Inferno [TW: Death, Gore, Violence]

I had never desired to die save for one autumn night where I was caught in death’s headlights, one in which I miraculously survived. The sensations I felt from that crash occasionally leak from the recesses of my mind even now, every so often embracing me, swelling up my thirst for non-existence like an occasional spark in the blackest depths.

I still remember that pinewood forest and the narrow dirt road that ran through it, and me, its sole navigator, gliding through its darkness. I had just come back from a college party - I’ll be the first to admit that I may have had a few drinks, but certainly not enough to incapacitate me entirely - and I figured my best bet would be to drive myself home, even taking the precaution of letting in the cold autumn air by opening the sunroof; a poor attempt at sobering up.

The road was desolate barring the occasional car that drove past; on the whole the drive was sterile and calm, eerily so, akin to how the wind quiets before some great, imminent disaster. Its sharp turns and winding paths were like that of a snake trudging along tall grass, nauseating in my tipsy state.

To this day I haven’t been able to shake the memory of his shadowy figure emerging from the woods, stumbling in a drunken stupor, and me turning the corner, not yet aware of what was about to happen. It’s funny how the brain torments us; my recollection of that night is so vague, a substanceless mass of idle chatter and binge drinking - but that face, that twisted expression of abject horror somehow lives on as the picture ingrained within my psyche. To this day I believe that the most painful thing wasn’t the physical scars created by the fire, but those select memories which continue to make my life a burning hell.

I awoke in a daze, almost as though I were in another world, my car slammed against the side of a tree and that fire growing at a rapid rate. It began to rain, slowly, plaintively, desperately trying to cool this new world in which I found myself, but to no avail.

Looking out the passenger window I saw his arm sticking out from under the car and the crimson mist running from under the tires. Within that hellfire it was as though a part of me died; staring into his eyes gazing somewhere far away, the life in them snuffed out like thin candlelight - as though the remaining embers of his soul metamorphosed and fueled the blazing inferno in which I now sat.

The stars above burned bright and I felt my body temperature rising, the flame devouring my clothes like termites on dry oak. As my flesh peeled away and my body writhed I thought that maybe this was the final stage in every creature's evolution; much like how the car transformed into something malformed and unrecognisable I too would transcend flesh and become something different, like a star born from a cloud of dust. As the smoke from the car rose and enveloped me like a thick fog, I looked forward to this next stage - to become a star in the sky, sparks in the wind, ashes in the inferno.