The little boy's mother let out a sudden desperate gasp for air.

It's working, I thought, taking what small victory I could from what I was doing.

She breathed in several lungfuls of air, her breathing ragged but stronger and steadier. She was still blind from where the fire had cooked her eyes like campfire marshmallows, and her face was still blackened like overcooked steak.

In turn, my arms up to their sockets had almost fully unravelled into two dozen deep-red sinew strands, all of which were still tethered to the little boy's mother. As the power through my use of it finished healing the mother's lungs, the last portions of my arms burnt away, the vestiges of skin turning to ash as if my arms were the lit end of an inhaled cigarette.

A cry escaped me. It hurt so much. I just wanted it to stop. But I couldn't stop, because there was still so much more to be done to save the little boy's mother's life.

The problem was, I was like a burning car still coasting at high speed long after the vestiges of fuel to get the car's engine going had run out. Soon, I would come to a hard, final stop, and would be nothing more than a burnt smouldering heap just like the crashed helicopter further off.

And yet I still couldn't bring myself to stop. And the question of why I wasn't stopping had occurred to me a hundred times over, because every moment of pain my body was wracked with demanded that the pain at least have some purpose behind it if it were to be endured for another second.

"Stop!" came a sudden cry beside me.

It was Miss Toontastic, sounding just like Xandra.

"You're killing yourself!" she screamed, "It's not going to work! You have to stop!"

The burning embers at my shoulder sockets started spreading across my collarbone, and where the skin burned away, sinew-strands took their place, albeit maintaining its shape instead of unravelling like it had across both my arms.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?!" Miss Toontastic screamed, "Why?!"

It was hard to think of anything at all given the staggering amount of pain I was in. Before I could answer Miss Toontastic, if I even could speak given the sorry state I was in, I first considered the question for the hundred-and-oneth time.

As if to help, the power ignited in a different way.

And then I saw a memory which didn't belong to me:

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The mother, whose name I suddenly knew to be Joanne, was sitting on a sofa with her son on her lap watching an episode of his favourite TV show – Ruff Rover.

The kid had good taste.

There came the sudden sound of a doorbell. Joanne eased her son, whose name I suddenly knew to be Graham, off her lap.

On her way to the front door there came a sudden chirp in the hallway. It was the fire alarm needing a new battery. She'd told herself several times over she'd replace the batteries but hadn't gotten around to it for weeks.

She answered the door and wasn't pleased to see who was standing there.

And I recognised the face of the man because I had seen him briefly before.

The man was old, short, and stocky, with white hair and a bristly moustache. He stood meekly, his hands holding the cap he had just taken off.

"What did I tell you about coming here?" said Joanne.

"Please," said the old man, "I just want to see you and my grandson."

"I told you," said Joanne, speaking in a hushed voice so Graham wouldn't hear, "I don't want you coming round here."

"Please," said the old man, whose name I suddenly knew to be Rodger, "I'm sorry for the years we've lost, but I'm trying to make things right."

"It's too late," said Joanne, "You're no Dad of mine."

And she slammed the door in her father's face.

I saw then, the memory hadn't just been shown to me. It had been recalled by Joanne herself.

Tears were streaking down her blackened cheeks. She was going to die, she knew, regretting the last thing she had said to her father. Joanne continued to cling to life, but even she could tell that, however miraculous it was that she managed to live so long, death wasn't far off. She had so many regrets, so many things she would have done differently if she had the time.

And it was then I understood why I was risking my life so recklessly. And knowing why eased the pain of my own dying, and cemented my purpose in what I was doing all the more.

I fixed my gaze on Miss Toontastic, whose huge eyes were streaming teardrops the size of marbles.

"Because," I said, "It's not about me."

That was the best I could explain the truth I understood given how far gone I was. Miss Toontastic flinched, her eyes narrowing as she tried to understand what I meant.

Her gaze drifted to Graham, the little boy, who had crawled over to his mother and had his hands at her charred knee. He was sobbing pitifully. And then I saw understanding reach Miss Toontastic's eyes. And again, she fixed me with a determined look and a slow nod.

I wanted to thank Miss Toontastic for all the kindnesses she had shown me during our time together, but the embers had finally reached my throat, and had already reached my chest and had started over the tops of my shoulders and back, and the speed with which they were spreading had picked up. There was still too much healing to do for Joanne to make much more of a difference, but there was no longer any stopping it either, even if I wanted to. I'd become numb even to my connection to the power. All that remained was pain, and plenty of regrets, but at least a little in the way of acceptance for the way things had gone.

It was then I felt a sudden surge within me, a great upswell and reconnection to the power that felt nothing short of miraculous.

Was it me? Had I done this? Was there a completely untapped reserve of power still left within me that I hadn't figured out how to reach? I could feel the embers progress across me slowing, and the speed with which I was healing Joanne's wounds rapidly increased.

And then I felt it. The hand at my shoulder. Miss Toontastic's hand.

She shot me a smile and I smiled back.

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