The Imp

(CW: implied suicide and abuse. Substance abuse, fire, religious trauma and physical violence)

The boy prayed alone in the woods.

The popping of his fire had kept him from sleep, so the boy knelt alone and prayed at the bases of the spruce trees.

It was nights like these when he missed his old bed. 

He missed many things. Walls to shield him from the cold, a roof to shield him from rain and those caretakers who made him warm food. Food. 

The boy eyed the half eaten mushroom he’d dug up for dinner cast astray. His stomach gurgled and twisted, sending pains through his gut. 

He decided to feed it to his fire. 

The flames made him dizzy as he watched them dance about. 

He brought his hand to his head as the spinning worsened, the world becoming a melt of orange and black and brown as his body fell to the forest floor. His eyes fluttered as his stomach twisted again. The boy felt his insides thrust as his lunch fell onto him. He began to sweat. 

He tried to force himself to stand but could only manage to prop himself up by his arm.

Shaking his head he tried to bring himself to his senses.

Instead he was brought to what he could only call a fairytale come-to-life.

Figures, children made of fire, all laughing and dancing around the trees, using their branches like the ribbons of a maypole.

The boy shook his head. Surely he was dreaming. He pinched himself, slapped his head about but the children remained, dancing and cheering as they went around and around. 

Their lit heads licked up into the air, shooting embers up to the tops of the trees.

The boy slowly scurried backwards, bumping his back on the trunk of a tree as he did. 

He froze as the top of the tree bent over to meet his gaze, its knots and cracked bark forming into eyes that locked him in place. 

He let out a shaky breath, whipping his head around the forest as the trees closed in on him, their flat gazes almost curious as they bore into him. The children still running circles around them, paying him no mind.

He scrambled to his feet, tripping over himself, as he tried to escape the horrors that now surrounded him but the trees had already encircled him.

One massive spruce came down to peer at him and spoke. 

“Oh? What do we have here? A lost little boy?” Its voice was deep, echoing throughout the woods that surrounded them. 

The boy could feel his heart beating out of his chest. The air was growing heavier as the heat rose, the children burning brighter. The boy now felt his forehead dripping with sweat. 

“No, that's not right is it?” The Spruce Tree spoke, “What are you little thing? What are you?”

“What are you?” repeated a soft, shaky voice behind the boy, “Jasper? What are you? What is this?” 

The boy felt the sweat drip cold down his back as he turned to face where his fire once sat. A deep weight began to grow in his chest. In his fire’s place knelt a woman doused in flames burning so strong it was impossible to tell where the fire ended and the woman began.

The children were no longer dancing. Groups of them had come together, each forming massive flames at the bases of the spruce trees, melting their trunks together like wax as their eyes now drooped. They formed planks that closed in on the boy and the woman, the children’s cheers and squeals sounding more fearful by the minute.

“What is this place? Where have you taken me?” she asked, “It hurts, you’re hurting me Jasper. Please. Stop this.” She cried out, reaching a scorching hand out to him. Her voice, once quiet, was growing loud and sporadic.

The boy’s breath grew shallow and rapid as his eyes darted around. The trees were gone. In their place were four perfect walls enclosing the two of them in a box of fire, smoke billowing out to sky, beyond where the boy could see.

He was trapped. 

The woman inched closer to him.

“Please Jasper! Please, I beg you! You’re hurting me! Please! Stop this! Stop it! Stop it! Please! I can’t breathe Jasper! Please!” She choked as the words left her mouth.

Wide eyed, the boy stumbled backwards as the woman swatted her hand at him, landing flat on his back.

Looking up he saw a small opening in the wall that had been burned away. On the other side, a hallway, an escape. 

Scrambling to his feet he burst through the half-broken wall and began bolting throughout the halls of the building set ablaze. 

As he ran the boy could hear the woman throughout its burning walls. Her once fearful voice now booming with fury.

“Jasper!” She shrieked, “Jasper come back here this instant! What have you done to me! What is this place! Take me back you Godless thing! Take me back!” 

The boy’s legs ached as they pushed him along, his lungs hurt as he rushed down the fiery halls. He could hear the yowls of the woman around every corner he turned, not daring to slow down as he prayed for an escape.

He came to a halt as he turned a corner that ended in fire. The boy fell to his knees as the smoke enveloped the hall, choking him. He turned to see the woman rip around the corner giving a shriek of mad victory as she pounced onto him, her flaming claws gripping onto his cheeks.

The boy shut his eyes tight but felt no blistering, burning skin and hair. Instead it was warm. Not pleasant, but not painful as the flames licked at his skin. 

The woman reeled at his condition.

“What is this! What are you! You fucking Fiend! That’s what you are! A little Devil! What have you done to me Devil! Why won't you burn!”

The boy felt the tears in his eyes evaporating in the immense heat that surrounded them. He cried out, that heavy weight releasing though his smoke choked words “Im sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it, I should be dead too. I'm sorry.”

But the woman paid him no mind. “Fix this! Fix me at once! Bring me back you Godless thing! Bring me back!” 

The boy continued to cry, slowly he felt his cheeks grow damp, he opened his eyes to see the woman beginning to shrink, her flames extinguishing.

“Jasper!” she cried, now as weak before, “Jasper what is this? What have you done to me? It hurts, It hurts so much. Please, please just stop this. Jasper please. Oh God, please.”

The woman shrank allowing the boy to scurry away, her arms drooping off his cheeks as her form gave away. Embers of her body being carried away by the wind that now blew through the cracking walls of the dimming hallway. 

“Jasper, Jasper please. Please.”

Finally she was nothing more than an ember.

“You really are a Godless thing.” she whispered as she was snuffed out in the cold night wind.

The boy fell to his back, exhausted and drenched in sweat.

The halls had fallen away, the fires among the trees were now few and far between.

He brought his hand to his stomach as it twisted again, he dry heaved spitting out the few chunks of food that came up, tears streaming down his face. 

As he keeled he saw that now his own hand was set ablaze. That warm, unpleasant, painless feeling ever present as it flickered in the night. 

His energy spent and not knowing what else to do, the boy got on his knees,  clutching his blazing hand to his chest, he prayed the Our Father.

“Amen.” His heart steadied as the words left his mouth, as soon as it did the fires were snuffed all at once, say for the flame that danced around his hand.

The boy knelt alone in the dark as he clutched his stomach and wept.