~Prologue~
The wooden stool was placed right next to the stove, giving the small boy just enough room to reach up and stir the bubbling liquid. (The stool had been there as long as the boy could remember. It was something his parents had added in as soon as they deemed him old enough to help). A smile spread across his face as he pulled the long wooden spoon from the mixture, sneaking a taste while his mother's back was turned. His tongue briefly stuck out of the right side of his mouth, his forehead crinkling as he thought for a second.
Upon making his decision, he turned and glanced over his shoulder, before sneaking a handful of his mother's secret spices into the sauce. He sloshed some of the liquid onto the eye of the stove, rushing the stirring in hopes of avoiding being caught.
"I saw that," his mother teased, nudging his small shoulder with hers. She caught the mischievous glint in his bright azure eye; it was the look that never failed to give him away. She simply smirked, put her hands on her hips and watched as some of the façade dropped with a muttered sorry. She smiled, leaned down and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek, and whispered a well done in his ear. She stood back up, ruffled his hair and returned his large grin, as she stuck her own spoon into the pot.
Closing her eyes, she let the liquid slip from the utensil and coat her taste buds, a smile pulling at her lips unconsciously. When she opened her eyes again, she couldn't help but catch the hopeful, toothless grin that was being flashed in return.
"You've done good, baby," She told him, picking him up in her arms and spinning them both in a quick circle. His laughter floated, and echoed through the kitchen, his joy contagious for all those who happened to hear it.
In the moment, the two were oblivious to the impending demise; a dirty used rag. It fell gently from the upper shelf, finding its new resting spot on the ever-heating burner. Which is where it would stay, until it was too late.
As the scene transformed into one of pure terror, Killian woke up with a start, his forehead slick with the cold sweat that always accompanied the dream. Years had gone bye, the young child reaching the age of twenty-one, and still he was unable to shake the terrors that had become all too real that night.
It was as fresh in his mind now as if it had happened yesterday. The way the flames licked the side of their small cottage, the way the heat climbed along with the suffocating smoke. He could still remember the piercing screams of his father as he pulled his son's small body from the flames; the way it felt as if his skin was melting off when the fire had reached him, much quicker than anyone could prevent. But more than anything, he could recall the look in his mother's eye when she realized she wasn't going to be making it out alive, and the words she yelled that would forever haunt him.
The memories were becoming too much to handle, starting to make him feel as if someone was sitting on his chest.
Killian jumped from the bed, the current weight of his thoughts unbearable. He ran to the bathroom, throwing water in his face, and he did his best to ignore the bloodshot appearance of his eyes, along with the burns that would forever mar his skin. The marks would always serve as a reminder of the past he would prefer to leave behind. He wished he could have left it forgotten among the rubble of his home.
He slipped his mother's necklace over his head and ran his fingers through his hair roughly, pulling tightly on the strands before dropping his head down onto the cool counter. He moved from the bathroom to the bedroom window, brushing the sheer curtains aside and looking out at the countryside with a resigned sigh.
He knew he couldn't run forever; that his past wasn't something that could simply be left behind in the dust of a back road. It wasn't something that could just disappear in a rear-view mirror, but it was, however, something he preferred to push to the back of his mind.
For a while, he took to finding solace in rum bottles, choosing to drink away his troubles as soon as he was given the chance. But it wasn't long until even that didn't work; instead it increased the depression- knowing, somewhere deep down,that it was not what his mother had wanted for him. However, after one particularly horrendous hangover, he finally decided it was time to focus instead on the culinary dream instilled in him through the few chances he got to cook with his mother.
It was time to do something that would make her proud.