TW: Fire, character death

Cleo P.O.V.

Staring at the flames in front of me, I was enhanced by their beauty. It enraptured me, strangely. From what people have told me, it is unusual to be so fascinated by simple flames. The first person I told, called me a pyromaniac.

That hurt me, more than I had expected it to, but it hurt nonetheless. I was not a pyromaniac, I did not enjoy setting fires to people or things. I just enjoyed watching the flames.

The reds, yellows, and oranges dancing around some sort of base substance never failed to fascinate me. I came to hermitcraft after that, leaving behind the friends I thought I had.

The next and only other person I've told about my quirk is Joe. He didn't shame me, just said that everyone found fire fascinating to a degree, and that I must have that fascination cranked up to ten.

Leaving the flames, I walked into the forest around the campsite after putting out the fire. It caused me great displeasure to destroy something so beautiful, but I did not want to cause a forest fire.

I wandered amongst the pillars of wood, listening to the buzzing of insects and the distant trickling of a stream. The sounds of the forest at night were almost as welcome as staring into flames for me.

The woods were definitely more alive during the night, the fact was quite audible. A full moon shone its light down on the forest, the rays being filtered down through the canopy to the forest floor.

A sudden difference in sounds startled me. Off in the distance, the crackling of a fire. A large one. Every life form in the woods had gone silent, and the only other sound to be heard was the rustling of leaves in the wind.

I tried to identify the direction of the fire, when suddenly I caught a glimpse of the flame. It was in front of me and slightly to the left. For a moment, I stared, mesmerized by the flames.

I was broken from my trance by the loud thump of a falling branch, split from its free by the fire. Doing the sensible thing for someone in the situation, I turned and ran away from the flames, for the first time in my life.

Even at at a full sprint, the all consuming blaze was still the faster out of the two of us. It does towards me, consuming dozens of trees in its hunger for destruction.

I heard shouts off in the distance, but I couldn't make out the words over the roar of the blaze. The fire was closer, beating my skin to an unbearable temperature, and pushing me to go faster.

My exhausted legs raced onward to outrun the arching flames. I could see it, the edge of the forest. And there, a silhouette of an unknown figure, though obviously human.

The flames began biting at my ankles, marking them with white not burns. The towering fire surrounded me, right when I was about to get out of the forest.

I screamed in agony, the fire burning my skin and sizzling my flesh. I was the silhouette racing towards me, placing water from buckets so they wouldn't get burnt.

It was Joe. He was in front of me now, saying words I couldn't make out. It was then my body gave up, collapsing from the pain.

I never did wake up.

Now I wander the server as a ghost, able to observe but unable to interact. I had to watch Joe, and the rest to the server, grieve my death. I had to watch my own funeral, see the crying hermits as they buried a blackened zombie corpse.

It was the body I loved so dearly when living, and now I had to see it laid to rest beneath the earth. Joe dug the grave himself, and Xisuma officiated the funeral.

I wanted to tell them I was right there, watching them. But I couldn't. In the end, it had been the flames I loved so deadly that were the cause of my death and the hermits' grief.

Shorter chapter, but I liked writing the angsty ending. Might get out another chapter tonight to apologize for not uploading yesterday, but it depends on how much sleep the body wants.

-Leaf