She remembered.

There had been people smiling, and people laughing. And she had been one of them on the outside, and a nervous wreck on the inside. Her dress was so lovely, the other girls crowed, their faces blurs of hastily applied makeup. Her piano performance would be beautiful, they assured her backstage. She remembered trembling as she made her way across the stage, because it was like walking on clouds that could not fully support her weight. The polite applause, her stiff bow, and the melody that came to her hands easily, all flooded through her mind. For a few precious seconds, she played the music as she had heard it from the great masters, and the audience was putty in her hands. So when the smoke appeared from backstage and the screaming started, there was first disappointment and then panic.

The panic came too late. It overwhelmed her senses when she ran backstage towards the stairs. It made her dizzy and frantic when the walls began to collapse. It caused her to hesitate when she thought she heard the sound of a small child crying out for help. There were children backstage. They were to hand out the bouquets and scholarships at the very end of the concert. And there was one still left somewhere in the burning mess.

At the time, she had thought it was courage that made her turn around and look for the child. In hindsight, she realized it had been cowardice and guilt that forced her hand to find a phantom created by devils.

The closer she ran to the heart of the flames, the louder the crying and screaming became. A boy was lying on the floor, but his high pitched voice did not match his body. Hesitantly, she reached a hand out to him and tried to soothe him. Long slender fingers grasped her hand.

When she tried to pull him up, he suddenly stood, unaffected by the flames that his face. When she tried to run with him, still holding on to his hand, he anchored her in place.

When she tried to wrench her hand from his grasp, and when her heroism turned to fear, he smiled and threw her into the flames.

And so when she awoke to his face so near to hers, she wanted to claw out his heart and beat it black, the colour of hers when he burned her alive.

But while there was hatred, there was also the hurt of betrayal.