Hush.

Prologue

When I was eight I set myself on fire.

I hadn’t meant to, of course. But when your mother tells you to absolutely not go anywhere near the lighter in the drawer below the cabinets, you cannot help but be drawn to that exact location. And there was something so fascinating about the mechanism, to me. One little flick of your thumb, and a flame spit from the end.

When I snuck down it was around midnight. I was in my pajamas, parents sleeping, thinking I would get away with a very sneaky something. But I wouldn’t. I tried flicking off the lighter, having had my fill of clandestine adventure, but my grip slipped and the lighter dropped, catching the hem of my shirt. I lit up faster than I could think, screams arousing my parents.

The end result of the night?

Second degree burns along the bottom of my back, over my hip, creeping up my side. The scars had faded over the years, but the ugly rubber feeling was still there. Still a permanent reminder of childhood stupidity.

Ever since then, fire intrigued me. To a point of near morbidity. When I was nine I bought my very own box of matches, because I thought a nine-year-old walking into a store and coughing up money for a lighter would look fishy. At least when I lied to the sales clerk and told them the matches were for my father to light a birthday cake, and I wanted to surprise him, the lie had been believable.

I didn’t exactly fear the fire, nor did I embrace it. I found myself somewhere between those emotions, a steady line of mild intrigue. The entire concept of the flame enticed me. The way it flickered, taunted you by nearly extinguishing itself when you blew out a puff of breath, only to spring back up brighter and hotter than ever. How fast it could spread. Sometimes I would sit alone in my room, the window open to let out the smoke, and I would watch the flame burn. This odd obsession only stopped when my father suspected smoke and busted into my room to find me on the floor with a match in my hand. Needless to say, that was the end of my addiction.

Even so, whenever I spotted a flame, I stopped to watch. The fireplace, someone burning leaves, a bonfire. So many different scenarios.

I couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason I found the concept of fire so interesting. I thought it amazing, though, how fast it took to start a fire. How fast it could become uncontrollable.

And how hard it could be to put it out.

I liked to think of it as a precursor of the unpredictable tumult my life became afterwards.

Starting as a tiny spark, and transitioning into a raging wildfire.

 One I could not put out.