Fire

Fire surrounds you.

You’re not sure how it happened; you’ve just woken up, and your room is on fire … Are you even in your room? It’s hard to tell, it’s too bright to tell. Maybe you’re at the camping ground you go to on the last weekend of every month and your partner forgot to put out the fire – like they often do, and somehow the night carried it onto your tent. Or maybe your partner was trying to be romantic, maybe they knew that forgetting your anniversary would be the last straw, and they remembered it after you’d gone to bed, so they lit some candles in a romantic gesture that went out of hand when they looked away for a second.

It doesn’t really matter how this happened, not now. Right now, fire surrounds you.

You scramble up to your feet and look around, eyes slowly adjust to the brightness.

You’re in your living room.

There’s your couch, all the times you came home and dropped all your worries down on it have left a noticeable print, but it’s now a pile of ash. The rug you spent a huge chunk of money on because you were told it’s an investment, that it would last you decades, is now gone and you haven’t even had it for a full year, you haven’t even managed to make back the money you spent on it. The new TV and gaming set you were persuaded to buy by a store employee who told you they would keep you entertained when stuck inside in winter have burst with the heat. The painting you got to bring the room together and to give a homier feel to your house is now spreading the fire up. Across the hall, the bed your partner refuses to have food in because they hate crumbs is now covered in melted chunks of blackened ceiling.

Everything you have spent time and money and energy to make into your nest is burning. These are things you scanned to the tiniest details and compared to other options and annoyed clerks by testing and trying too many times before you decided they were the best that you wanted to have around you for the rest of our life, and now your whole life is up in flames and you can’t do anything to save it.

It’s so hot, and you’re starting to melt, sweat trickling off your face and down your back. You try not to breathe in the smoke, but there’s nothing else to breathe, and so it fills your nose, it fills your mouth, it fills your lungs, it fills your eyes, it fills your head until it’s empty of all else.

It’s so bright, like looking directly into the sun, except that this sun keeps getting closer. Everything you look at is on fire, everything inside of you is on fire, and if you stay in place a second longer, you’re going to be on fire, too.

So, you run.

You can’t see; there’s smoke and bright spots and sweat in your eyes. You can’t hear; the fire roars too loudly, glass is shattering too loudly, not even your own coughs make it to your ears. But you can’t stop to check where you’re going, you can’t scream for help, you can’t hear anyone coming for you, so you keep running, and running, and running, not knowing where to, or whom to.

The roof falls and you trip. So, you crawl, one arm wrapped around your face to minimize the smoke blackening your lungs, the other arm stretched out, feeling for the coolest parts of the floor, but everything is so hot, until you reach a spot that isn’t.

You take a moment to catch your breath, a moment to wipe the tears and sweat from your eyes, a moment to look around you.

Fire no longer surrounds you, there’s a clear hallway in front of you that the fire has not yet reached. You get up on wobbly feet. You know you should keep moving, but you can’t resist looking back at everything that makes this place your home – made this place your home, it’s all gone now.

You take a look over your shoulder, and at first, all you see is the fire, still spreading, still getting closer, and you know that if you stay in place, it will take you over, then the hall, then every chance of getting out.

But you freeze. It’s impossible to look away, it’s impossible to move, if anything, you might just walk back into the fire than away, because right there, in the middle of the blinding light, is a shadow – it’s their shadow.

It’s blurry in the smoke and fire, made even vaguer by your sweat and tears and dizziness, but you know them so well that you know their shadow. You love them so much that you love their shadow.

Their print is next to yours on the couch, or was, before …

It’s the person who was with you when you picked out the rug, put some of their own money into it, and insists you take off your shoes before you step on it so it can last you a lifetime, and it could have, before …

It’s the person who really wanted that TV and gaming set, and who tested all the games with you and complained when you played without them, and who you thought would always complain throughout every cold winter, but that was before …

It’s the person who looked at hundreds and hundreds of paintings with you, claiming to have a better eye for art, then declared that one their favorite, and you bought it more for them than for yourself, and you thought it would make them happy every time they looked at it, but that was before …

It’s the person who has shared your bed, who has tucked you in when you were feeling sick, who helped you change the sheets while you talked about your days, who lied down next to you on your coldest, darkest nights, but that was before …

You can’t leave them behind, so you yell for them, and the shadow turns to you. You can’t see their face, so you can’t tell what they’re feeling, but you know they must be terrified, confused, and so sad, all the emotions filling you, too. The shadow starts running towards you, as desperate to reach you as you are to pull them out. You reach out your hand into the fire, and the shadow raises its hand, too, and that’s when you see it.

Out of the shadow’s hand, there’s the dark print of another shadow, the shadow of the weapon. You see the torch, the fire, all in the hands of your loved one’s shadow.

You stumble a step back. You can’t believe it, but it’s right here! The shadow is holding a torch, and it’s on fire, and as the shadow runs closer to you, it swings the torch back and forth, setting more things on fire, burning down everything that is both yours and theirs.

It was them all along, they set everything fire, and they’re running towards you with the same intention.

You gasp, turn around, and run!

You tell yourself that this person would never do this, not to your home, not to you, but you can’t stop running long enough to figure out why they’re doing this.

You feel them hot on your heels, as hot as the fire, but you don’t look back, you can’t risk it.

You run, and run, and run.

The fire is getting closer, so close to you, the shadow is getting closer, so close to you. It knows you too well, it knows the house you’ve both occupied for so long so well, it knows your every step, your every room, your every escape route, and it’s only a couple of steps behind.

You run into a room and slam the door behind you. It’s the room you could never agree what to do with, and they wouldn’t compromise and you didn’t want to be selfish, so it was just wasted on nothing, except now it might save your life.

You know a wooden door will not stand in the way of fire, it’s already starting to burn up, but maybe it can buy you some time, maybe you can make escape through the window.

You’re so tired and confused, but, surprisingly, you’re mostly angry.

You’re angry that this happened so suddenly. You’re angry that you don’t get to save anything with you. You’re angry that they forgot your anniversary – yet again. You’re angry that you spent so much energy and money to get them the things that they love, only for them to be so ungratefully. You’re angry that you never got to use this room. You’re angry that you’ve wasted so much time with them. You’re angry that they’re so selfish – you’re angry that you haven’t been as selfish before. You’re angry that you’re going to have to start over after everything. You’re angry that they’re the ones making this decision for you and that you’re not the one who got to burn everything to the ground when you have wanted to for so long.

But a part of you is also relieved.

You’re relieved that you finally have a reason to leave. You’re relieved that you can get whatever you want now and they can’t taint it. You’re relieved that you no longer share anything with them. You’re relieved that you don’t have to keep trying. You’re relieved that you can now get your own place and make it your own home and use every room however you like. You’re relieved that you can now fall in love with someone new, knowing all you know about how you want to be loved – how they could never love you. You’re relieved that you never have to see them again. You’re relieved that you’ve left them behind in the fire.

You just have to make it out of here, and everything will be okay.

You run to the window and pull back the curtain that has somehow started catching fire. You do not look back. You look straight ahead. Straight at the window. And you catch your reflection in the glass. Your face is ashen, your eyes are wide, you look tired, dumbfounded, sick, on the verge of throwing up, but something catches your attention to the side, and horror dwarfs every other emotion. You can’t believe what you’re seeing, so you look down at your hand, and there it is.

When did this happen? When did you grab it? How long have you been running around with it? What is going on?!

There are no answers in your mind, only smoke and fire, and anger and relief. You can’t begin to understand why there is a torch in your hand, or why you have just set your whole life on fire.