The daylight was still bright through my window, it couldn’t have been very long since I fell asleep, yet my stomach felt strangely empty. I turned my phone on and was met with a low battery warning, though I had charged it not that long ago. Once cleared, the date on my lockscreen made my heart skip a beat, I had been asleep for almost two full days. The world felt surreal, it seemed impossible that only five or so minutes in the sprite’s realm could have translated to such a passage of time in mine.

I groggily devoured a couple packs of ramen and tried to make sense of everything. I didn’t like the idea that this kind of time loss could happen in the future. I was okay with the idea that lucid dreaming had something similar, because I could control it, but in effect, I had been kidnapped. More than just kidnapped, I was fairly certain that she held all the cards in that realm and one of them was death. It was gut-wrenchingly terrifying to face the idea that my magical talent could open me up to that regularly.

With much trepidation, I set up the candle and placed my journal on the table next to it. I wasn’t exactly sure how to start, I really only had horror movie knowledge to go from. I had a very old box of matches, I was pretty sure they had come with the apartment, which I used to draw out a circle on the floor around my coffee table. I pushed back the armchair and couch to make sure that I could easily stand within the marked boundaries. I refrained from putting a pentagram in the circle as well, that seemed just a touch too cliché. I then scoured my apartment for anything that seemed like it could fit with the theme, I ended up adding a lighter, a shirt with flames on it, and a picture of my parents and I from when I was younger, we were around a fire while camping. The ritual circle was certainly a little strange looking, but I had hopes and fears that I was on the right track.

I channeled my inner horror movie main character, placed myself in the circle, closed my eyes, and said whatever words came into my head. “Thusilia, I call upon you to do my magical bidding. Light the candle with your powers.” I felt a strange gnawing sensation in the back of my head, like something was scratching my skull from the inside. The hairs on the back of my neck rose up and itched. “Thusilia, hear and obey my wishes, enter this realm and light this candle.”

A distant giggle filled my ears, seeming to come from inside my head. The air around me seemed to grow thick and oppressively hot. I opened my eyes to a being made of fire, limbs flickering in and out of existence. Even without distinguishing facial features, I could feel it grinning menacingly. What I assumed to be the true form of Thusilia, reached down to the candle and lit the wick. My celebration was short lived as the sprite let out a roar of crackling laughter and flung fire around the room. Before I could even let out a scream, the furniture and walls had become engulfed in flames.

“BE GONE!” I screamed, putting every ounce of mental effort into focusing on her returning to her plane.

Over the roar of the growing fire, I heard a deep, feminine, yet gravelly voice retort, “Adorable, be glad I’m content to sit and watch the carnage and that you thought to put a clause in to spare your life. Luckily for me, you were selfish and you only thought about yourself.”

The next moments were a blur. I remember falling, choking on the thick black smoke in the room. Trying to catch my breath was so consuming of my attention that I didn’t see the fire rapidly spreading towards me. The last memory of that moment was searing pain and the distant cackling that seemed to emanate from the flames itself.

Next, I was floating. The world around me was completely black and I could not tell if I was still a person or just a point of consciousness in a blank universe. I tried to change anything around me, but there appeared to be nothing to change and nothing to feel. Until that moment, I couldn’t know what true void felt like. I somehow knew that if I moved in any direction, I could wander forever and never find a single point of light. It wasn’t uncomfortable or frightening, even the idea of being stuck there for eternity was not worrying. I kept returning to the idea that maybe this is what babies felt like before exiting the womb.

I spent what felt like several days trapped in the void, my mine simultaneously flashing images of flames and fire, while also drifting to my childhood memories. I knew that fire was important, but I couldn’t bring myself to remember anything concrete. Nothing seemed to matter, not even who I was anymore.

Eventually, small, dull aches began to cloud my mind. I couldn’t pinpoint what was the cause, particularly since I didn’t seem to have a human body anymore. Something deep within me began to feel wrong, perhaps tainted. My disjointed thoughts turned away from childhood memories and towards screams, dark figures illuminated by glowing red backgrounds, and searing pain. I knew that I had experienced something traumatic, but I couldn’t call to mind the specifics, despite how hard I tried.

I could tell that the comforting darkness was slowly fading away from me. Shapes began to appear in the darkness, too ill-defined to tell what they were, but their presence filled me with dread. I didn’t want to return to whatever world I had left, I knew pain and terror awaited me. A clawing sense of doom seemed to shark around me, waiting for the perfect opportunity to go in for the kill. I fought desperately to stay, to fight the disappearing void, but it seemed useless. I slowly floated up and my vision became brighter until I realized that I was staring at the ceiling of a hospital.

Tears flowed freely from my eyes, not only from the loss of the void, but the deep, searing pain that seemed to be consuming my chest and throat. I could tell that I had a breathing tube in and that whatever had happened, I was lucky to be in the hospital and not in a grave.

My body felt exhausted, unable to focus on anything other than the healing process. I found that I could move all of my limbs, fingers, and toes, but each attempt sequentially made my exhaustion worse. I rolled my head to each side, carefully to not knock around the breathing tube too much, and saw that my room was currently empty. I slowly inched my hand towards the button to call a nurse and almost had it when the door to the room swung open and I locked eyes with Daniel.

“Of course, I go to piss and then you wake up.” He scoffed. “I wanted to be the very first thing you saw and burn my handsome image into your mind, seeing as I’m your savior.” I had no power to verbally respond and certainly not enough energy to even gesture. “Yeah, I came over because you hadn’t texted or called me in a while and we both know you have a low-key obsession with me, who can blame you?” I tried to roll my eyes and found it nearly impossible. “So I showed up at your apartment building and saw flames shooting out of your floor’s windows. I was the hero and called 911 and they managed to get you out in time, though you were pretty burned. Honestly, they didn’t think you would make it until you started healing up some of your burns. You’re fresh out of the ICU, but still no one who might have even come in contact with someone sick is allowed to see you. That’s why your parents aren’t here, your dad caught a small cold and they got kicked out. Man your mom can throw an epic fit, she’s terrifyingly strong when mad, she picked up one of the security guards in her rage. The guy looked terrified that she was going to throw him. It was awesome to watch, don’t worry, the doctor stepped in and she wasn’t arrested, she just can’t come back until your dad gets better and she apologizes.”

He just kept talking, it was like he had built up a bunch of information he had wanted to tell me when I woke up and was getting it out all at once. Or maybe he was having a hard time avoiding telling me that he actually cared and had been scared that I was going to die. Maybe he did have a heart somewhere through the alcohol-induced haze and sharp tongue.

“I should probably let someone know you’re awake, you probably want the good drugs now that you’re coherent enough to feel pain.” I slowly turned my hand over and gave him a thumbs up. “Thought so, remember to charm some extra out of them for me.”

He disappeared out of the door and I was left again with the silent room. The pain medication couldn’t come soon enough. My limbs seemed mostly okay, despite them feeling heavy and unwieldy, but my chest felt impossibly tight and constantly in sharp pain. It felt like my skin had been pulled tightly together in the center of my chest. My throat was much worse, whenever I wasn’t careful about the tube in my throat it would shift against the swollen flesh and send unbelievable, shooting pain through my body.

Before long, a woman came into my room, she seemed to be a nurse and was surprised to see me awake.

“David, we didn’t think we’d see you awake and alert so soon! My name is Nurse Jillian, do you remember why you’re here? Blink once for yes, twice for no,” she said, leaning over me.

I blinked twice, glad that I wasn’t going to be made to shake or nod my head. It was kind of a lie, I had somewhat of an idea, but my mind was still too foggy to put all the pieces together.

“Okay, that’s fine, do you remember who you are, where you live, your family, that kind of thing?”

I blinked once.

“Great, well, on a scale of one to ten with ten being the most pain you could possibly imagine feeling and being alive, what would you rate it?” She began counting up from one and watching for when I blinked, I stopped her at nine. “I’m sorry to hear that, good thing the doctor made sure we put a pain pump in you.” She put a small button attached to a cord in my left hand. “When the pain becomes too much, just push that button and it will give you a dose of medication. Don’t worry about pushing it too much, it will stop giving you medicine if it would be too much. That okay?”

I blinked once more, very grateful for the wonders of modern medicine.

“On a personal note, do you want me to tell your friend to leave? He seems a bit, well, abrasive and more interested in picking up nurses, you probably don’t need that right now.”

I let out the best sigh I could manage while blinking twice and she responded with a small laugh.

“I see he’s always like this. Well, it’s all about what you want and what makes you comfortable. I’ll just go ahead and put the call nurse button in your right hand so if you need anything or need him removed, just give it a press. In the meantime, I’m going to let the doctor know that you’re awake, she’ll want to talk with you. I should be on shift long enough to do one more round on taking your vitals, so I will see you again before the day is out.”

Daniel slipped back into the room after she left, making a face at her behind her back. “She’s absolutely no fun. She wouldn’t let me draw dicks on your face and take selfies to commemorate your survival and she seems to think she’s too good to date me. Did you see how hot she is?” Honestly, in all of the pain, I couldn’t even bring to mind what she looked like anymore. I mashed the pain button several times. “She’s not as good looking as your doctor though, she’s a solid nine and a half. She’s hard to get a chance to talk to though, seems to be more interested in the sick, feeble people around her than the posterchild of masculinity right in front of her.” There was so much I wanted to say to that, but was unable to, luckily the flood of pain medication made the world a better place.

Daniel kept talking about nonsense as I drifted in and out of consciousness. He regaled me about his adventures in the hospital so far, particularly about an encounter with a nurse in a supply closet that I was very certain wasn’t entirely true. Apparently he had also been able to use my near-death experience as an excuse to get out of all of his finals and that I was required to do this every semester for him.

His constant rambling was interrupted by the door opening and a very pretty woman entering, clipboard in hand. Daniel gave me a knowing look. He was right, while a mask of all business, she had been gifted with soft, symmetrical features, intense green eyes, and pouty lips turned into a soft smile. Her auburn hair was pulled into a no-nonsense bun, but it was shiny and seemed like it would be very long when let down.

“I’m Dr. Worth, I’ve been taking care of you since you came in. You’ve been seriously burned across your chest and interestingly, the inside of your throat. I haven’t figured out how your throat got burned, but your mouth and face seem to be fine. Do you have any ideas?”

I blinked twice. I had no clue of what had happened when I got the burns. While some of the other memories were there, but jumbled, I had not even the faintest memory of when the burns happened.

“Well I was hoping, I guess the important part is that you’ve survived and we can get you on the way to recovery. I have to be honest, you’re still going to be in the hospital for a while, I’m unwilling to remove that breathing tube until I can be certain that your throat isn’t going to try to stick and heal together and burns sometimes take a while to heal, especially since it’s such a large area, your body can only heal so much in a day.”

I blinked once to indicate that I understood.

She went into further detail about my treatment and what she had done so far. They had put in a feeding tube through my nose and saw that staying for quite a while as eating and swallowing were likely to be very painful. Related, they thought it was very likely that I would need speech therapy to help regain my speech, it was hard to tell if my voice box was intact or damaged through the burns. They also had done their best with skin grafts to patch together my chest, but I would potentially need plastic surgery in the far future to clean up excess scaring and get things to look more normal. I had also been on a constant IV drip of antibiotics and saline to give my body a fighting chance of making it through. By the sounds of it, I was going to still be in the same bed weeks from then.

Once she had left, assuring me that she would stop back in later and Daniel had picked his jaw up off the floor, he scooted his chair closer to me.

“Hey, I didn’t want to say anything with her in here, but your creepy boyfriend has been asking about you. Did you give that creep my number?”

I blinked twice, but he didn’t seem to understand, so I gently shook my head.

“Great then he stalked me, but he wants you to contact him as soon as you can. I guess he misses your warm embrace or something.” More likely he wants the details on what went wrong with the magic, not that I was very clear on it either. “Your phone didn’t survive, but your parents had it replaced.” He set a brand new phone next to me on the bedside table. “It has the same number and everything.”

I must have fallen asleep from the medication or exhaustion soon after Daniel gave me my new phone, because the next thing I knew, I was being gently woken up by Nurse Jillian taking my blood pressure.

“Sorry hun, have to do it every two hours. Hope you don’t mind that I kicked out your friend, he was drawing inappropriate things on your face with a marker when I came in earlier. I’ve put a temporary day-long ban on him coming back. Don’t worry, we have some cleaning solution that will take it right off.”

Of course he would do that as soon as I was incapacitated again. I was actually kind of surprised that he waited until I was asleep again, not like I could have stopped him otherwise.

The nurse finished taking my vitals and began to carefully wash the marker from my face. She didn’t make any awkward small talk or when she did comment on something, she didn’t expect an answer, I really appreciated it.

“Okay, all done. The doctor did want me to ask if you felt like you’d be strong enough to use a writing tablet soon? We have one that’s a pretty big screen that guesses what you’re trying to say.”

I indicated that I would like it, I didn’t like feeling quite so helpless, plus I was sure that my parents were going to have a million questions for me. I supposed that I could text them, but they weren’t particularly text savvy, though they never seemed to have any problems with figuring out how to use emojis.

Later that night, the nurse returned with a tablet that turned on with a tap of my finger. It was a little finicky to use and seemed like it rarely ever actually guessed what I was trying to say, but it was nice to have, especially when the doctor saw me next.

She brought in another woman in smart business wear with her, and introduced her as a therapist. They seemed to be alluding to the fact that whatever had happened after I passed out would be worth intensive therapy. I was confused at first since how could I be upset about something I wasn’t conscious for, but then a nauseating possibility emerged from the back of my mind. I typed in “did people die in the fire?” into the tablet and held it out for them to read.

“Unfortunately, yes, others were not as lucky as you.” The therapist admitted.

My heart felt like it temporarily stopped and it very well may have by how the Dr. Worth’s face paled.

“Let’s not talk about this right now, David, you’re still very injured, it will be dangerous to be worked up.”

“No, I want to know what happened, all of it.” I typed slowly on the tablet.

The therapist nodded and took a seat. “This is typical after an event like this, it can be an essential part of the emotional and mental healing process, do you mind Dr. Worth?” The doctor did not seem very happy with the idea, but she gave a short nod and left the room.

“Would you like me to give you the whole story as far as I know?”

“Yes.” I typed.

“Okay. On the day the fire happened, it appears that the gas pipes in the building, particularly in your apartment began to rapidly leak. Residue from a candle was found in your apartment, so the fire marshal believes that you lit a candle before you even could smell the leaking gas. Is that true?”

I indicated that it was true on the tablet. Well, true enough to not get me thrown immediately into a psych ward.

“They believe that once the gas hit the candle, it created a cascading fireball across the whole floor of the building. Very few people on that floor survived, luckily everyone else on the other floors survived. They found you curled up in a ball in a small, unscorched circle on the floor. They haven’t been able to determine yet how you got so badly burned yet the fire didn’t seem to get to you, perhaps you tried to run out through the flames and had to retreat.”

An entire floor of people, that had to have been at least a hundred. There were children on my floor, I didn’t know how to process this, I had called the creature to me. It was my fault.

“The important thing to remember here is that this is in no way your fault, there was no way you could have known about the gas leak, no one else in the building smelled or realized anything was wrong either, it could have been anyone to use a lighter or turn on their stove with the same results”

Alan was right, people without magical senses really did go out of their way to avoid thinking about the possibility of anything paranormal or out of the ordinary.

“Are you willing to keep talking to me while you’re here? I’d like to be able to feel confident that when you leave here, you understand that this was all a very terrible and unpreventable accident.”

“I guess.” I typed. It was preventable as some sort of a sick psychology test if I was willing to sacrifice myself for the good of others. I probably failed.

“I suppose I’ll have to take that, it is probably hard right now to process everything. I’m going to let you get some rest, things may seem clearer in the morning.”

She left, leaving me with the heavy burden of the truth. I couldn’t remember much after the fire started, but I knew how it started, despite how crazy it would make me seem. I was sure that they would go with the official report of some sort of crazy accident and find some way to blame either bad manufacturing on the gas pipes, bad installation, or neglect to upkeep them, but I would never be able to forget the truth. I was the one who summoned something like that haphazardly, I chose my own life and safety over everyone else’s. Not that I really came out of that unscathed.

The blood of everyone who died was on my hands, even if no one else knew the truth or was willing to accept it. I felt numb, I knew that I should feel something: rage, depression, anxiety, something… anything, but there was just a cold sense of unavoidable reality. I found myself staring at the ceiling of my hospital room, watching as the dark of the evening crept in, as dark as a hospital room gets with its machines and lighted screens, and replaying the summoning over and over. I picked apart my words and the actions they caused, I thought of several different ways that I could have said the spell so much better. I could have added many more clauses and clarification, but I just didn’t think at the time.

It was my own magical immatureness and naiveté that seemed to keep me from completely breaking down quite yet. It was easy to see my mistakes in hindsight, but without any experience or training, I couldn’t see how I would have even begun to know. I felt sick to my stomach that people died because of those actions, but I could feel the swirling, even darker thoughts beneath the surface. I knew in the back of my mind that eventually the world and the gravity of what I had done would come crashing down on me, probably when I was faced with the names or faces of those who died when I, the cause of their deaths, lived.

While I had lived a pretty pathetic young adult life so far and many people with similar lives were depressed, I had never been susceptible to it. I had my ups and downs like anyone else, but typically I settled into something comfortably in the middle. I was usually neutral, sometimes disgusted with my choices, but never constantly stressing over how bad I felt for more than a few days at most. I knew that was going to soon change judging by the growing despair welling within what I could only assume was some sort of soul. I was numb for the moment, but the dam would break, likely spectacularly and I completely deserved it. I wouldn’t be able to shield myself with the pathetic excuse that I didn’t know what I was doing.

Eventually, with the help of another dose of pain medication, I dozed off into a fitful slumber. I was not in control of my dreams at all, it was like how my dreams used to be, before the burden of magic had fallen upon me. There were flames around me and searing pain, I could hear the screams of people, pleas for help, children screeching as flames consumed them. I was forced to stand and burn, pleading for the fire to completely consume me and end the echoing terror and pain that filled my senses. I slipped in and out of the scene and soothing darkness, my heart feeling like it would explode from fear and anguish.