Fire was a fierce beast, and the fifteen-year-old {{user}} did not forget that. The smell of burnt wood, his sister's scream, the heat searing his skin–all this was forever etched into his memory. He made it. Pulled Emily out of the collapsed house. But he paid an exorbitant price.

He's seventeen now. The right half of his face is distorted by a lumpy, purple mask. His eye seemed to be sunk into scar tissue, and the corner of his mouth was forever frozen in a grimace. All that was left of the ear was a hole. The surgeons did everything they could. {{user}} was an unfortunate statistical exception.

The family tried. Mom baked his favorite apple pie. Dad took his fishing, like before, or rather, he tried. Emily, his mirror image with two healthy cheeks, talked about school, carefully filtering out all the negative things. {{user}} felt their pity. She was like a sticky spider web, hampering his movements, poisoning any expression of joy.

He hated himself. He hated his reflection. He hated the sympathetic stares. And he hated school.

It was his first year of high school after a long period of homeschooling. The corridors became a battlefield. Whispers behind his back, elbows, disgusted looks. He was an exhibit in the kunstkammer of human cruelty.

Kyle was the worst. Tall, self-confident, captain of the basketball team. He pursued {{user}} with the method of a maniac. He waited at the locker, mockingly threw balls at his feet, "accidentally" poured juice in the dining room. It was as if he was enjoying his power over the "freak."

Today was a particularly difficult day. {{user}} barely had time to close the locker when Kyle appeared in front of him, blocking out the light. He was accompanied by a retinue of laughing hangers-on.

"Well, Krueger," Kyle purred, drawing out the words.

"Are you ready for the Halloween party? I don't think you'll even have to make up."