When I wake up, I can already hear her -beckoning me without words or sound. I move around quietly, trying my best not to disturb her. She makes me work hard just so I can go with her wherever she goes. When she is sad or upset, I am forced to comfort her and make her happy again. When she cannot complete a task, I pick it up for her and finish. I'm not allowed to think about anything or anyone but her - from sunrise to sunrise.

I guess she is not in control of my life, but love is.

     You yawn as you glance at the time, wishing you hadn’t slacked on filing these reports earlier in the week. 11:47 PM. Jesus, it’s late, you think to yourself, while groaning loudly to nobody. You turn back to your glaring computer screen, wiping the sleep out of your eyes.

     Last one - you got this. Your fingers begin clacking away on the keyboard; luckily this file was a fairly small one. You shiver. How did it get so cold? Glancing at the thermostat, you see the back lit number 69° - just what you had set it to earlier.

     A perk of working in a small building in the middle of London is that you can see everything in the room from one spot, including the thermostat. The only downsides are that they are usually very old and very confining. Which also means that it shouldn’t be this cold in here, at all.

     You get out of your swivel chair to turn up the thermostat. As the air brushes past your face, you realize the whole office’s temperature has dropped enough to chill your spine . How is the whole place freezing? As you reach the thermostat, you look for the little number that displays the current temperature, only to find nothing. Shit. It must be broken. You press the button to turn the heater up, holding your breath in hopes that just the display is broken.

     The hum of the heater coming on breaks the dead silence as you breathe a sigh of relief. Just as you do the lights flickers and go out, leaving only the light from the city to illuminate the space. This happens a fair amount, but usually only during the winter months, when the heater runs almost constantly. Likely bad wiring.

     You start towards the door to reset the fuse as usual, when realize something odd. The room is getting warmer and the glow of your computer screen still lights your cubicle.

Confused, you walk quickly over to the light switch as your eyes are still adjust to the sudden dimness. As you get to the switch and flip it to Off, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as a sense of dread comes over you. You feel like every muscle has locked up. Every bit of you is telling you to get out, get out before you can’t. You manage to shake the feeling enough to inch your finger up, flipping the switch on.

     You wish you hadn’t.

     An intense light flashes in the room, temporarily blinding you, and making you stumble back into a wall and slouch down. You pull yourself up as you squinch your eyes, trying to get your vision back. When it does, you see the room is now engulfed in flames that licked every surface, and acrid, dense smoke filling your nose and your lungs. You start to cough a hacking, painful, cough, as you look for the exit, only to find the figure of a woman standing with her back to you.

     She was wearing a pale green dress, one of those that were typically worn during industrial times. Its edges were singed and was covered in grey splotches of what appeared to be ash. Her arms lay limp at her side and her head bowed. A long, wiry braid of auburn hair ran down her back and like the dress, was burnt on the tips.

     Without thinking why, you call out, telling her to run, not even questioning why she is there in the first place. As soon as you do, the woman lifts her head up as if alerted, and quickly turns her head to see you, tossing her long, auburn braid to her front . Her skin looks smooth, flawless and glows in the burning light of the fire. Her eyes are a light hazel, smoldering in the fire, carrying a glint of amusement.

     You make eye contact with her and she giggles, covering her mouth with her long, delicate fingers - but she doesn’t stop there. She buries her face in her hands much like a child playing peek-a-boo and turns her whole body towards you.

     But unlike playing peek-a-boo, the same beautiful face you once saw there before... is no longer there.

     Her hands burst into flames, swallowing her face in its tendrils. She pulls them away, revealing a face of flames. Your heart nearly stops - all you can see are her eyes and an inhumanly large smile, exposing partially charred teeth that glistened in the glow of the inferno. You scream. But all that comes out is a dry, grinding sound that could barely be heard over the roar of the fire.

     You hear the woman, the thing, let out a cackle like sounded like wood crackling as it burns. Then, in a voice that seems to resonate from the hellish blaze, you make out the words…

     Burn with me.

     Just as quickly as the fire appeared, it disappears, leaving the room exactly as it was before. You feel the the rough, prickly carpet on your cheek and the firm, sturdiness of the wall behind you. You push your body off the ground, your arms and legs trembling from what you have just witnessed. The purr of the heater somehow ensures you that you are conscious. I must have fallen asleep.

     You hurriedly grab your work bag and your keys, wanting nothing more than to leave. I’ll figure out what to tell Mr. Karnecky in the morning. It’s just one file after all.

     You reach the front door and pull it open, failing to notice its unusual warmth. You step outside into the cool, late summer night and lock the door behind you. You get to your car and almost throw open the door, tossing your bag on the passenger seat.

     As you drive out of the parking lot, you think you catch out of the corner of your eye the thing - still ablaze, still smiling. You dismiss it as a lack of sleep and drive home, not noticing the streak of ash that blended with the folds and wrinkles of you shirt sleeve. The whole drive, you reflect on what you had seen, what you had felt.

     You pull in the driveway quietly and see lights flooding out of your house. Stella must have waited for me, you think gratefully. You step out of your car, locking it as you make towards the door. You slide your keys into the door as you hear the door unlock and open, revealing your wife’s tired face staring at you with worry.

     “Work late, love? Dinner’s gone cold,” she says sleepily. You give her a weary smile, and she tilts her head, giving you a sympathetic frown. She grabs you by both of your hands and pulls you into the house, closing the door with her foot as soon as you step in.

     She turns you towards her, giving you a smile that tells you what she wants. Her hands are warm. Warm enough to make yours sweat a little in her grasp. You lean in, feeling her heat radiating, your lips reaching out and feeling the uneven, crumbling surface of its teeth.

     You try and pull away, but the painful scorch of the fire spreads rapidly across your face and your hands, forcing you to crumple to the ground. You try and close your eyes, but your eyelids have burned away, and you could see the thermostat’s temperature has jumped to 999° Fahrenheit and your work computer artifacting from the heat. You can no longer hear the heater running over the bellow of the flames as the fire spreads through the office. Darkness begins to creep along the edges of your vision like smoke filling an empty space and you hear a message bawling from the blaze-

     Burn with me.

     I sit blankly staring at the screen, desperately hoping for the post to disappear. I had posted my horror story on the comedy part of Prose and I was now dying of embarrassment. How the hell do you delete things on Prose? Then I get this brilliant idea. Why not write a post explaining my incompetency? So I get to work on this piece of junk.