On that night, in one city, due to the actions of various people with their own desires, the fire of catastrophe was born, devouring everyone its cursed tongues could reach.
People burning alive, screaming with their last strength, hoping to escape or at least find relief from the pain caused by the cursed fire that had engulfed what was once a peaceful district of the city.
And nothing could save them from their truly horrific fate anymore...
Bones were bared from the flesh of still-living people. The earth perished under the pressure of the impure nature of the phenomenon that had engulfed it. Solid, once-reliable stone buildings melted from the intensity of the curses and heat brought by the monstrous flames. The trees twisted as if in horror, then crumbled to ash like everything else unfortunate enough to be within the bounds of the unfolding chaos...
And amid this disaster walked one boy. Tears instantly evaporated on his face as the flames licked his weary childish feet, forcing the child to exert even more effort for each subsequent step. His weakened arms hung limply, and he himself was on his last breath. Even the air he tried to breathe had long since begun causing severe pain in his lungs and throat with every inhale.
His ears were filled with the crackle of flames, the sound of his own heart, and the cries of people maimed by the catastrophe, begging for help. But he ignored their pleas, clenching his teeth until they bled, taking step after step, literally stepping over debris and bodies distorted by the cursed flames that postmortem froze in attempts to reach out to the child with their hands, hoping for aid, but...
He absolutely could not help them...
"Go forward! There's someone there, he's alive! One more step! Come on!" A voice rang out from an unknown direction. He wanted to see who could be shouting to him amid the horror unfolding here, but he discarded that thought in favor of his fading hope for salvation...
If there's someone calling to him, then there's still a chance... The simple thought flashed in the child's mind, and he continued walking, overcoming the pain consuming his fading consciousness...
At one moment, the pain was so unbearable that sounds or anything at all ceased to matter to the fragile childish mind. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't manage it at all, despite all the horrific efforts expended on using what were possibly already dead vocal cords.
Suddenly, the boy's exhausted mind seemed to... free itself... Shed the skin to which the cursed flames had clung like thousands of deadly bees...
He cast aside old memories...
"Believe me and keep going! You can't stop!"
Inspired by the unknown voice and the slightly lessened pain in which his body was drowning, he continued walking, trying to ease his burden as he had a little earlier...
He cast aside former desires...
"Come on! I know you can, just keep going!"
The child did not stop. The voice sounded to him from all directions, encouraging and urging him onward. To take step after step forward, where his salvation might be...
He cast aside aspirations...
"Agh-Ah! Kid! If you stop, that cursed flame will devour you! So don't stop! I'll try to do something about this curse!.."
The red-haired boy subconsciously knew the voice spoke the truth. He had seen countless people around him perish, burn, and even melt before his eyes, showing the most varied but equally contorted faces of horror and pain. But he ignored them, trying to wipe away tears that evaporated before he could raise his weakened arms to his face.
He cast aside his inherent humanity...
"Kid! Can you hear me! Don't you dare give up! Listen to my voice and take one more step!.."
He... was left empty. He knew he could no longer ease his pain. The boy didn't even understand why he needed to. After all, if he died...
...Wouldn't he be rid of this mounting pain?
"Kid! Damn flames!.. Agh-AH!.."
The child could no longer move anything. His buckling knees touched the dead earth, and then he felt the warm ground against his cheek.
"Kid... I couldn't help you... Why the hell was I even here?!"
The boy was empty. But he was a little glad that before death he would hear at least someone's voice. A voice that had tried to help him, even if he himself had refused to do so for others.
"Sorry, kid, I couldn't save you... Wait... HEY! Don't close your eyes! There's a person there! Look around! To your right!"
The boy listened to the voice again. Gathering the remnants of his nearly depleted strength, he rolled onto his back and, propping himself slightly with his burned hand, looked in the indicated direction.
There was a man. Dressed entirely in black with disheveled hair and a panicked expression on his face, scanning the surroundings for something. He darted from side to side. From body to body, only to find another charred corpse...
"Here!!!" The voice shouted. The boy was surprised. The voice he had heard earlier had called for help on his behalf. He was grateful for it, as the child was sure he couldn't have made a sound on his own...
"Kid! Hold on! See, the man's running to you already! He'll help, just hold on!"
The boy watched as the man in black ran toward him, stumbling but not stopping for an instant. Soon the man, with soot-covered clothes and disheveled hair, was beside the child and quickly began examining him from head to toe. He said some words, but the boy couldn't understand them.
"Kid... He'll save you, now you can relax. I hope we can talk soon."
The boy inwardly thanked the "Voice" as a bright warming light enveloped him. Somehow it eased his pain and, like warm embraces, brought a sense of security, relieving him of the bodily pain that drowned out all other sensations. But what surprised the boy most in that moment wasn't that at all. For some reason, the salvific, clearly magical light didn't make the proper impression on the child compared to what he observed looking into the face of the man bending over him.
He was smiling. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but at the same time the man's smile was so bright that the image firmly embedded itself in the boy's fading consciousness...
Why does he look so... happy?.. The child wondered mentally, unable to tear his eyes from the face of his savior, who was bathed in tears, showing perhaps the brightest and happiest smile imaginable.
And finally, before the boy's consciousness plunged into sweet darkness, he thought:
Will I ever be able to smile like that too?..