul was being erased, or washed away until they were a blank slate, it was an inexplicable feeling, and one they very much hated, the pain was perhaps even more unbearable then their baptism by fire.  Robin decided to try something, anything to ease the pain, stop this form of destruction of the self.

Rip, and tear; split asunder.  Robin could only come up with one plan, and split their soul into two halves.  One into the clouds, the other into the void; as all becomes black.  As two babies, a brother and a sister, begin to form in a soon to be expectant mother.