There was a loud clatter from the pyromaniac's cell as her food tray went tumbling to the floor, spilling its contents everywhere. The girl within dropped to her knees, viciously clutching her head with both hands as she let out a raging scream directly at the floor. Her eyes wide and wild, her teeth gnashing together in fury, as she quickly stood up and kicked the fallen tray across the room- smashing it directly into the mirror that laid over the sink across from her. The mirror shattered into pieces, scattering broken glass through the air. A stray piece grazed her nose, lodging itself in her cheek and releasing a thin trail of blood from her face where it had slid by. And she only screamed louder, slamming her fist into the stone wall to her side. An audible crack sounded out from her hand as she did, and she yelped again, collapsing back down onto her knees and cradling her injured hand. Tears began to drip down her face, stinging the cut on her cheek. They were soon accompanied by sobs.
Not a split second later, the cell opened and multiple people pushed their way in. A doctor, a security personnel, and her caretaker. The caretaker was the first one in, and before either the doctor or the security man could speak or act, he stopped them in their tracks and rushed over to the crying girl's side. As soon as he got close to her, however, she whipped around and tried to strike at him with her uninjured hand. He was quick to pull back and catch her fist, which set her off even more. The girl leapt up and bared her teeth, attempting to take a bite clean out of her caretaker's neck. Before she could reach him, he swept her up and turned her around, forcing her to face away from him as he tried to talk to her.
"Blazz! Breathe! Calm down, it's me! I'm not going to hurt you!"
The maniac in his grip quickly broke down sobbing again, and he wasted no time turning her back around and lifting her up into an embrace. Both the doctor and the security man were aware this was not a wise move on his part, but he was the only person responsible for the girl through the many years she had been there. They let him decide what the best course of action was to take with her. And clearly, he made the right decision, because instead of lashing out again, she just continued sobbing, burying her face into his shoulder. This only caused the shard of glass in her face to slide deeper, and she quickly recoiled. The caretaker pulled gently back and inspected her face, while doing his best to reassure her both calmly and firmly with his hands on her shoulders.
"...My goodness, Blazz. What happened?" He asked her, trying to pry as easily as he could. He beckoned the doctor over, for them to inspect her for damage. While he held her still, and kept her attention on him, the doctor tried their best to figure out everything that happened to her. Blazz couldn't respond for a moment, merely choking back sobs while she stared at her caretaker, who looked her in the eye not to intimidate her, but to try and reassure her than he was there to help.
"Speak to me. We're going to get you through this. Just tell me what you did, and we'll take care of you."
The little pyromaniac's eyes were soaked, yet the fire within them was far from snuffed out. She coughed, and tried her best to respond to him.
"...I- I- don't.."
"Breathe, Blazz. Breathe in, and calm down. You're going to be okay."
"They- they wanted me to... and-"
"Who are 'they', Blazz? One thing at a time."
"..I don't know.. I don't know anything- I-"
Before she could finish, she broke down sobbing again, and her caretaker gently pulled her in closer. He softly stroked her head, and whispered into her ear as gently as he could.
"..You're okay. You're okay now. Just breathe, and relax. I'm here."
It took many minutes to finally calm her down. The doctor had her brought off to the medical bay, so that they could fix her up as efficiently as possible. Many hours later, she was sitting down on one of the beds, with her caretaker sitting next to her. Her hand and wrist were in a fresh cast, and the cuts across her feet and face were patched over with stitches and bandages respectively. She stared at the floor in silence, as her caretaker just sat beside her without saying a word for a few moments.
"Do you want to talk, now?" He carefully pried, respecting her boundaries as well as he could. Blazz only shrugged.
"...I don't know."
"If you don't want to, I won't ask. We just want to help you. We don't want you to hurt yourself like that again."
"I don't.. know. I just don't. I just got angry."
"Angry because you dropped your food?"
"...I guess."
"Accidents happen. It's alright."
"..They made me."
"Who made you what?"
"I don't know. I just heard it, and I dropped my food. And I just.. got mad."
"You got very mad, if that's the case."
"...I don't want to."
"You don't want to.. what? Be mad?"
"I don't want to listen to them. I just hurt myself every time I do."
"Then we'll start giving you the pill again. You remember how the pill helped, right?" He brought it up hesitantly, as he was aware of the reason Blazz stopped taking it. She hated it, because of the way it made her feel like she was completely different after taking it. After many years of it, she insisted that she was better, and if she started becoming confused again, that she could handle it. Since then, however, she had lashed out unpredictably multiple times, injuring not just herself, but other staff and even one other patient. Every time, she would set off like a wild animal, and the only thing that seemed to calm her down or stop her in her tracks was some form of fire to catch her attention. This time, though, her caretaker insisted that no fire be used.
Blazz shook her head.
"I don't know. I just don't want to hear them. Fire always stops them."
"Yes, but we don't want to feed your indulgence with fire. We're trying to help you, remember? If we keep using fire to calm you down, you'll be stuck with it. You won't be able to calm down unless you have fire."
"..What's wrong with that?"
"Blazz, the fire itself isn't the problem. It's the fact that you need to rely on it in order to control yourself. We want to make you strong enough to control yourself without needing anything else. You need to be able to rely on you. That's our end goal."
Blazz didn't respond for a second. She glanced up at her caretaker with a dull expression.
"Fire is me."
The caretaker sighed. He could tell this wasn't going to go anywhere.
"...I understand. In that case.. the next time something like that begins to happen again, I want you to do everything in your power to call for me, as soon as you can. Before you start getting too angry. Because once you're angry, you start trying to hurt everything around you, yourself included. If you call me, I'll be there to stop you. Whenever you need me to."
She blinked, as though she was trying to process that.
"...Any time?"
"Any time, any weather. I'm here to help you. I don't want you to be hurt. If I have to use fire to calm you down, then I will, but all I want is to make sure you're okay."
Blazz didn't respond for another few seconds. She looked down slightly, with her head still turned in her caretaker's direction.
"You.. don't. So.. you mean it?"
"I do. I promise."
"...Okay. I will, sir-"
Her caretaker interrupted her with a smile, as he gently patted her on the head.
"No-no. You don't need to call me 'sir'. Just call me by my name, 'Don'. Okay?"
Blazz glanced up at him in the eyes again, letting him stroke her head softly without doing anything to stop him.
"Oh. Okay, Don."
___________________________________
Blazz stepped back into her cell with a sigh, twirling a lollipop around in her hand as she did. Another many years went by- more than she bothered to count. She had grown a foot or more, she had finally begun brushing her own hair for the first time since she was a young girl. But she was far from the same girl she was way back when. Blazz stood there in her cell- which had become far more than a containment to her. It had been decorated, lived in for many years. This was her room, and the entire Ward was her house.
The girl stepped forward and glanced at herself in the mirror, pulling the lollipop from her mouth as she leaned in and pulled her eyelid up. Her eyes weren’t bloodshot. They looked rather healthy. She opened her mouth and looked at her teeth. They were clean. She was brushing them more. She rubbed her nose. It didn’t make any weird popping sensations. It was fine. Finally, she leaned back and looked herself over, head to toe, in the mirror over the sink. She stared a few moments, one arm crossed over her chest and resting in the bent elbow of her other, which held the lollipop of which she stuck back in her mouth. One second of staring, two seconds. Five seconds. Then, almost without any forewarning, she smiled.
She smiled brightly. Not a maddened smile, but a genuine one. A smile she hadn’t smiled since she was hardly able to read and write. A smile she hadn’t ever seen before in her own life. She blinked, and the smile faded. She smiled again, like she was trying to get used to seeing her own teeth make that expression.
“...Wow, do I really look like that?”
She crunched down on the lollipop and finished it off, throwing the stick into a trash can nearby. Once again, she opened her lips and smiled, but this time, she leaned in and inspected herself as she did. Eventually, she leaned back again, and rested her head on one hand.
“...Wow. I really do look like that.”
She was silent for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, she suddenly chuckled. A slight, short scoff.
“I look…”
She tilted her head back, still watching herself in the mirror.
“...I look better. I look so much better. When did that happen? I FEEL better. When did that happen?”
Another chuckle. A familiar voice rang out from behind the door.
“Blazz? Are you alright?”
“I’m just fine, Mr. Don. I’m actually doing pretty good.”
“Is that so? Sounded kinda like you were talking to yourself.”
“I sorta was. I was talking to my reflection. Y’know, just thinking out loud.”
“Ah, alright. May I ask what about?”
“...Well, me. Look at me.”
“I see you. What about you?”
Blazz stepped back, opening her arms out.
“Don’t I look better?”
“Better than what, Blazz?”
“Than I did when I first got here. I remember looking at my reflection when I got here the first day, and I remember thinking.. well, I remember being scared of myself. Now, I look at me and I think… ‘wow. I am really looking good, now’.”
“Well, it’s good to see you have more confidence in yourself. But don’t go letting that get to your head.”
“Well, yeah. But I mean- this is such a huge step up.”
“It is. How about that? One heck of a change.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Come on, you just got back from lunch, do you want to go get some exercise?”
“...Yeah, sure. Sounds fine to me.”
The pyromaniac stepped out of the cell again, this time following her friend and mentor, Mr. Don.
The lighter stayed on the cell table.
—
Blazz sat in the library of the complex, with piles of books stacked up on the tables and floor around her. She sat in a chair with a book in one hand, and a candy cane in the other. She leaned her chair back on its rear legs, a snarky grin on her face as she crossed her legs that were propped up on the table. She shut the book in her hand and tossed it onto the table, then reached over and picked up another one. The last book was titled ‘Physics, An Explanation Of How The World Works’. This next book, “The magic behind Magic, a Deep Dive into Spellcasters”. The many books around her were titled similarly. She had been spending her time doing nothing but researching nearly anything and everything.
Only a couple minutes into this book, however, she shut it and tossed it aside with a huff. Mr. Don, who was nearby, glanced over at her.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, doc. It’s just- why does any of that have to exist?”
“Any of what? Magic?”
“Yeah! I mean, all of this science and technology makes sense. I can understand it all, no problem. It’s cool, even- but magic? Where’s the sense to any of it? Where’s the logic and understanding?”
“That’s part of magic’s ‘thing’. It’s not quite supposed to make sense. Magic is manipulated like an energy, something the soul controls-“
“YEAH, I figured that part out on my own already- but it just doesn’t make SENSE. Things need to make sense in this world, don’t they? How else are we gonna get anywhere? How are people like me supposed to help society progress if it’s constantly relying on something that doesn’t apply to everyone- something we can’t ALL understand and use?”
“That’s a good question. You know what I think about it?”
“What?”
“I think you’ve got a point. And when you’re eventually out of here, I think you’ve got the potential to change the world.”
“..You think so? How?”
“Well, you’re intelligent. And it looks to me like you want to understand the world around you. Maybe you can spread that knowledge.”
“Huh.”
She picked up another book and glanced at the title. ‘Chemistry and Thermodynamics- Understanding Reactions’.
“I like that idea, actually.”
“I figured you might. You have the kind of demeanor for that.”
“Do I? What kinda demeanor is that?”
“Well, you’ve got the confidence and eagerness to learn. That’s a strong leadership quality.”
“You don’t say. Maybe I could rule an entire nation, then.”
“Well- I wouldn’t get too confident, heh. But you’ve definitely got a lot of potential.”
Blazz let out a short chuckle mixed with a scoff.
“Nation or not, I’m going to master this kind of stuff. And once I do, I’m going to teach as many people as I can how to do the same.”
“You really care that much about spreading your knowledge? Maybe you should be a teacher.”
“Maybe, maybe. The way I see it, if I have something someone else doesn’t, why don’t I use it to make them better? I mean, even if I do become the smartest woman alive, it’s not like I’m going to be the entire reason society progresses. That’s why I need other people to know what I know. Knowledge is meant to be shared, isn’t it?”
She set the book down and opened it, then picked it up with both hands and leaned back further in her chair. Behind the cover of the book, she smiled even more widely, deeply inspecting every page- every iota of detail the book provided to her. If there was anything she wanted to know the most about, it was this. Mr. Don simply sat across the table, making sure she was okay.
Blazz learned more than her strengths, that day. She learned more than her passion and desires. She learned her future, far sooner than she would ever come to realize until many years after she had reached it. But, for the time being, she sat and read, the thoughts simply fermenting in the back of her mind, fermenting in a pool of ego that was beginning to flood the recesses of her brain.
Not a split second later, the cell opened and multiple people pushed their way in. A doctor, a security personnel, and her caretaker. The caretaker was the first one in, and before either the doctor or the security man could speak or act, he stopped them in their tracks and rushed over to the crying girl's side. As soon as he got close to her, however, she whipped around and tried to strike at him with her uninjured hand. He was quick to pull back and catch her fist, which set her off even more. The girl leapt up and bared her teeth, attempting to take a bite clean out of her caretaker's neck. Before she could reach him, he swept her up and turned her around, forcing her to face away from him as he tried to talk to her.
"Blazz! Breathe! Calm down, it's me! I'm not going to hurt you!"
The maniac in his grip quickly broke down sobbing again, and he wasted no time turning her back around and lifting her up into an embrace. Both the doctor and the security man were aware this was not a wise move on his part, but he was the only person responsible for the girl through the many years she had been there. They let him decide what the best course of action was to take with her. And clearly, he made the right decision, because instead of lashing out again, she just continued sobbing, burying her face into his shoulder. This only caused the shard of glass in her face to slide deeper, and she quickly recoiled. The caretaker pulled gently back and inspected her face, while doing his best to reassure her both calmly and firmly with his hands on her shoulders.
"...My goodness, Blazz. What happened?" He asked her, trying to pry as easily as he could. He beckoned the doctor over, for them to inspect her for damage. While he held her still, and kept her attention on him, the doctor tried their best to figure out everything that happened to her. Blazz couldn't respond for a moment, merely choking back sobs while she stared at her caretaker, who looked her in the eye not to intimidate her, but to try and reassure her than he was there to help.
"Speak to me. We're going to get you through this. Just tell me what you did, and we'll take care of you."
The little pyromaniac's eyes were soaked, yet the fire within them was far from snuffed out. She coughed, and tried her best to respond to him.
"...I- I- don't.."
"Breathe, Blazz. Breathe in, and calm down. You're going to be okay."
"They- they wanted me to... and-"
"Who are 'they', Blazz? One thing at a time."
"..I don't know.. I don't know anything- I-"
Before she could finish, she broke down sobbing again, and her caretaker gently pulled her in closer. He softly stroked her head, and whispered into her ear as gently as he could.
"..You're okay. You're okay now. Just breathe, and relax. I'm here."
It took many minutes to finally calm her down. The doctor had her brought off to the medical bay, so that they could fix her up as efficiently as possible. Many hours later, she was sitting down on one of the beds, with her caretaker sitting next to her. Her hand and wrist were in a fresh cast, and the cuts across her feet and face were patched over with stitches and bandages respectively. She stared at the floor in silence, as her caretaker just sat beside her without saying a word for a few moments.
"Do you want to talk, now?" He carefully pried, respecting her boundaries as well as he could. Blazz only shrugged.
"...I don't know."
"If you don't want to, I won't ask. We just want to help you. We don't want you to hurt yourself like that again."
"I don't.. know. I just don't. I just got angry."
"Angry because you dropped your food?"
"...I guess."
"Accidents happen. It's alright."
"..They made me."
"Who made you what?"
"I don't know. I just heard it, and I dropped my food. And I just.. got mad."
"You got very mad, if that's the case."
"...I don't want to."
"You don't want to.. what? Be mad?"
"I don't want to listen to them. I just hurt myself every time I do."
"Then we'll start giving you the pill again. You remember how the pill helped, right?" He brought it up hesitantly, as he was aware of the reason Blazz stopped taking it. She hated it, because of the way it made her feel like she was completely different after taking it. After many years of it, she insisted that she was better, and if she started becoming confused again, that she could handle it. Since then, however, she had lashed out unpredictably multiple times, injuring not just herself, but other staff and even one other patient. Every time, she would set off like a wild animal, and the only thing that seemed to calm her down or stop her in her tracks was some form of fire to catch her attention. This time, though, her caretaker insisted that no fire be used.
Blazz shook her head.
"I don't know. I just don't want to hear them. Fire always stops them."
"Yes, but we don't want to feed your indulgence with fire. We're trying to help you, remember? If we keep using fire to calm you down, you'll be stuck with it. You won't be able to calm down unless you have fire."
"..What's wrong with that?"
"Blazz, the fire itself isn't the problem. It's the fact that you need to rely on it in order to control yourself. We want to make you strong enough to control yourself without needing anything else. You need to be able to rely on you. That's our end goal."
Blazz didn't respond for a second. She glanced up at her caretaker with a dull expression.
"Fire is me."
The caretaker sighed. He could tell this wasn't going to go anywhere.
"...I understand. In that case.. the next time something like that begins to happen again, I want you to do everything in your power to call for me, as soon as you can. Before you start getting too angry. Because once you're angry, you start trying to hurt everything around you, yourself included. If you call me, I'll be there to stop you. Whenever you need me to."
She blinked, as though she was trying to process that.
"...Any time?"
"Any time, any weather. I'm here to help you. I don't want you to be hurt. If I have to use fire to calm you down, then I will, but all I want is to make sure you're okay."
Blazz didn't respond for another few seconds. She looked down slightly, with her head still turned in her caretaker's direction.
"You.. don't. So.. you mean it?"
"I do. I promise."
"...Okay. I will, sir-"
Her caretaker interrupted her with a smile, as he gently patted her on the head.
"No-no. You don't need to call me 'sir'. Just call me by my name, 'Don'. Okay?"
Blazz glanced up at him in the eyes again, letting him stroke her head softly without doing anything to stop him.
"Oh. Okay, Don."
___________________________________
Blazz stepped back into her cell with a sigh, twirling a lollipop around in her hand as she did. Another many years went by- more than she bothered to count. She had grown a foot or more, she had finally begun brushing her own hair for the first time since she was a young girl. But she was far from the same girl she was way back when. Blazz stood there in her cell- which had become far more than a containment to her. It had been decorated, lived in for many years. This was her room, and the entire Ward was her house.
The girl stepped forward and glanced at herself in the mirror, pulling the lollipop from her mouth as she leaned in and pulled her eyelid up. Her eyes weren’t bloodshot. They looked rather healthy. She opened her mouth and looked at her teeth. They were clean. She was brushing them more. She rubbed her nose. It didn’t make any weird popping sensations. It was fine. Finally, she leaned back and looked herself over, head to toe, in the mirror over the sink. She stared a few moments, one arm crossed over her chest and resting in the bent elbow of her other, which held the lollipop of which she stuck back in her mouth. One second of staring, two seconds. Five seconds. Then, almost without any forewarning, she smiled.
She smiled brightly. Not a maddened smile, but a genuine one. A smile she hadn’t smiled since she was hardly able to read and write. A smile she hadn’t ever seen before in her own life. She blinked, and the smile faded. She smiled again, like she was trying to get used to seeing her own teeth make that expression.
“...Wow, do I really look like that?”
She crunched down on the lollipop and finished it off, throwing the stick into a trash can nearby. Once again, she opened her lips and smiled, but this time, she leaned in and inspected herself as she did. Eventually, she leaned back again, and rested her head on one hand.
“...Wow. I really do look like that.”
She was silent for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, she suddenly chuckled. A slight, short scoff.
“I look…”
She tilted her head back, still watching herself in the mirror.
“...I look better. I look so much better. When did that happen? I FEEL better. When did that happen?”
Another chuckle. A familiar voice rang out from behind the door.
“Blazz? Are you alright?”
“I’m just fine, Mr. Don. I’m actually doing pretty good.”
“Is that so? Sounded kinda like you were talking to yourself.”
“I sorta was. I was talking to my reflection. Y’know, just thinking out loud.”
“Ah, alright. May I ask what about?”
“...Well, me. Look at me.”
“I see you. What about you?”
Blazz stepped back, opening her arms out.
“Don’t I look better?”
“Better than what, Blazz?”
“Than I did when I first got here. I remember looking at my reflection when I got here the first day, and I remember thinking.. well, I remember being scared of myself. Now, I look at me and I think… ‘wow. I am really looking good, now’.”
“Well, it’s good to see you have more confidence in yourself. But don’t go letting that get to your head.”
“Well, yeah. But I mean- this is such a huge step up.”
“It is. How about that? One heck of a change.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Come on, you just got back from lunch, do you want to go get some exercise?”
“...Yeah, sure. Sounds fine to me.”
The pyromaniac stepped out of the cell again, this time following her friend and mentor, Mr. Don.
The lighter stayed on the cell table.
—
Blazz sat in the library of the complex, with piles of books stacked up on the tables and floor around her. She sat in a chair with a book in one hand, and a candy cane in the other. She leaned her chair back on its rear legs, a snarky grin on her face as she crossed her legs that were propped up on the table. She shut the book in her hand and tossed it onto the table, then reached over and picked up another one. The last book was titled ‘Physics, An Explanation Of How The World Works’. This next book, “The magic behind Magic, a Deep Dive into Spellcasters”. The many books around her were titled similarly. She had been spending her time doing nothing but researching nearly anything and everything.
Only a couple minutes into this book, however, she shut it and tossed it aside with a huff. Mr. Don, who was nearby, glanced over at her.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, doc. It’s just- why does any of that have to exist?”
“Any of what? Magic?”
“Yeah! I mean, all of this science and technology makes sense. I can understand it all, no problem. It’s cool, even- but magic? Where’s the sense to any of it? Where’s the logic and understanding?”
“That’s part of magic’s ‘thing’. It’s not quite supposed to make sense. Magic is manipulated like an energy, something the soul controls-“
“YEAH, I figured that part out on my own already- but it just doesn’t make SENSE. Things need to make sense in this world, don’t they? How else are we gonna get anywhere? How are people like me supposed to help society progress if it’s constantly relying on something that doesn’t apply to everyone- something we can’t ALL understand and use?”
“That’s a good question. You know what I think about it?”
“What?”
“I think you’ve got a point. And when you’re eventually out of here, I think you’ve got the potential to change the world.”
“..You think so? How?”
“Well, you’re intelligent. And it looks to me like you want to understand the world around you. Maybe you can spread that knowledge.”
“Huh.”
She picked up another book and glanced at the title. ‘Chemistry and Thermodynamics- Understanding Reactions’.
“I like that idea, actually.”
“I figured you might. You have the kind of demeanor for that.”
“Do I? What kinda demeanor is that?”
“Well, you’ve got the confidence and eagerness to learn. That’s a strong leadership quality.”
“You don’t say. Maybe I could rule an entire nation, then.”
“Well- I wouldn’t get too confident, heh. But you’ve definitely got a lot of potential.”
Blazz let out a short chuckle mixed with a scoff.
“Nation or not, I’m going to master this kind of stuff. And once I do, I’m going to teach as many people as I can how to do the same.”
“You really care that much about spreading your knowledge? Maybe you should be a teacher.”
“Maybe, maybe. The way I see it, if I have something someone else doesn’t, why don’t I use it to make them better? I mean, even if I do become the smartest woman alive, it’s not like I’m going to be the entire reason society progresses. That’s why I need other people to know what I know. Knowledge is meant to be shared, isn’t it?”
She set the book down and opened it, then picked it up with both hands and leaned back further in her chair. Behind the cover of the book, she smiled even more widely, deeply inspecting every page- every iota of detail the book provided to her. If there was anything she wanted to know the most about, it was this. Mr. Don simply sat across the table, making sure she was okay.
Blazz learned more than her strengths, that day. She learned more than her passion and desires. She learned her future, far sooner than she would ever come to realize until many years after she had reached it. But, for the time being, she sat and read, the thoughts simply fermenting in the back of her mind, fermenting in a pool of ego that was beginning to flood the recesses of her brain.