Max didn't run from the fire. He ran from the reality of it.
The air was still thick with the burnt, woody scent and the sickening acridness of melted plastics, but beneath it, Max could smell something else: the sterile, permanent scent of a life extinguished.
Nine years had passed since the first time, since the childish spark of fire that had consumed his parents along with their small, wooden house. Nine years of rigid, self-imposed control, of counting the cracks in the ceiling, of biting his tongue until the metallic tang of his own blood drowned out the desire to lash out.
All those years, all that effort, incinerated in a desperate, white-hot minute.
The trigger wasn't Mr. Henderson's callous insult about "worthless loner." The spark was the sudden, overwhelming realization of his own utter failure, the way the other orphans, smaller and younger than Max, had silently confirmed the administrator's cruel judgment. It was the moment Max realized the isolation was absolute, a perfect catalyst for the destruction he carried.
The heat didn't start in his hands or his eyes. It was a liquid sun, beautiful and sickeningly complete that bloomed in the center of his chest. It was the core, a strange orange incandescent orb embedded in his chest since his first ashfall, the first time he burst out flames.
The core lit in his chest and finally shattered its flimsy shell. The molten content surged up, a terrifying internal flood of gold and unrefined rage.
He had tried to suppress it, pressing his hands against his sternum, whispering his mantra, "zero, zero, zero," but the core had matured. It didn't just flare; it emptied. The resulting thermal blast was absolute, destructive and instantaneous. When he ran through the front door of Oakhaven and sprinted toward the woods, he knew he wasn't running from an emergency. He was running from a tomb he had created, a tomb containing everyone who had known his name.
"Another one... I-I tried. I tried so hard. Six years old then, and I can't still forget the agonizing scream of dad and mom. Again, history repeated itself."
Max stood rigid beneath a dripping canopy of pine. The glow on the horizon was a monstrous, unnatural orange, pulsing like an infected wound. He could hear the faint, escalating wail of the sirens. Too late, always too late.
He had the feeling. The devastating realization that every single person within those walls; the staff, the administrators, the younger children he felt a silent, protective obligation toward... gone, all gone. His power didn't differentiate. It was a hungry force that claimed whatever was in its path.
"My fault. All of them... every time."
He pulled his hands tight into the sleeves of his gray sweatshirt, clutching the single, cold object he possessed: a tarnished silver locket, the only thing he'd saved from his first crime.
"It is not fault, but fate," a voice hissed, thin and unsettlingly close, sounding like dry sand spilling over stone.
Max stumbled back. He twisted, searching the black tangle of branches. No one was there.
"The shell is gone," the voice continued, echoing inside his skull, not outside his ears. "The core is mature. It is no longer an ability, child. It is a star. Your next outburst will not simply burn a structure. It will tear the veil. You are now a potential danger to the very world you inhabit."
The words; "core, star, tearing veil," meant nothing, yet they carried the weight of terrible, ancient truth. The terror of his power transformed into something larger, something... cosmic. He wasn't just a kid with a problem, he was a catastrophe waiting to happen.
The hiss faded as the first police cruiser lights cut through the trees. Max turned, plunging deeper into the darkness, carrying his horrific secret and his guilt.
ONE YEAR LATER.
The city was noise and anonymity, a suffocating blanket Max used as camouflage.
The one-room apartment was situated three storeys above a noisy Chinese takeout joint in the grittiest part of the city. The floorboards creaked like dying animals, the tiny window overlooked a perpetually overflowing dumpster.
And the rent? Took nearly 70% of his bi-weekly paycheck.
His job was nothing to write home about, a pathetic dispatch rider. Max spent ten hours a day weaving his beaten-up scooter through traffic, the wind a constant, neutral barrier against the suffocating heat he was always fighting. He delivered packages, documents, blueprints, medical supplies, anything that needed to move fast and be delivered by someone who didn't ask questions.
The isolation was his only friend. He spoke only the essentials: "Apartment 3C, signature required," or "Thanks for the tip." His diet consisted of instant ramen and the stale leftovers the takeout owner, a kindly, taciturn woman named Mrs. Chen, occasionally left for him.
One afternoon, the relentless cycle of control was almost shattered by something mundane: a delivery to a luxurious high-rise in the Upper East Side, a place Max considered a different planet. The package was a vintage leather-bound book. The client, a woman with a face sculpted by too much money and a scowl sharpened by constant disappointment, opened the door. She wore a silk dressing gown and looked Max up and down with undisguised contempt.
"You're late," she stated, her voice grating like sand in a hinge.
"The delivery window was 2:00 to 4:00 PM, ma'am. It's 3:37," Max replied, keeping his voice flat and even. He focused on the knot in the wood grain of the doorframe.
"My time is worth more than your schedule allows, boy. And this package," she snatched the book from his hands, "the spine is crooked. You clearly ride that filthy little toy of yours like a peasant. You're getting a complaint."
The word "filthy" hit him, not because of the scooter, or maybe it was. It was the same disdainful tone Mr. Henderson had used. And to talk that bad about his only means of survival?
She was playing with fire.
Instantly, the molten core in his chest stirred. It wasn't the slow flood of a year ago, but an aggressive pulse, warning him of its potential. Max felt his internal temperature spike. The air in the expensive hallway suddenly seemed thin, and he could feel the fine hairs on his arms standing up, radiating heat.
"Zero, zero, zero." He gripped the doorframe so hard his knuckles turned white. He forced himself to breathe, slowing the four-count inhale to a painful crawl, focusing on the coldness of the silver locket tucked beneath his shirt.
The woman didn't notice the faint, shimmering distortion in the air around him, the tell-tale sign of contained thermal energy. She was too focused on her own indignation.
"I will personally ensure you lose this pitiful excuse for a job," she sneered, slamming the heavy mahogany door shut.
Max stood there for ten agonizing seconds, the heat receding slowly, like hot oil draining through sand. The suppressed energy settled back into his core, not extinguished, but banked. It was a victory, a testament to his year of constant vigilance. But it was a terrifying victory. He was a second away from roasting her alive and consuming everything she had labored for with his fire.
The ride back was peaceful, but the constant thoughts of bills, taming the core, and finding meaning to his pathetic life, hammered his head like metal striking metal.
Max slumped onto his thin mattress, the springs groaning in protest, his flowing hair scattered uselessly on the sheet. He ran his thumb over the cracked circle on the locket, the strange etching he'd never understood: three interlocking circles, one broken.
For a year, he had been obsessively practicing control, learning to modulate the heat, allowing only the bare minimum of fire to exist in his core. He believed, stupidly perhaps, that if he maintained absolute control, the veil would remain intact, and the voice would never return.
He closed his eyes, the smell of burnt sugar and old oil filling his nostrils, the sirens of the city a constant, meaningless drone. The silence he now chased was internal.
But the words whispered in the shadow of the burning orphanage a year ago refused to die. They were etched in his memory, colder than the locket, sharper than regret. The voice, whose owner he still didn't know, was always right there, in the quiet spaces.
"He is watching and preparing."