Oliver Park

I used to believe that if I swallowed my anger, kept my head down, stayed small enough, the fire would spare everyone else. That was a lie they taught me—and I believed it because I was tired of being blamed. Fire doesn’t ask to exist. It just does. And the world only notices it when it becomes inconvenient, when it won’t stay contained, when it refuses to behave. I learned early that people love warmth but hate the source. They want heat without the burn, power without the cost. When my powers surfaced, they didn’t ask questions. They made accusations. Unstable. Violent. A catastrophe waiting to happen. No one cared what it felt like to wake up shaking with heat under my skin, to feel every thought spark and every emotion threaten to explode. They just told me to calm down, to be responsible, to stop being a problem. So I learned to hate myself for breathing too hot. Every flinch, every order barked at me, every look that said you’re one mistake away—I swallowed it and let it burn holes in me. I smiled through the lectures. I nodded through the restrictions. I accepted the cages they called precautions because resisting only proved them right. The incident wasn’t the first time I lost control. It was just the first time they decided I was beyond forgiveness. I warned them. I always do. But they never hear warnings from someone they’ve already condemned. Pressure builds. Anger ignites. And when the flames tore out of me, it felt like my body was finally screaming back at a world that never listened. After that, they didn’t try to understand. They tried to manage me. That’s when the rage settled in—not wild, not reckless, but sharp and relentless. Every command. Every report. Every reminder that I was a threat, not a person. I realized something that made my chest ache: no matter how hard I tried, I would always be the fire they feared. So why keep pretending I wasn’t angry? The self-hatred burned away, leaving something harder underneath.