This is the translated version of my FF „Loving the Pain". I'm originally writing it in German, but I'm trying my best to translate it into English properly x). But if you find any mistakes, please let me know so that I can fix them.
Loving the Pain
Prolog: Fire
Fire, around him there was nothing but fire.
He was looking at the flames with a blank expression on his face. It would be okay, he wouldn't regret this.
The fire was spreading unrestricted in the small room burning everything that got in its way. The black-haired boy, however, was still quietly sitting leaned against the apartment's door, watching the flames as they were slowly moving into his direction.
He took a deep breath. His lungs were inevitably filling with smoke.
His sight was getting blurry, tears were filling his eyes. Not because he was sad, no, it was all the smoke's fault he told himself. He was trying to wipe away the sweat on his face with his arm.
The heat was feeling unpleasantly hot on his skin. He wished that he would lose consciousness faster, so that he wouldn't need to experience what it was like to be burned alive.
His head was feeling sort of heavy and he dropped it into his lap. Just a moment longer… he just had to wait for another moment.
But this moment was never to come.
He was feeling a weird, piercing pain in his back and his body fell to the side as the door behind him was rapidly opened.
For the fraction of a second he saw a familiar shape running past him.
Into the flames… the flames!
The moment was passing by in slow-motion.
Short black hair, a red shirt. He saw him running past, tried to reach out his hand to him. But it was already too late. His sight got blurry; he was forced to close his eyes.
However, to know that he was here… to know that it was his fault he got into this dangerous situation… even though no one was meant to be here in the first place. He should have been alone.
And then he heard it. His name being called over and over again "Ace! Ace!".
Again and again, until he opened his eyes once more.
Through the room he notices the shape of another boy. Even though it was painful, he tried very hard to get up and slowly approached the other person, grabbing his shoulder.
You shouldn't be here. Away from the fire. Away. Away.
The other boy turned around and grinned at him widely. "Ace!" He said with this beaming expression on his face. And then he moved away from him. To the back. Into the flames, until he got swallowed up by them.
He was trying to follow him, but the flames wouldn't let him pass.
And then he heard a scream. No! That was not what he wanted. This should have never have happened…
He sat up straight in his bed in an instant. He was breathing heavily, running his hand through his black, heavy hair, which was dripping with sweat, trying to process what had just happened.
The room he was in was all dark, besides the glow of the numbers on the digital alarm clock next to him, which showed that it was only three in the morning.
A dream. It had only been a dream.
He tried to calm down. He wasn't back in that room from five years ago. That had all happened a long time ago. It had only been a dream.
A shy knock on his door interrupted him in his thoughts, shortly before his door was opened a crack wide.
"Ace…?" He heard an uncertain voice say "Is everything alright? You… screamed… and…".
"Don't worry, Luffy." He uttered hoarsely. "Sorry I woke you up, but it was only a dream. Go back to sleep."
Everything was alright. His brother was here. No one had disappeared in the fire back then, nothing had happened.
After Luffy had quietly left the room again, Ace dropped back into his pillow and buried his face in it.
Nothing had happened.