"The building is all clear," said one of the firemen to a small group of first responders gathered outside the gymnasium. "Seems like the majority of students were able to escape through the fire exits. We did find one young man unconscious inside, and he's being treated for smoke inhalation."
A senior police officer furrowed his brow. "Any major burning?" he asked, scribbling something in his pad. The fireman shook his head.
"No, sir. No burns at all." he started, before clearing his throat. "It was strange. The sleeves on his hoodie were burned away right up past his elbows. But... No burns." The policeman looked baffled as he raised an eyebrow.
"Well, that's... That makes no sense. Even students who escaped have some rather awful burning. Not even anything minor?"
"Nothing at all, sir. He wasn't even red. Just... Really hot to the touch."
The officer continued scrawling for a moment, seemingly too lost in his own note-making to verbally respond. Eventually, he spoke up, though his eyes never broke away from the book as he continued to scribble. "I'm going to need to take a few details."
The day after the dance, Mather Memorial Hospital
Fire surrounded Aiden. No, it didn't surround him - it consumed him. And it was coming from his own body; huge lashings of flame writhing and cracking like whips as they gushed forth from his first, spreading their burning fury unto everything they brushed. And so it grew; bigger and bigger, whilst Aiden felt himself shrink in comparison. He could hear the screams of pain as his rage licked the skin of strangers; but the louder they yelled out, the more distant they seemed. A mere whisper now, unheard over the roar of fire that encloaked him. He wanted it to stop... He wanted to keep it in, to shut down his body and prevent the destruction from flowing forth. But the fire continued to burn, and Aiden continued to lose his grip as blackness crept into his vision, obscuring the vibrant fiery glow with the quiet peace of darkness.
He woke up with a start, sitting bolt upright in his hospital bed. His scream was muffled by an oxygen mask that covered his nose and mouth. A machine nearby beeped furiously, mimicking his racing heartbeat. As he adjusted to his surroundings, he began to calm himself, wiping sweat from his brow as the monitor's tones began to slow some.
He noticed his mother and father speaking to a nurse down the hall, and they too had noticed him, rushing in his direction.
"Oh Aiden," his mother said, wanting to hold him but aware of the heat that currently emanated from her son. "What were you thinking? Are you hurt? We were so worried, I--"
Aiden sat in silence, not making eye contact with either her nor his father. He tried his best to remember the nights events... They'd argued at the dinner table, he'd left... For some reason, he'd gone into the school. He vividly remembered sprinting across that great lawn. Why had he done that? From there, things became foggy... He remembered being in the gymnasium, but not how he'd gotten in or who he'd spoken to. His memories were more like blurry snapshots of meaningless scenes; and then there was the fire. Oh, the fire... How had it started? The next thing he knew, he was being carried out of the building by a fire crew and loaded into a waiting ambulance. And then all was black.
As he began to piece the nights events together, Aiden felt sick at the picture he was beginning to draw. Fires didn't start that quickly, not on their own. Not with a sprinkler system like the school had. And why had he been there in the first place? He wasn't even in costume. Aiden desperately wanted to say he had no clue what had happened, but there was no escaping the black doubt that plagued him in those moments; he may have been unable to coherently remember much at all about the night before, but something within him just
knew. He knew by the heat that throbbed in his hands, he knew by the fatigue that ached his exhausted body. It was a feeling he knew all too well.
"Son," Hugh said, his voice lowered to an almost sinister level as he leaned in close to Aiden. "They're onto you," he whispered. "I don't know what you're doing, or why you're doing it. We'll talk about that at home." He spoke quickly and urgently. "Your mother and I were questioned out in the waiting room. He wants to speak to you next." As he spoke, Hugh pulled a hockey mask out of his duffel bag, clearly burned so that its edges had melted and blackened. He placed it on the bedside table. "You were late to the dance because our car broke down. You went as Jason. You burned the hoodie and the mask yourself as part of the costume. You were nowhere near the fire."
Aiden just looked at his father; his eyes wide and blank.
"Are you listening to me?" Hugh demanded. "This is serious. You stick to your story. You had the mask with you the whole time. You tucked it into your pants or something once you got sick of wearing it. Things like this get overlooked all the time."
"
Dad, I'm scared." Aiden said. "
I didn't d-- I didn't mean to..."
"That's not relevant now. We'll talk later." Hugh said, as the police officer knocked on the ward's door. "Be smart, kid." Hugh said, taking his gently-weeping wife in his arm. Like some sort of twisted procession, he and Amélie filed out of the ward, and the police officer strode over to Aiden's bedside.
"Good morning, Mr. McKenna," he said with a false cheeriness that unsettled the hospitalised boy. "I appreciate that you're in a bad state, but I have a few questions about what happened last night. Best to get answers whilst it's still fresh in your mind." He smiled. Aiden swallowed.
