Every day the same routine. Getting up, having breakfast, dressing up and going to school. Having to stand my classmates making fun of me one day more. "Hey ginger, yesterday I saw your mom with a man. She must be a whore!" they laughed "I bet she has already slept with everyone in the town!". I was born in Ireland but my parents and I had to move to the States because of business. Soon after arriving, my father became ill. Mom always said he'd be ok, he will get better, but I wasn't as dumb as she thought. I knew he was dying.
He passed away two months after the arrival. I was ten years old when that happened. And then, the mockery at school began. My peers laughed at my red hair, laughed at my lack of father, and also laughed at my mother not having enough time to spend with me. She worked hardly all day to buy food and pay my studies, and if we wanted enough to survive, she had to spend the entire day at that factory.
"Mom!" I shouted when I got home after school. I always knew she wasn't home when school finished but somehow, I got an answer. "Yes sweetie?" she sounded like she was crying a while ago, so I ran to see what happened. She burst again into tears when she saw my face. My classmates got me a black eye, bleeding nose and lip and a chipped tooth. She told me to tell my teacher but I already did, and they did nothing to stop it. "We don't get into the kid's fights" the teacher told me. I asked what happened to Mom and she told me that she was fired, but she will find another way to earn money for our survival.
And then the mockery returned. "Did you know your mother has found another job?" one kid told me, "she did?" I asked, waiting for some kind of sensible response, "yeah, she now sleeps with men for money, haha!" I knew it. The rumor that Mom was a whore spread like a deadly disease. Because of that, nobody wanted to hire her and she was in a severe depression. Everytime I got home from school, I found her crying. She would hold me to her arms, telling me everything would be alright.
I grew up and nothing changed at all. I got beaten up every day, insulted, made fun of to the point I couldn't stand anything more. Mom told me that when I was feeling bad, I should imagine a world of happiness, where everybody has friends and are nice to everyone, nothing is in black and white again and everything is colorful. This world didn't have a name yet, but I promised that when it's complete, it will have.
That world totally replaced my real life. In there, Mom was always happy and my peers didn't made fun of me anymore. I finally found my place. The guy I hated the most now was my best friend. One day, he ran to me and hugged me, rolling on the floor and both laughing as well as the rest of classmates. Then I saw Mom and I thought she was going to join the fun too, but she slapped me in the face instead. The real life came back and I saw her crying again, this time because of me.
I saw my worst enemy on the floor and the rest of peers staring at me with horror. No more laughs, no more colors and the terror took over the scene. Then I realized that I had almost beaten the guy to death. I got kicked out of school and I thought that was the perfect time to say goodbye to my friends. With a smile across my face, I walked towards the main door and pulled out a bubble maker. I blew bubbles for all my friends, gave them lollipops and they all laughed and said goodbye. When I was trying to get out of the school, I felt a huge pain in my face. I didn't know why those bubbles caused me that pain. I heard sirens in the distance and I slowly got back to real life. I looked back and I saw my old school on fire; looked at my hands and one of them was holding a petrol can, the other one a lighter; I looked forward and in front of me, there was Mom shouting again. She said something about my face but her voice became more distant. I fell on the floor and everything surrounding me became a high pitched ring in my ears.
I woke up in a white room, my face still hurting like hell. Neither Mom nor my world was there, it was just a white room with a bed and silence. No laughter, no cheery cartoonish music, nothing at all. Only silence. I called for Mom but she didn't respond. I was alone. Tears began falling down my cheeks and I let out a primal scream, begging anybody who could listen to me to bring me back home, back with Mom, back with my world. I started scratching my face, making it bleed in desperation. Some nurses came in and pinned me down, trying to calm me down, but I couldn't.
One day, a guy with a white coat brought me a box of crayons, told me I was a good boy and that he wanted me to draw what I was thinking. I took a piece of paper and I picked up the green crayon, painting what was supposed to be the grass of my world. Then, with the blue crayon, I painted the sky, with pink clouds and flowers. Then I drew two people. A short red-haired one, with a red shirt and blue pants, blue eyes and freckles and with the red crayon, I wrote "Kenny" next to him. That was me. Then I drew a tall woman dressed in purple and with long red hair as well, pulled into a bun and freckles on her face. I wrote "Mom" next to her. Then I named the drawing "My world" and I gave it to the man with the white coat.
Months passed since I was put under treatment in the mental hospital. The scar I got from the school accident I provoked healed as well, but it left me such bad sequels. I could see my skull and I became terrified of myself. I wanted nobody to see my face and I started hiding it, afraid of them making fun of me like my peers did back in time. But the man with the white coat was nice to me and told me I was pretty the way I was. He could understand my world, but he told me he only did it to study my mental illness.
One day, I was sleeping when someone knocked the door of my room. The first thing I did was to cover my head, as I always did before I knew who it was, and then I told them to get in. There was a petite woman dressing in purple, wearing glasses and her black hair pulled into a bun. She told me she had a job for me. She told me a long story about two brothers fighting, a company and two teams. I didn't like the idea at first, I didn't want to talk to anyone and reveal my face. But she made sure it won't be necessary to reveal my identity to anyone. Before leaving, I packed up all my drawings and crayons. Someday I'll be able to show it to the people I can rely on.
My life changed. My name is now Pyro and I blow bubbles for the other team inside my world. That's all I wanted. I met a lot of people in there, but for the first time in my life, I found someone I could trust as much as Mom. When I first arrived to Mann Co, the company which hired me, everybody stared at me. I felt intimidated and I wanted to leave, but one of them became really friendly to me. He was short and he wore a yellow hard had and goggles; he introduced himself as Engineer. People told him not to talk to me, but he said they should give me an opportunity. I heard a woman shout something like "mission starts in 60 seconds" and everybody went to grab their tools. I was given a device with trumpets that blew bubbles and a huge lollipop. First, I liked it but then I soon became terrified of it.
One night, I ran to Engineer's room, breathing heavily through my gas mask I wore for my job and also to hide my face. I had a nightmare where instead of bringing everybody happiness, I burned them to death. Engineer opened his bedroom door and I ran to his arms, just like I did with Mom when I was a child. He patted my back and told me that everything will be fine and that I needed to calm down. I tried to explain what happened, but I thought that he won't understand like the rest of the team, but he actually did.
I sat down on the floor and when I calmed myself down, he sat in front of me and asked me to explain what happened. I knew I could trust him as much as Mom, but I still felt uneasy. He patted my shoulder and smiled. I tried my best to explain him my dream when suddenly his smile faded. "Son" he began "ya're right. Ya were hired t'burn people, t'kill them". I felt a heavy weight in my chest and I started to cry. I didn't want to hurt anyone anymore. He hugged me and patted my back. "They tried t'make ya believe ya were in yar world of happiness without knowin' that someday wou'd notice ya were livin' a lie" he told me. His words were comforting, but I felt terrible. I told him I felt like an abomination, a freak, everything the others said about me. "Aw, it can't be that bad! 'sides, everybody likes yar results. They're pleased with ya! Ya always do a great job, boy" he assured me. His voice convinced me that he was telling the truth, that he liked the way I was, but I was convinced that if he saw my face, he will change his mind.
"Hey, Pyro" he said after a long silence "ya can call me Dell. Friends call themselves by their names 'ere". I knew what he wanted but I refused to open myself to anybody else. "Come on" he insisted "I'll keep yar secret". I slowly began to remove my mask, still unsure if I was doing the right thing. Dell was my first true friend and real friends share their secrets. He didn't cringe at my badly burned face; he smiled instead. "Ya're adorable" he said while he poked at my freckled cheek, or what was left of it "and not scary at all".
I tried to hold back my tears again. I was far away from Mom, but now I found someone else to rely on, to tell them everything without worrying they could tell anyone. I told him what my world looked like and showed him the first drawing I did of it, the one with Mom and me. "Kenny?" he asked "is that yar name?" I nodded; he continued to examine my drawing "does your world have a name?" I shook my head and asked him to name it. "I'd suggest… Pyroland".
My world, Pyroland, welcomed the new guest. There was a huge welcome party for Dell, with tons of food, music, colors and games. Mom was there too, proud of me and my friend. I'm not scared of people anymore. I'm not that stupid little ginger who everybody made fun of. I now kill people, even though I refuse to see it, and I please everybody with my work. I am the Pyro.