I Burn Everything

Chapter 1: Accidents

My family noticed very early on in my life that I had a problem with fire, but it wasn't until my teenage years that I realized it myself.  I always used to think that my fascination with fire was normal and that they were just overreacting.  Sure there has been many accidents across my life involving fire, but I brushed if off not thinking too much about it.  Not thinking too much about how much fire could hurt and damage people's lives.  It was then that I understood my brain fundamentally misunderstood the meaning of fire.

The first time my parents caught onto my attraction with fire was when I was three years old.  We were always told as kids that fire was bad, that fire was hot, and to never go close enough to touch it.  I knew these things were important but unconsciously choose to ignore them.

"Stoves are a no no," my mother told me, "Don't touch the shiny knobs.  They're bad."  But I didn't listen to her and turned the knobs anyway and watched fascinated as the gas flames danced before my eyes.  Time had become something I no longer recognized as I stood there transfixed ignoring the burning smell of food.  My father was the one who found me with my nose almost touching the flame.

"Fallen what are you doing?" He had yelled at me causing tears to flow down my small face.  "Don't ever do that again.  You could get hurt playing with fire."  It was the first time my father was disappointed in me, but it wasn't the last.  Not by a long shot.

They thought that it was a one time occurrence since nothing had happened for five years.  They assumed that it was only a child's curiosity that caused me to play with the stove and nothing more.  But they were wrong.

It was during the winder when the next accident took place.  We had gathered at my uncle's house to watch a movie on TV that I no longer remember the name of.  They had set up a projector to display the movie outside since the whole family couldn't fit inside the living room.  In order to stay warm, one person had set up a bonfire and gave the kids marsh mellows to roast.  Since it had been so long, my parents saw no harm in letting me roast marsh mellows with my cousins.

Nothing had happened at first; I roasted marsh mellows and ate them without feeling anything towards the fire.  I thought I was fine and decided to move a bit closer to the fire.  That's when a tingling started to crawl up and down my spine and a roller coaster started in my stomach.  Without realizing it, my body had begun to inch closer to the fire until I was close enough to reach my hand out into the fire.  Which is what I did except I held a marsh mellow in my left palm as I did so.

"Momma!  Fallen stuck her hand in the fire!" my sister Penelope had yelled dragging me backwards from the fire.  I could feel my skin burning from the flames, but I didn't let out any shouts which was later attributed to shock.  The only thing I could vividly remember from that time was my family members running around to put out the fire and then taking me to the hospital.

My had became permanently scarred and has remained the same size since all the nerve endings were damaged.  I couldn't use my hand at all for the first few months after the accident.  It was only after extensive physical therapy and an additional surgery that I regained movement in my hand.  While my full strength in that hand didn't return, I can still use it for little tasks.

At the age of fifteen, I finally realized I had a problem, but it wasn't until I did an act that impacted the lives of my whole family.  I had stolen lighter fluid my father used for barbequing and kept it in my room to sniff at different times throughout the week.  Matches and lighters had also found a new home underneath my mattress in my room.

One day, I had bought a new candle from a store and decided to light it up in my room.  I had done this many times before with other candles whose remnants littered our trash can outside.  The only thing different this go round was that I had decided to light a bunch of papers on fire.  At first, I was letting them disintegrate fully into ashes, but I soon grew to no longer care.  Instead of letting them burn all the way, I started throwing the paper around like it was confetti as they burned.  I didn't realize what I had done until I heard the crackling of flames that didn't come from a piece of paper burning.