Character: Kyle, 34 years old, firefighter, 2 kids, recently widowed
He couldn’t look them in the face. Not after the fire. She was there, in their eyes, and he couldn’t bear to see her. The wound was still too fresh, and it burned inside of him, feeding off his guilt. He hadn’t returned to the station yet. How could he go back to work where he was expected to save people, when he couldn’t even save his own wife?
Their house engulfed in flames was still branded onto the back of his eyelids. Every time he closed his eyes, tried to sleep, the images of the fire would scream at him, scream in her voice. The blame he had sutured to himself weighed on his limbs. They were too heavy to lift. He dragged himself through the days, desiring nothing more than to collapse into the heap that body was holding together.
His children had become a source pain. He could only see them through a screen of smoke. Obscured by the billowing grey he found only her in them. How could he possibly take care of them? They had just lost their mother and needed him more than ever and yet he feared them and the agony they brought.
The pain of his loss ripped at his insides taking everything from him. He couldn’t find the strength to stand, to eat, to move. He was lost in the smoke that was flooding his world. He was suffocating in it, and he knew that soon the fire it was borne of would find him.
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