The thing that most Immortals know about the Man in the Moon is this: He makes us who we are; resurrects us just hours after dying truly irreversible deaths, and only asks for one thing in return: for us to do our jobs.
The one thing most Immortals don't know about the Man in the Moon is this: He can be an asshole.
Just as he put North in charge of gifting children with their favorite action figure or baby doll, or Bunnymund in charge of painting cute little eggs in pastel colors for kids to find and laugh about, he also made the Spirit of Death, and the Spirit of the Storm, and, well, me.
Now, don't get me wrong; I'm not bitter about the fact that bad Immortals must exist in order to balance the world out. I wouldn't even be bitter about the fact that I was one of these bad Immortals, if only the whole thing wasn't one big, fat misunderstanding. Allow me to elaborate:
November 4th, 1819
Mischief Night
I watched as Abigail wrapped her fingers around the bottom of the window and slid it upwards. A gust of warm air from inside the house smacked me in the face, and for a minute I forgot about the plan and just imagined crawling inside and sleeping on the couch there. What a feeling it must be, I thought, to always have a warm house just waiting for you to come home.
The girl's name was Martha, and I knew she was home. I'd overheard her in school talking about how her parents were away for the week and how they put her in charge of watching the house. She was sleeping, no doubt, in that cozy little room of hers up on the second floor. It was nearing 1 a.m.
By the time Abigail and I were done, the entire bottom floor was trashed. We'd smashed dishes, shattered windows, flipped couches and tables –we had the time of our lives. And we didn't care about the trouble we would get in when somebody found out it was us, because Martha Clara Jones was a bitch, and could rot in hell for all we cared.
Suddenly, a thought sprung in my mind. I ran to the kitchen and rummaged through her drawers until I found what it was I wanted: a matchbox.
"Burn in hell, Martha," I whispered to myself, and then I stroke a match and set the curtain ablaze.
I can't tell you how many times I've cried about that night, how many times I've screamed to myself, to the Moon, to anyone who could possibly be listening that I DIDN'T MEAN IT! I NEVER WANTED HER TO ACTUALLY DIE! She was only supposed to wake up and see that her perfect little cottage had been reduced to what I had to come home to everyday: broken beds and faulty floorboards.
But she died. And so did the baby sister asleep in the crib upstairs (who I had no idea existed at all). And I paid the price for it, because I died, too, approximately 3 hours after learning that the house had burned to the ground that night, and there were no survivors.
You'd think the ultimate price for a crime like that would be execution, but you'd be wrong. Turns out, the ultimate price for a crime like that is execution, and then resurrection, and then an immortal lifetime of punishing people for being fire-starting idiots, just like I was.
My name is Cinder Mason, and I'm one of the four pyrokinetics that MiM has created in the past 2,000 years, and nobody believes in me.
I sat on the kitchen counter of a New York townhome, watching as the middle-aged man before me leaned his face into his fridge. Sighing, I checked the digital clock above the stove: 8:42 p.m. I'd been here for five minutes already, the familiar nagging in my head having told me there was a clumsy idiot near a flame somewhere in my vicinity, and yet nothing was clicking in my mind like it usually would.
I scanned the house and found many possibilities: a lit candle by a curtain rustling in the breeze of an open window, an open flame on the stove under a pot of boiling noodles, seven wires plugged into the same power strip laying on the carpet. I smirked. Normally, I knew what I was meant to do before I even got into the person's house, but it was people like this man whom I could have fun with.
First, I began a show of firework-like sparks above the power strip. The loud snapping scared the man so bad that he hit his head on the inside of the fridge, and I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing. He rubbed his head and waddled over to the strip, hastily unplugging things to get the sparks to end. With his back turned, I maximized the flame on the stove until the water inside the pot was boiling so hard that the noodles started flying out, landing on the floor like fish out of water.
At the sound, the man made a strangled "argh" noise, whipping around so fast he threw his back out. By now, I'd completely lost it. I was laughing so hard that I had to leave the house, fearing the sheer volume of my laughter would pop the bubble of belief between the man and I, and he would hear it.
I decided on walking a little, enjoying the night sky and the brief, seldom moments of freedom I got between jobs. Unfortunately for me, it was mid-December in New York, and it was freezing. Sparkling snow littered the ground and I decided that these past five minutes in the cold were enough to last me a lifetime. Yet, just as I was heating up to transport myself somewhere warm, something soft and cold smashed into the back of my head.
I whirled around immediately, and saw that the road before me was completely empty. A laugh came from my right side and, before I could even pivot my head, another snowball shot me clean in the cheek. I looked again, but there was still no one there. Even without seeing a face, I had a good idea of who it was.
"Cheer up, darlin'," A deep voice came from behind me, and I gritted my teeth but didn't turn around. This guy was obviously an Immortal, but had no idea I was too.
"It's a snow day!" He barked, and the sheer volume of it brought my blood to a boil.
My hands erupted in flames just as I turned around to see him. It was exactly who I thought it was, I just couldn't remember the name. I watched as the boy jumped and staggered back a bit.
"Woah!" He yelped, nearly falling back on his butt. "You w- I thought you were human!"
"Run," I growled.
"Wh-" I interrupted him, sending a wave of flames straight at his face. He yelped again and shot into the air, avoiding being burned alive in a tenth of a second.
"I was just trying to have some f-" He was cut off again as another wave came at him, this time successfully making contact. The heat just barely touched his butt, but he yipped in pain and shot away somewhere.
"What's your problem?" He shouted, and then there was the sound of crackling and my feet were slipping out from under me. I fell on my own butt, and the sound of his subsequent laughing was enough to make me want to kill him. So things continued like this, both trying to extinguish the other in a variety of ways, for almost an hour. It only ended when I got too cold to even conjure enough fire for a new flame to throw at him. Damn his December advantage.
I lay sprawled out on his blanket of ice, my teeth chattering yet unable to properly move to get up. At the lack of flames flying at his face, the boy dropped his guard and approached my side. He stood above me now, his face twisted in a gleeful smile as he peered down at me.
"Oddly enough, that was a lot of fun," He said, chuckling at the end.
It was impossible for me to respond –I was pretty sure my vocal chords had frozen over. The boy's smile soon fell, replaced with a confused frown.
"Hey, are you alright?" He asked, kneeling down beside me. Carefully, he placed one palm on my cheek and immediately retracted it.
"Geez, you're colder than I am! How is that even possible?" He waited for me to respond, but quickly abandoned the thought. "Never mind, I gotta get you inside!"
Next thing I know, he's scooping me up in his arms and racing me through the door of the nearest dark house. We stagger inside and he nearly drops me on the kitchen floor when he slips on the tile. Eventually, though, he lays me down on a plush couch and kneels at my side.
"Okay, so, I just saved you, so you have to promise that when you heat up you're not gonna try and kill me again," He says, and then bites his lip in thought.
"No promises," I say between shivers.
Somehow, he smirks at that. Then, he's reaching over and unfolding a blanket on top of me, properly tucking me into the couch. It's incredibly embarrassing, but I sigh in relief when the boy jumps up and walks out of the room.
I finally generate enough heat to recover five minutes later, and I shrug off the blanket and sit up. Unsure about where the boy's gone, I silently get to my feet and tiptoe over to the back door.
"Wait!" A voice says just as I wrap my hand around the knob, and I internally groan.
I turn to see him standing just a few feet from me, a lopsided smile on his face and a cup of something steaming in his hands.
"I made you some hot chocolate," He says, and extends it out to me.
I don't take it, but look down at it in annoyance. "Why?"
He frowns. "Because I thought you were dying."
"Because you thought you killed me," I correct him.
"That too." He shrugs and then places the mug on a nearby counter when he realizes I'm not going to take it. "But then I saved you, so things balanced out."
I roll my eyes. "Don't look so proud. You didn't exactly take a bullet for me; all you did was carry me a couple steps. Which I didn't ask you to do."
"Would you rather I have left you there to die?" He asks.
Yes, I say internally. Yes. God, yes. It was the closest I've come to dying in 200 years, and it felt so good.
"Goodbye," I say instead, and reach for the door handle again. The boy shoots over in a second and closes the door just as I twist it open.
"What's your problem?" I snap.
"My problem? My problem is that you just tried to kill me!" He says, and he's loud but not exactly angry.
"Well you almost killed me!" I shout.
"I wasn't trying to! I was just trying to get you to stop throwing flames at my face! Why don't you like me?"
His voice has been reduced to a whimper by the last sentence, and I look up at him finally. He's less than a foot away, his body almost right up against mine with his arm resting on the door at his side, and I'm finding it impossible to look away from his eyes. They're so blue –a stark contrast from his translucent skin and white hair. His lips are slightly parted, and I regret glancing down at them when he blushes and backs up a little.
In the silence between us, I feel the familiar nagging in my head erupt for the 100th time today, and I know it's time for me to leave.
"Who even are you?" The boy asks. He looks like he's ready to fall completely in love with me.
"Late," I say.
And then I'm gone.