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Harry almost screamed when he woke up. The first thing he noticed was that he wasn’t in his hospital bed. The next thing was the chill in the air and how his palms felt like ice where they rested on the cement. He had woken up in a place he didn’t recognize, a place so evidently cold that by scientific definition he should have been dead. He looked around for a clue or a person or something to help him but found nothing more than shadows and a heavy wind blowing about dust and what appeared to be ash. He stood up, in the middle of a place with nothing and nobody around. He wondered if this was a coma, his mind’s way of coping with the pain he had been forced to endure since a very young age. He supposed his body was finally kicking in and was just doing it’s thing, trying to ease it’s owner’s excruciating state. He reasoned with himself, “Better late than never.” His brain was finally working hard to make him comfortable, to give him relief, for as long as it possibly could. He thought he had figured out the meaning of it all, that it was cold because of how much of his life had been spent with high fevers that never seemed to go away, he had averaged a temperature of 100 since he was just five. There was nobody and nothing around because he had never been left alone, it had always been him with dozens of get well soon flowers or stuffed animals if his time wasn’t already occupied by family and friend visits, or staff interruptions, or people he’d never even seen before coming to meet with him to ask him questions like “What is it like to know that you’re a walking miracle?”, “Are you aware that people with your condition are only given months to live?”, “Do you have anything you would like to say to the families and friends of those people who have your condition that aren’t as lucky?” He hated those questions, downright despised them. Not only had he been asked the same variety of them only in different phrasing a thousand times before, but he had to give fake answers as well because if he stated his true opinions then it would be bad for his “image”. Of course he appreciated being a “walking miracle,” he was aware that he inspired many people and helped them cope with their illnesses but being a miracle only meant that, by definition, he was alive. But being alive isn’t the same thing as living. You see, Harry hardly ever left his bed, he was alive and breathing but he never really could do anything. He only ever actually left his room on very good days where he wasn’t feeling like tomorrow was the day he’d die, and unfortunately those days were few and far between. The point is, he was given a month to live, then a year, then a couple years, then by all means of scientific evidence shouldn’t have even been able to breathe. He surpassed expectations time and time again and became the miracle people came to see him as. But that didn’t mean the miracle he came to be known as was the person he was. It certainly didn’t mean that he had to enjoy pretending that he was perfectly happy with the cards he’d been dealt when he’d much rather switch his deck. He hated every aspect of his daily life except for times when people would treat him like an actual normal human being instead of the “medical mystery” or “that one sick kid”. It made perfect sense to him that his brain, his one escape, gave him just that, an escape. An escape from the world and his living hell, an escape from the questions and the expectations and the pretending, just to give him a break, just to give him some relief. He hadn’t considered any other options, he determined that none of this was real and that, in reality, he was laying in a bed with an IV in his arm, a breathing tube in his nose, probably being force fed through methods he still didn’t understand, and would eventually wake up and doubtlessly feel even worse than he did before falling asleep. That’s just what he told himself because that was what he was accustomed to, pain getting worse by the day with no hope for it to go away and having to fake happiness to be alive when, at that point, he’d much rather just have had the illness take him like it took everyone else. He noticed as he stood that it felt as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, he took a deep breath and found it easy to inhale and exhale the air, something he hadn’t been able to do properly since the age of six. He took a step, his first unaided step in over ten years, and found no pain rushing from where his foot touched the pavement into his spine, crippling him like it normally would have. He stretched, he’d never stretched unless it was for physical therapy, never had any reason to, never thought he’d be able to do so without tears because of the agonizing pain it normally caused. But there he was, touching his toes and pulling at his arms. Then, he did something he’d only ever dreamed of doing, he couldn’t remember having ever done it before. He ran.At first, it was more of a confused jog, he spent much more time than he was willing to admit just adjusting to the shift of his weight from one foot to the other and was mesmerized at the feel of his foot slamming onto the pavement and having the pavement absorb the shock. He picked up speed, the wind gathering his curled hair off his shoulders and carrying it behind him as the spaces between his fingers had air rush through their crevices. He ran quickly in circles, to the right, the left, forwards and backwards, until he wasn’t in the same place he began and saw an entirely different part of wherever he was. He slowed himself to a walk which then was halted all together. He took in his surroundings. The once cool pavement had become an icy, metal looking ground with patches of dead grass and plants scattered around in a random pattern. The sky, once a light blue color making him feel safe and at home, had been covered in grey, ominous looking clouds that brought an uneasy feeling down to weigh heavily on his chest. The once, more than welcome chill in the air became almost too much to bare, causing his teeth to chatter and his hands to instinctively rub up and down his arms in a failed attempt to warm himself. Most prominently, however, was the previously mentioned ash and dust in the wind that had become more present as more of it had appeared, tossing and tussling about in the chaotic breeze making the once clear, easy to breath air become almost impossible to take in without causing him to burst out into a coughing fit. As he inspected everything around him, his gut feeling began to tell him that something was wrong, that this wasn’t as great as he had previously believed, that he had to try and get out, to wake up because something horrible was about to happen. That was when he heard it.In the distance, the sound of agony, the sound of blood curtailing screams belonging to the voices of many men, women, and possibly even children. The sound alone was enough to cause his stomach to turn. It brought with it a sense of familiarity, a sense of guilt. It caused memories he would have much rather kept buried deep within the depths of his mind where he would never have to relive them again, to resurface. He remembered the late nights filled with torment, with needles and muffled cries. Surgeries of terror where the anesthetic would not work and he could feel every seething moment of the cut to his skin, the removal of whatever it was the surgery had been for, the laser, the smell of burning flesh that would forever be embedded into his brain and could bring bile from his stomach up into his throat, trying to force it’s way out of his body. Wanting nothing more than to be able to scream out in pain but unable to do anything other than lay there, physically incapable of movement while he was still conscious and able to feel every little thing happening around him. Above all, however, despite all that he had been through, he remembered every single person he had met in the hospital, down to just the people he had met briefly in therapy, and somehow that was even more haunting than his own traumatic experiences. He remembered his first roommate, a boy named Ed who had been three years older than him when they met. The boy had worn glasses all the time, had bright red hair that made him look like a walking Cheeto, and had, at least in Harry’s opinion, the voice of an angel. Ed had real talent and would play guitar in his bed all the time, his vocals needed work but they had improved in the time he had known him. In some ways, Ed had been his best friend, his first friend in the hospital because of their living circumstances but also because Ed had such a loving, friendly personality. But there was something else Ed had too, Hemophilia, which, on one fateful night in winter, killed him in his sleep. A blood clot had formed in his brain and the doctors hadn’t seen it coming. So, after a year and a half of knowing each other, Ed was gone, had died right next to him, and he hadn’t even noticed until the next morning. After that, he always wondered, if he had noticed earlier, if he would have been able to save Ed but after years of therapy he came to the conclusion that those pondering thoughts were useless, he couldn’t change the past. Then there was Niall. Niall had moved into his room exactly three weeks after Ed had died. Niall was special, some would say. He was Irish but had moved to England just recently, and that was how it all started. Apparently, Niall had always liked to eat a lot. He had a very loving relationship with food for as long as his relatives could remember. But in a new school, with new people, in the middle of a year, it was inevitable that he would get picked on for it. This bullying had resulted in Niall becoming Anorexic. He would pretend to eat or would eat and make himself throw up right after, he would come up with all sorts of ways to avoid digesting food since he was so obsessed and self-conscious about his weight. But, nonetheless, Niall had been a happy little Irish ball of joy, brought excitement and wonder to Harry’s otherwise dull and boring life. At least, in the beginning.Before things had gotten really bad, Niall was a lively, cheery lad who had quickly filled the void in Harry’s heart after the sudden loss of his best friend. He was just so happy considering the environment and his own personal, he had made it his mission to make Harry laugh and to help him with daily tasks that Harry couldn’t achieve by himself. Eventually, though, Niall’s outgoing personality disappeared and he slowly but surely got more and more drowsy and depressed as the lack of nutrition really got to him. One morning, after he and Niall had stayed up practically all night talking to each other and laughing about old times. After Harry had thought Niall was getting better, that he was back to his old self and would leave the hospital soon and go see the world but would still come back to visit Harry, Niall had a sudden need to use the bathroom. He had kissed Harry on the cheek, told him he loved him and Harry had made a joke, “Why are you acting like you’re never gonna see me again? You’re literally walking ten feet for a wee.” That was the last time Harry saw Niall alive. He heard the last cry Niall whimpered through the door and had paged Nurse Teasdale only for her to discover Niall’s limp, lifeless body on the bathroom floor, his wrists cut open by the razor blade he had held in his hand left hand. Niall too, died. After just five years of their friendship. He died exactly ten feet away from Harry, and Harry could do nothing to stop it. But, this time, Harry could stop it, or at least he could try. Those screams, those people calling out in agony, he could help them. He couldn’t save Ed. He couldn’t save Niall. He couldn’t save Nick or Mitch or Sarah, not even Adam or Clare. He couldn’t have even saved himself if it had come down to it. But he could try and save them, or at least help them in some way. Which is much more than he what he could do for his friends. He listened closely, trying to pinpoint where the screams were coming from. He followed his instincts and headed left. He stumbled upon a valley wedged between two large black spikes the size of mountains. He had just started making his way through and immediately, he noticed it. It was colder than it had been before. The temperature dropped significantly, alerted him that something was wrong about this particular area. Taking that as hint he was getting closer, he tredded onward. Then it was dark, the sky barely visible from where he had been standing. It became more and more challenging to see his surroundings as he moved further into the valley. His eyes strained as he squinted in hopes it would provide him better vision to avoid any obstacles he could potentially run into or fall over. This overwhelming darkness not only appeared suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, it also made him feel very uneasy, scared almost. It was proving similar to that of fear of a child when they don’t want the light turned off at bedtime. When they are at the young age where they are terrified of the mythical monsters under the bed and demons hidden inside the closet. Such feelings in a grown man were completely unjustified, however, it was the best describing factor for exactly how he felt in that moment. He kept moving forward. He roamed through the valley for what felt like hours, temperature dropping lower and lower the longer time he spent there and the screaming somehow getting louder the more he roamed, calling out to him like a lighthouse to a ship. He had almost given up hope when he saw it. In the darkness, a sliver of light, a blue, crackling fire in the distance. As he approached it, he saw a sight no sane man could ever think to see. The blue fire, the screaming... people, hundreds of people burning in the fire so cold it seared the flesh right off their bodies. There was no heat, no warmth whatsoever yet it still managed the same intensity of a flame, true to its name even if not true to its image of boiling bright yellows and reds mixing together, sizzling and hissing sparks of light so hot that it would demolish everything in it’s path, leaving behind nothing but ash. This flame, the brightest flame to ever be constructed, burned a blue-tinted white so lustrous it hurt his eyes to even gaze at it for more than a few seconds. It practically created sparks of ice by merely its temperature, so freezing cold that it had the capability to burn things in the same if not a more efficient way than a standard red-hot flame. The people, in the ice fire, they couldn’t be helped. Not by Harry, not by anyone, you can’t extinguish a fire made of ice, it can and would burn brighter than the sun for the rest of eternity if it so pleased. There was absolutely nothing Harry could do to save them, it was out of his control.Or so he thought. Above the fire, there was a man, with dark wings flapping behind him, who looked very much to be in control.