The boy stared into the fire, his flat expression doing a god job of hiding his true feelings. Well, it should - he'd had to cover up his emotions for years now. It had become second nature to slide his mask into place.
The fire flickered and danced merrily, while the boy watched on. He wondered what it would be like to be truly free, like the flames he was staring into. They didn't have a care in the world.
The boy swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked back his tears. He couldn't cry. He wouldn't cry. It had been years since he had allowed the tears that welled so frequently to drop from his eye. Crying was for the people who were allowed to have feelings - he had never had that liberty. He wasn't sure that half the people who knew him were actually aware he had emotions.
A stray piece of coal fell from the fire, and he picked it up and threw it back in, not even registering the pain until he looked down and saw angry red marks on the tips of his fingers.
He frowned. He was numb. He couldn't feel physical pain anymore - how long would it be until his feelings were numb too? Not feeling would mean not hurting, and considering his hurt was raging inside of him all the time lately, numbness would be very welcome.
The fire was beginning to die down, and he grabbed the poker to encourage the fire to linger. Fire was his favourite thing in the world, and he knew that all his favourite things came to an end eventually - but he liked to put it off.
His mind was churning, repeating flashes of things that he didn't want to remember, things he didn't want to think about. He tried to clear his mind by staring intently into the fire again.
He had always found fire beautiful, and yet had always been aware that, when used in the wrong way, it had the potential to be terrible. In that way, fire reminded him of magic. As a child, he had found the sparkles and lights of the magic his parents performed entrancing - but it wasn't long before he had been forced to recognise that magic could be used for evil.
The boy tilted his head to one side whilst staring into the flames, wondering how hot they would be to the touch. Stretching out a hand, he let it hover over the dying flames, feeling the heat radiating off of it.
His brain, his instincts, all screamed at him to stop what he was doing, but he was longing to feel something, anything - and if he had to set his hand on fire to do so then he damn well would.
Lowering his hand into the flames, the boy waited expectantly for the pain that never came. He could feel his hands blistering and melting, but there was no hurt, no feeling, nothing.
He was numb. He couldn't even remember what it was like to feel.
He was dead. Had he ever been alive?
He was nothing. Nothing.
Nothing.
The boy turned his head to the side, and the tear that rolled down his cheek sparkled for a second, before the fire illuminating it went out.
Nothing.
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Love and unicorns,
WiseGirl xx