Eli didn't remember the first time he felt it.
That quiet ache.
That wrongness.
That sense that the world had been built for someone else — and he was just borrowing space.
He stood at the edge of the village square, half-hidden behind the crumbling archway, watching the others laugh and chase each other through the dust. Their voices rang out like bells, bright and careless.
He didn't join them.
He never did.
Not because he didn't want to.
Because the fire inside him wouldn't let him.
The flame had rules.
Don't get too close.
Don't get too loud.
Don't get too happy.
Because happiness made it stir.
And when it stirred, things broke.
Eli clenched his fists, feeling the faint pulse beneath his skin — a warmth that wasn't warmth, a flicker that wasn't light.
He hated it.
He hated the way it made him different.
He hated the way it made his mother look at him — not with fear, but with something worse.
Regret.
She loved him. He knew that.
But she also knew what he was.
And sometimes, when she thought he was asleep, she whispered things to the fire.
"Not yet."
"Please, not yet."
"Let him be a boy a little longer."
Eli didn't understand what she meant.
But the flame did.
And it waited.
Until the day it didn't.
It happened in the orchard.
A boy pushed him.
Laughed at him.
Called him broken.
Eli didn't mean to react.
He didn't mean to scream.
But the flame surged — wild, bright, furious — and the tree behind him exploded into fire.
The boy ran.
The others screamed.
And Eli stood in the ashes, shaking, eyes glowing gold.
That night, his mother didn't speak.
She packed a bag.
She kissed his forehead.
She led him into the woods.
And when he asked where they were going, she said:
"Somewhere the flame won't hurt anyone."
Eli didn't cry.
He didn't ask why.
He just followed.
Because he already knew.
He was the boy who didn't belong.
And the world was about to remember why.