"Watch everything around you burn."I lit the match and dropped it. It took a split second to reach the floor, but it felt like a full minute. I saw the flame catch, the gasoline that soaked everything blaze up. I felt his hand softly resting on my shoulder, as the flames grew higher, taking everything with them.
My heart was pounding in my chest, as I felt the heat radiating from the now unstoppable fire, his hand, friendly grabbing my shoulder. I should have been scared of it, but somehow I was not. I could barely hear his words, the fire roaring loud above them.
"Let go, Sandy. Close your eyes, feel the heat as it turns everything to ashes."
I did. The heat was rising fast, we would need to leave soon, the plan was never to get caught in the fire, it was only to burn the old house to the ground. The old house. The past. My past. Memories flooded my mind. The good old times, when Key was always there. When she was my whole life.
Smoke started filling my lungs, yet I tried hard not to cough. I needed to see it to the very last second I could. 'Cause after this, it would be no more. No chance to go back to a house in ruins, to a life that was over - even if, in perspective, it was all still the same. Different faces, same hell. Except I liked that hell. I've never felt so alive as in it.
I couldn't help smiling as he leaded me out. I breathed too hard and unconsciously tried to cough the smoke out, except it only made it worse. He grabbed my hand and rushed me outside, my lungs burning with the acrid smoke, my eyes stinging.
I coughed quite a lot as we finally sat on the driveway, staring at the burning past. The old house, that had been my home, my life, for the past ten years. Key's place. Except now, we all hated it. It reminded us too much of the past, a future that could not be. That life ended when she got that job, trying to deny it was foolish. But that didn't make it hurt any less.
A while after we went out, the roof collapsed, taking the whole second floor with it. No going back. No going back to vegetate my life away, to hide from myself, to hope for her to take me again only to deny it when she came. I had a life now. I had him. The price was high - everything. My soul, my past, Her. But I couldn't possibly go back, no mater how many times he told me I was free. No, I wasn't. I was addicted to this.
I let my head rest on his chest, my eyes still locked on the burning mansion. It was almost a pile of rubble already. He put his hand on my shoulder, and I realized. Price was high, yes. But there was nothing else I could do, I could want, than to be there, no matter what, no matter how high the price.
"Thanks." I muttered, almost to myself.
He took my chin, gently forced me to look into his gleaming eyes. His tainted grin made me close mine for a split second. Hell. This was hell. He was the devil himself. Yet I couldn't, didn't want to go anywhere else. This was my life now.
Little did I knew, this was only the beginning. I still had a long road ahead, a highway down to hell.
