Waking up to the familiar nothingness, Jess saw only a curtain of blackness. She didn't attempt to move, just lay there on the cold, hard floor. An iron taste lingered on the tip of her tongue, and she felt something dripping from her nose. Her head, stomach, elbow, shin, and back all ached. Trying to inhale, she stopped abruptly, as even breathing seemed to cause too much pain.

Shallow, erratic breathing echoed in the dark. Jessica felt miserable as she lay there, motionless. The freezing ground did little to alleviate the searing pain tormenting her. It couldn't quell the crushing sensation on her chest, as if a boulder were trying to flatten her under its weight.

After a while, Jessica moved involuntarily, her limbs trembling in a desperate attempt to generate warmth. The chilling floor turned out to be not a remedy but a poison that slowly sapped her strength. Although her small body fought to stay alive, Jessica's emerald eyes were unresponsive and unfocused.

In the void, a girl lay, pain and shadows her loyal companions. Banished from the light, she was one of the condemned — a devil, a monster, or something even more malevolent. An outcast by her own blood. In a crimson pool, her limbs seared while her skin froze. Her once playful and vivid emerald eyes darkened, as if a cloud had obscured the sun, casting an enormous shadow over the meadow. The red crown, her radiant strands of hair, extinguished in the stifling gloom.

There she lay, a lonely girl uncared for by the world. Even in her pain, time never ceased its relentless march. In the blink of an eye, what began as a day stretched into unending nights.

At first, Jessica thought her mother would release her after a while, as she always had. One day passed, and then another. For Jessica, staying that long down there was nothing new anymore; she had adapted. But on the fourth day, she reached her limit. Occasionally, she glimpsed the light when her mother brought her plates of food and cups filled with water, but most of the time, she was left to endure the silence and darkness.

In the absence of all else, Jessica had only her thoughts to keep her company — an insane psychological torture, especially for a girl her age. Humans were not made for solitude; without socializing and the warmth of others, they wilted, like flowers deprived of water.

Jessica went through many stages.

"Help me... please... someone help me," she pleaded, she cried.

"Let me out!" she ordered, she screamed.

"God... I don't want... to be alone," she prayed, she hoped.

Her words echoed back at her in the basement, reflected by those unyielding walls that kept her imprisoned. Only they heard her cries. They heard her plead for her mother, ask for her sister, pray to God, and curse her own existence, but they never spoke, only stared down at her. Cold and merciless, they showed not a hint of empathy as they held her captive. There was no one to rescue her; the heroes she had read about in all those books were mere fiction. Her mother wouldn't release her, her neighbors had probably forgotten her, the kind priest cared not for her, and God seemed to ignore her.

And then she stopped. Her voice vanished. She became quieter than silence itself. Only the sounds of her blood rushing through her veins, her heart pounding inside her chest, her rhythmic breathing, and swallowing remained. As if she had been born mute, she hid her voice. It couldn't help her anyway.

Time flowed by, and Jessica's days turned into replicas of each other. Each day, she sat in the darkness, waiting. At some point, the door would open, light would flood the room, and a new cup and plate would appear. The bucket would be changed, and that was it. The same cup, the same plate, the same bucket, the same cold light, and the same dark room. The only thing that changed was her thinning body, her overgrown nails and hair.

A year was nothing more than the accumulation of days Jessica had spent in the basement.

One day, Jessica leaned against one of the boxes in the corner of the room. She had caught a cold, not an unusual occurrence given her confinement. However, this time a fever gripped her, sending her consciousness flickering in and out. To make matters worse, her mother had not opened the door for two days now.

Coughing sounds, a rare break in the usual silence, shattered the monotony. Unbearable heat coursed through Jessica's body, yet she shivered from the cold, yearning for an ice bath to relieve the burning sensation. She raised her hands, clutching her temples, as a massive headache added to her misery. Her body felt terrible, soaked in sweat, drenched clothes clinging to her skin. With a thud, Jessica's body slid from the box to the floor, too weak to sit.

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Was this the end? Had her body finally reached its limit and decided to abandon her too? Jessica felt no fear or sadness. Instead, there was a tiny glimmer of joy. She longed for release, but at the same time, she was afraid. It wasn't the fear of dying but the fear of being ignored once again.

Her mother, her sister, every person she knew, the heroes and gods, they had all disregarded her. Would Death ignore her too? Hot tears welled in her eyes, tracing their paths down her cheeks, following the pull of gravity. She didn't want this.

As Jessica sensed her last moments, her short life flashed before her eyes. Faint memories of her father, moments of joy with Melody and her mother, her life with friends, school, and church. She remembered staying with her neighbors, playing outside, and the many beautiful as well as painful memories. When her father had disappeared from one day to the next, her mother had lost her smile. There were arguments with friends, times when she got angry at Melody, and moments when she hurt herself while playing.

An accumulation of disharmonious emotions weighed heavy on the eleven-year-old. But then, a fresh wave of searing heat surged through her, quelling the rising turmoil. It was then that she thought about those flames, her curse, the source of her misfortune. Many times, she had contemplated them, never arriving at a sensible conclusion, for the flames were inexplicable. A gift from the devil, a kiss of misfortune, a burden too heavy for her small shoulders.

Jessica's hatred for them had become incomprehensible. It was so intense that it spilled over, affecting more than just her flames. She detested herself, loathed her mother, despised the world, and cursed fate itself. Another heatwave threatened to consume her consciousness. She blinked repeatedly, holding on with clenched fists.

A thought flitted through her mind, clinging to the last vestiges of her wakefulness. She considered the flames. If she was going to die anyway from the heat ravaging her body, why not let those flames take her? She would depart from this world, both body and mind, forever. Would her mother be happy then? Would she finally smile? Would Melody be safe?

It didn't matter anymore.

For a few seconds, Jessica's eyes remained shut as the fever battled within her. Returning to reality, as her eyes opened, a glimmer of madness flickered within them. A new wave of scalding white-hotness threatened to engulf her, but this time it emanated from her heart. Like molten stone, it surged through her bloodstream, raising her body temperature to impossible heights.

Even the permanently cold ground beneath her was affected. Streams of sweat flowed down her haggard body. Jessica turned onto her back, her arms and legs stretched away from her. Her erratic breathing showed in the form of her chest rising and falling, like the tides.

"Hot."

There was no other word to describe what she felt. But there were two kinds of heat in her body, fighting for control. One held a sense of doom, while the other burned with life.

Soon, the battle was over.

And within the eternal darkness, light was born.

A light that Jessica had not seen in a long time, different from the cold one that visited her every day. This one was full of warmth. She felt it tingling on her fingers.

The sickness that had gripped her seemed to have vanished with this new sensation. Jessica raised her upper body and opened her eyes to the dimly lit room. The source of the shallow light was in her hand. There, a small fire adorned her, no bigger than a candlelight.

When she saw that small light spreading its warmth, Jessica broke like a dam, tears washing her face. She wailed, her voice returning after a year of hiding, high-pitched and screeching. Jessica raised that small flame to her chest; she wanted more of that warmth to melt her frozen heart.

Her cries fell on the deaf ears of the walls, echoed in the room, and again she thought that no one would hear her. But she was wrong. And she was incredibly happy to be wrong. For the small flame had heard her. It flared up as if wanting to embrace the hurt girl; sparks flew, like letters of solace.

Intense hate should have been the only emotion she should have in front of her fire, but now that the flame was flickering in front of her, crackling, as if speaking to her, Jessica could not bring herself to hate it. It was the only one who listened to her. Her crying turned to sobbing. Her free hand wiped away the tears as she addressed the smoldering flame, “Please… d-don't leave me.”

Venomous hope coursed through her veins as she uttered those words that could crush her under their weight. Her eyes were shut tight as she waited for an answer of any kind. Her olfactory sense picked up the smell of burnt cloth, and slowly, she widened her eyes. Jessica witnessed her shirt catching fire. The flames grew, almost taking over her body. The young girl screamed in fear, although she was not afraid of death, she feared burning alive. The pain must be gruesome.

Her hands flailed uncontrollably, but she could not put out the flames. With her swaying hands, they seemed to grow. Jessica's desperate attempt was useless and unnecessary because she noticed that the flames did not hurt her – a memory from a time when she sat in her room, playing with her fire, resurfaced; at that time, not even her hair had burned, even while hanging directly inside the blaze. Letting out a deep breath, Jessica calmed herself down, which was quite difficult as her shirt had turned to ash, replaced by fire burning around her.

Slowly, Jess stood up, supporting herself with whatever her hands could grab in her surroundings; her body had grown too weak over time. Balancing herself, she stood in the middle of the room, her eyes slowly adjusting to the light and the dancing shadows it cast on the walls.

Jessica couldn't stop staring at her body, turning her head to see her back, bending to her legs; her skin was on fire. It was an incredibly unbelievable sight. The flames began moving around as if they had a mind of their own, tickling her, playing with her, and crackling.

For the first time in a while, she did not feel alone. Once again, she had the feeling that she had found a new friend in her flames.