People would always say to not play with fire because you might get your fingers burned, but I never really cared. I mean, you don't become an arsonist without knowing how to set a fire without burning your fingers.
I guess that I never really understood what they had meant. As an arsonist, I was burning sheds and little barns first. I would sit around and watch as the smoke would rise and the building would begin to turn to ash, but I wouldn't stay much longer. I would always make sure that I had enough time to get away without getting caught. Although, I would always make sure that I stayed long enough for the building to burn, except for this one time.
That one time, I had to leave to get to some party. I basically just lit the match and threw it on the shed in my haste to leave: mistake number one. Rule number one for an arsonist with no intention of getting caught or for getting major jail time was "always check to make sure that your target building is empty".
I'm sure that you can tell where I'm going with this by now. That building that I was going to light, just for fun, had someone inside: a seven year old girl.
She had been playing hide-and-seek with her friends had died just because I couldn't follow a simple rule. It is a simple rule that would've taken me only a few minutes to accomplish.
I heard about it on the news the next day. As soon as I had heard, I assumed that the police would show up at my door and arrest me. They didn't. I had actually gotten away with murder.
You would think that after something as horrible as this had happened that I would stop. But I can't. I can't stop lighting fires, and one day, it's going to get me killed too.