I don’t remember much about the night I was forced to run away from home. Hell, I can barely recall what my last meal consisted of, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make right now. What matters right now is the fact that I don’t remember falling asleep that night. That night that I left my little and obscure village. I can't remember falling asleep, and I don’t remember telling my parents goodnight.

But I do clearly remember waking up.

It was hot.

My whole body felt way too hot. I remember sitting up sweaty in bed, trying to gather my senses. Eyes closed and squinted in agitation. No one likes being woken up sweaty and angry. I remember my hand grabbing and tossing soggy covers off my bed to help alleviate some of the body heat that was trapped underneath the thick material.

It didn’t help.

I can recall struggling to open my eyes fully, and when I was finally able to widen them, seeing and feeling wrapped in a warm light. A part of my mind told me that it was just the sun struggling to break through the curtains in my room; however, another (smarter) part of my brain was trying to tell me that something was wrong.

My brain was trying to tell me to panic.

To jump up. To leave, but all I could focus on was how weirdly numb and suffocated I felt.

The sun was too hot. The room was too hot. I was too hot. My limbs were tingling, and every breath that I took hurt more than what I knew was acceptable. Every inhalation was accompanied by a dry burning in my throat and quickly followed by a choking cough. Everything was wrong.

I could feel the water sliding from my eyes, down my cheeks, but I wasn’t crying. Not intentionally at least.

The next thing I remember is the thin brown door to my room flying open. My mom stood there surrounded, if not engulfed, by daunting dark clouds. She was coughing heavily; I started coughing again, and then her lips were moving. She was frantically moving her mouth, but I couldn’t hear her.

I couldn’t hear anything.

A dim ringing was the only sound in my ears, letting me know that the sense still existed, but for whatever reason was currently impaired and not of any use at the moment. I sat in shock at the loss of my hearing while my mom had already begun pulling me up into her arms and carried me out of my asphyxiating room. The world around me got brighter, hotter, and (as the tears in my eyes intensified) blurrier as she carried me through the living room, through the hallway, out of the house. It was getting even harder to breathe and I was still too stunned to process the messages my brain was desperately trying to send to me.

Get up.

Move.

Do something!

She sat me on the ground a good few meters from the house and then kissed my forehead. Her lips rested against my skin almost somberly, as if it was an apology.

Or maybe it was meant to be a goodbye.

When she looked back in to my eyes I could see traces of sadness, hesitance, and fear. Her hands rested against my cheeks and she rubbed the pads of her thumbs lightly against them. She stared at me, and I stared dumbly back at her.

Her mouth moved as she told me one last thing. Before I could form a thought she was running back in the direction we came, back into the house consumed by flames.

I never figured out what it was that she said to me.

I remember thinking that I was just dreaming. I remember thinking that the fire was probably a figment of my imagination and that I would wake up if I pinched the skin under my arm. I took a bit of skin between my thumb and index finger and squeezed harshly. I closed my eyes from the slight pain and hoped that the fire would disappear when I reopened my eyes.

It didn’t.

It was then that I snapped into reality. All of my senses rushed at me at once and I was overloaded with the different stimuli surrounding me.

I could smell the smoke, the burning wood, and upholstery. I turned my upper body around and I saw that the rest of the houses in the village were burning to the ground as well. The dim ringing vanishes; I could suddenly hear it all. The crackling. The terrifying sound of fire eating through the homes of my neighbors, friends, and family. And then I could place one other more terrifying noise.

Screaming.

Or maybe it was crying.

I could see people sitting outside their homes letting out strangled cries. Clutching their burnt and tattered clothes in their shaking hands. Limply staring at the bright consuming blaze.

Were they mourning their homes? Or those stuck inside? The shrieks and cries were overwhelming so I put my hands up to my ears and squeezed my eyes shut in a half-assed attempt to block it all out.

I wanted it to stop. I wanted it to all go away. It was too much and I couldn’t process it all.
I tried to mentally escape, I tried to think of something happy. Something nice. An explanation that could make the whole situation feel less horrifying. My dad would know what to say to calm me down.

My eyes opened in panic at the last thought. My parents were still in the house. My mom had run back in to find my dad and they hadn’t come out yet. She was taking too long. They were both taking way too long. My body finally responded to the signals sent by my brain; I finally scrambled up to my feet and made a shaky step towards the house.

Do you want to die? Go find help! You can’t go in there yourself you idiot.

I stopped in my tracks. I turned around ready to run and find help. Any kind of help. There had to be someone who knew what to do. Someone who could save my parents.

My chest constricted and felt tight, and I was crying now from my own dread rather than from the smoke that was flowing from windows like dirtied water. The deadly streams slowly lifted and swirled around in the dark sky, the light from the full moon barely filtering through.
I only managed to turn partially before I was frozen again in my spot.

There was a guy. I don’t remember what he looked like or what he was wearing, but I will never forget seeing the flames flying from his hand. It’s kind of funny how his presence froze me, but what he was doing to the things around me was the entire opposite.

He looked like he was setting the trees on fire. His arms were stretched out as if they were hoses, his fingers splayed and the flames flooded wildly away from him. He looked entirely unaffected by the blazing heat that he was producing, he was calm almost, as if he was painting my village red and orange.

As the intense blazes flowed from him and wrapped around the trunks of the peaceful trees it sunk in that he was the one who did this to me. The one who did this to us. Why was he doing this?

The angry flames continue to appear from the palm of his hand like some kind of magic trick, and had I not been in a state of debilitating panic…it would have been beautiful almost. And in hindsight, his ability to control his element was undeniably alluring and sophisticated. But what could have been used for a bewitching show, was instead used as a show of power and destruction. That, was inexcusable.

I was standing there staring for so long that he must have felt my eyes gaping at him. He halted in his alchemy and shifted so that he was now facing me. He stared at me for what felt like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than 2 seconds; I was still so entranced by the magic I had witnessed that I was frozen to the ground.

Seeing that I was making no motions to flee, that man smirked. He took a step towards me and I felt myself snap to.

He was going to come after me.

I was going to die.

So I did the only logical thing.

I ran.

I ran the opposite direction of him, right into the heart of my village. My house sat on the western outskirts of the little village and after 10 years of living here, I knew this place like the back of my hand. I knew that there was a river not far from where I was if I just ran straight. I just had to run straight.

And I did. I ran right passed the crumbling houses, right passed the charred bodies, right through the trees and brush that encircled what was once my home. I didn’t look back. Afraid that the man who could throw fire was behind me, I kept on sprinting.

I don’t remember how long I ran or how far. I just know that I didn’t stop until my legs gave up and I collapsed to my knees somewhere in the depths of the dense forest. I knew that I was lost. I knew that I should have reached the river long ago, but I hadn’t. I was in the thick of the forest in the middle of the night with no clue where to go next.

The heaviness of my situation crashed down on me, my body reacted first. A strangled sob found its way out of my mouth and my chest rose and fell at an erratic pace. It was like a thousand little birds had been trapped in my body and had begun to rip me apart from the inside so that they could escape. My heart and lungs wanted to escape. If it would stop the pain, then I wanted them to as well.

I had left them.

I left them all to die.

And now. Even if I wanted to go back, I had no way. I couldn’t trace my path back if someone held a knife to my throat.

I was alone, and it was my own fault. I should have stayed and died with them. I should have grabbed my mom and made her stay with me. I should have run in to the house after her. I should have gone in to save my parents.

The tears slithered in steady and heavy lines from my tear duct, I began screaming out into the sky. I screamed out in hopes that the darkness would swallow my sounds, and maybe I could be swallowed as well. The sounds ripped out of my chest hard and loud. They hurt, but the pain was the only thing I had to remind me that I am here. This is happening. This is real.

They needed me back there. I only thought of myself and now they were all suffering because I was too small, too young, too scared to do anything. My parents, my friends, my family, my village, all gone.

I didn’t deserve to live.

The chilly autumn air blew passed me taking the last of my energy with it, and I shivered. I had no more voice to use. My throat was dry and my cheeks were still damp from the salty streams left on them. I was defeated.

I thought for a second that I should just stay and die here. I should just stay still, and eventually starvation or a wild animal would come and take my life so that I won’t have to myself. After all I was a coward and I deserved it. I wasn’t worthy of taking my life with my own hands. It had to be another.

But then I thought about my mother rescuing me before running back into the fire herself. She saved me. She wanted me to live, and sitting and moping here instead of continuing to move would do nothing to help anyone.

If she wanted me to live…then I would do it for her. If not for myself, then I would do it for them. The winds whistled around my body as if encouraging me to stand and find my way to safety. A cold embrace, but comforting. It was the only thing I had left. Just the thick burnt clothes on my body, my shoeless feet, and the wind.

I almost got up to start walking after the consolation from the wind, but I was wracked by another wave of mourning. I sat there and silently bawled for at least another hour.

---

As expected, I don’t know how long I stumbled about the forest. I never did come in contact with another animal and I did happen to find the river after a while. Without any other animals around, finding food was difficult; however, I ate berries off of bushes and followed along the bank of the river letting its strong torrents serve as my hope to find some kind of town.

Luckily, my prayers were answered soon enough and I finally found a city. The city where I live now. I must have been around dawn that day when I reached the edge of the trees and was met with an asphalt road. I had never seen that kind of ground before and I was slightly afraid that it would hurt me. A dark unmoving river couldn’t be good news right? After taping the ground with my sock covered foot and finding it solid, I followed it into the city.

Young and naïve I walked right into the heart of the society I had been separated from. Right into the capital that controls the chunk of the world that I had never heard of or been a part of. I walked right into the hell that I once thought would be my new paradise.

There weren’t many people moving around when I arrived, which in hindsight was good for me. I had heard about what these kinds of cities were like. Living secluded in a semi technological village, hearing about these bigger and better cities were like our fairy tales, but until that moment, I thought that they were just places of legend. My home was only full of maybe a hundred people, but this place was thousands of times bigger.

I grew up hearing that these kinds of cities were big, bright, and loud, but it was nothing compared to what I was actually met with.

Large metallic and luminescent skyscrapers, their cold enormous walls that glowed with projected images and words. The images and words moved like they were a television screen, and I couldn’t figure out how they were being displayed. There must have been a projector somewhere.

Beautiful faces of people holding things that I had never seen and couldn’t afford were shown on nearly every surface. Large screens were everywhere and they were showing a woman who was more beautiful than anyone I had ever seen. The city felt alive with artificial life, and it was strangely devoid of soul.

I had never been exposed to so much technology in one place and it seemed as though that technology came with the loss of spirit. I was saddened by the lack of vehicles, but I could hear the engines of cars and the hums of the train not far from where I was situated. Twinkling lights illuminated the streets, music flowed from the different machinery, and I felt like I was in a new silver and shiny world. I was in a whole new world that seemed absolutely beautiful.

I hadn’t learned what that shiny beauty was meant to hide.

I had almost forgotten about the traumatic event I had experienced until I saw a woman standing at what looked like an outdoor pumpkin sale. Her jewelry adorned hand caressed the shell of one of the pumpkins and I watched in both awe and horror as her pumpkin grew 3 times bigger than before just from her touch. Seeing her use magic immediately triggered images of the man who could throw fire. The loud, unfamiliar, and shiny world around me transformed back in to the warm and comforting image of small houses, familiar faces, and tranquil nature. Images of my life ran before my eyes, and then they suddenly all went up in flames. I fainted before I could get a hold on my thoughts.

---

I woke up on what I assumed was a bed, and for maybe 5 seconds I thought that everything had just been some kind of messed up dream. However, I was quickly pulled from that thought when I realized that my ‘bed’ was more of a dingy cot than anything else. It smelt rancid. A mixture of dried piss, what I hoped was the smell of garbage (which I later found out was actually feces), and something metallic (which I also found out later was blood) invaded my nose.

I dry heaved a couple of times over to the side of the cot just from the disgusting smells. Only not actually throwing up since there wasn’t enough food in my body to release. I felt my eyes burning from the threat of tears and my body was on edge and ready to get up and make another run for the door. I didn’t know where I would go in this robotic city, but I wasn’t going to stay here.

I was almost done planning my escape when I saw it. Food. It wasn’t much, but after being in the woods and not having a sufficient meal for however many days I was out there, this was almost too much.

A bowl of rice, a piece of bread, and a large glass of clean non river water. I ate it greedily and my stomach twisted angrily in pain after being greeted with the sudden influx of nutrients. As soon as it all hit my stomach, I heaved violently. I almost threw it all right back up on the wooden floor under me, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. Perfectly good food wouldn’t be wasted. I swallowed hard in an attempt to keep down the bile and swallowed a few extra times afterwards just to push it and keep it from reappearing on the ground before me.

It was at that moment that I looked around the room. It wasn’t small…but it was awfully cramped. My cot was surrounded by maybe 20-30 other ones. They were all empty at that moment, but I could tell that people obviously slept on them and used them. All of them were uncomfortably close to one another, and there was a gap in the middle of the room giving it a little walking space. The walk space led to a set of stairs that led down, and I didn’t want to know what was below me. I noticed two square windows. One on either side of the room.

After a glance out of the one closest to me I could see that it was daytime. The ceiling of the room made the room feel like a large triangular prism. Where I found myself had to be some kind of attic or something.

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard the creaking of the stairs. I prepared myself to be met with my worst nightmare.

A man.

That man.

The one who could throw fire. I was afraid he had been the one to find me on the street and now he was going to kill me. After surviving on my own for as long as I did, I wasn’t going to just let him get rid of me without a struggle.

But I was wrong. I was met with someone who would be almost just as bad as the man who could throw fire. It was a woman.

She smiled at me, but it never reached her dark eyes. It looked professional, the kind of smile that was rehearsed to look warm and supportive. I wasn’t buying it.
She looked like she was around my mom’s age. Mid 30s or 40s, but she was actually around 50 at the time. Her hair was a light brown that reminded me of the pine straws I could find on the ground in the woods. Her hair was straight and barely long enough to brush against her thin shoulders.

She was skinny and tall and she would have seemed nice…had her eyes not been a soulless dark green. They were the kind of dark green that were like the leaves of a tree when the moon is dully lighting the sky. Ominous. Terrifying. I often times thought that if I looked into her soulless irises that my own soul would be sucked into their abyss. I couldn’t look into her eyes for too long, I wasn’t willing to find out if my theory and fear were legitimate.

She approached my cot and knelt down next to me. She glanced at my empty dishes. Her next smile was just as empty as the first.

Her fragile fingers lightly ran over the rim of my empty glass. “I see you’ve eaten what I laid out for you.” She searched my face. I didn’t respond. She continued on, “I run this place. Do you happen to know where you are?” I shook my head as a silent no. She took her hand away from the dish and moved it so that it sat on top of my matted hair. Her hands weren’t cold, no. But they weren’t warm. They felt…fake. Like the hand of one of my old dolls. She patted the crown of my head while her dark eyes looked into mine. “This is an orphanage sweetheart. I run this place.” I kept my lips together and shifted my gaze from hers. It felt like she could read my mind if I looked into her eyes, and I didn’t want her to know how frightened and confused I was in her presence. I left her on her own to deal with my frustrating silence. She tried a few other questions that were meant to level with me, relax me. None worked; I wasn’t going to tell her anything about me. I feared what would happen if she found out too much about me.
Besides, you aren’t supposed to talk to strangers. Especially strangers who take you to their house.

When she asked me my name, I was finally ready to answer her. I could tell her that little fact without giving away too much. I looked in to her soulless eyes and I sat for a second too long without answering so she asked if I had a name. I opened my mouth to tell her “Yes. I do have a name you dumb woman.” But when I wracked my brain for my name, I couldn’t find it. I closed my mouth and squeezed my eyebrows together perplexed while looking away slightly embarrassed.

My name.

What was my name?

I could feel it, but it was stuck on the tip of my tongue and wouldn’t fully show itself. It was hiding behind other memories and thoughts. Playing a game of hide and seek in my mind, and I was not in the mood for this silly game.

There was an A in it right? Or maybe it was an O? An H? Looking back at her, I could sense that she was getting impatient with me, so I stuttered out my final answer. “Y-yes…but I can’t remember what it is.” My voice was hoarse from lack of use, and I more or less croaked out that one statement.

She clicked her tongue and muttered out a quick, “How disappointing.”

I searched through my brain for a name to pop out. Any name. And just when I thought I had it, it would slip back into the recesses of my mind. I couldn’t remember any names. Not my own, not my parents, not anyone that I once knew. Their faces are still there, but the names have vanished. Much like their existence on the planet. My chest tightened in the way I had become all too familiar with, and my eyes began to spill hot and fresh tears. She wrapped her long arms around me in an attempt to soothe me.

She told me to quiet down. She told me that everything would be alright from now on. When she rubbed my back it felt off, I assumed it was just because it wasn’t my mom’s hug, but I welcomed it nonetheless. I needed the affection, even if it was coming from a woman who held the same amount of warmth as a soggy piece of toast.

She told me to call her Momma. She told me that she’d take care of me from that moment on. Feed me. Shelter me. Love me. And admittedly that was all I wanted at 10 years old.

I was ignorant to fall in to her trap and become a character in her little game.

I would pay for that mistake for years to come.

Notes