Burnt
In the secret place where only ashes know his name,
North tended the fire.
Corpses—The Count, Dimitri, and others—
fed the hungry flames.
A voice cut through the crackle.
"Why are you burning the dead?"
He turned, hollow-eyed,
to see a girl—
young, uniformed, wired to a world he did not belong to.
Her gaze lingered on the fire.
"Pitiful dead people," she murmured.
"Why pity them, when they’re beyond pity?"
But she did not answer.
Her questions came instead:
"Is this your job?"
"Yes."The word fell from his lips like ash.
Her smile wavered, trembling on the edge of something unsaid.
"Innocent… but what a very… very nice job you do."
As if the truth she carried
was darker than her smile allowed.
Then—
a silence heavy as smoke.
"Well, since it is your job…
can you… burn me?"
The fire hissed.
His breath stilled.
Alive flesh does not belong to the flames.
But when he reached for words,
she was already gone.
Vanished, like cinders carried by the wind.
And North thought:
I never asked her name.
-BURNT-