Alex

The scars were never going to go away. And no matter how many songs he wrote, he knew that they would never accept his music because of his face.

So that's why after fifteen years, Alex was headed back to the small town where he grew up to kill himself.

Fifteen years ago, his house caught fire, and it was all his fault. There was no doubt, he had left the stove on to make pop corn. His older brother was babysitting him, but he was babysitting him with his girlfriend over, so it meant that he was babysitting himself. And he left the stove on. And the house caught fire. His brother and his girlfriend were upstairs when it started, and they didn't make it out.

And Alex suffered burns all across the side of his body. He was in the hospital for six months, and was lucky to have lived.

He remembered trying to run upstairs to try to save them. He remembered seeing his brother's face melting off. He would never forget, it's what half of his face looked like.

As soon as he finished high-school, he took his guitar and he ran away. No one from the town ever heard from him again. No one really wanted to.

He was an amazing guitar player, the songs that he could write with a guitar in his hand defied all logic to the human ear. It was as if there was some type of force that forced the ear to give it all one hundred percent attention. Until people saw his face. Then they had to look away, but by then it was too late. It was impossible to forget his face once you saw it. It was horrendous.

Alex knew this, as he was trying to hitch his way back to where he came from. It was just as difficult as when he had hitched out.

He made a decent enough of a living as a guitar player, for a while he wore a mask, it would always be something funny or interesting, Spider-Man or Batman masks were popular. Somehow though, when he wore them, the music stopped being as good. It became obvious to him that his music was no good unless his burns were exposed to the world. And that no matter what, he would be unable to really make a great living with his music.

It never quite sounded right when it was recorded either, unless there was a video, and the video showed his face. He had no fans. He became a memory to people as soon as they heard him the once, they would never forget the beauty of his music. And his scarred, disfigured face.

It was when she listened though, and it was when she pretended not to care about his face, that he fell into trouble. She was an amazing woman, shockingly intelligent, getting her MD at university, when she heard his music, she fell in love with him. And when she saw his face she was repulsed, but felt guilty. So she lied and said that she didn't care. Even though she did. And he knew, he knew the whole time that she had lied.

It was always worse when he was laughing or happy. This skin stretched in a way that made it look like it was melting off again in some strange happy way. It was truly disturbing. It was when they were laughing while making love that she screamed in fear, that's when he couldn't take it anymore. It was too much for him. He had to be reminded every day, every where he went, that he killed his brother and that he was disgusting excuse for a man. The only thing that gave him solace was performing music. And he could only play so much for people before they all left the room, to try to listen without seeing him. Then they would leave, when the effect was no longer there. People would try to wash out the face. They couldn't.

His girlfriend tried to apologize. She begged for forgiveness, and called him beautiful, unique and special, but he couldn't stand the lies, because more than anything he needed them to be true. And there was only one way for that to happen.

So he went back to the house, well, not the house, but the one that was built in its place. He had popcorn, he had a gun, he had his guitar.

Alex burst into the house with the gun, yelling at the family to get down on the floor, which, they all did. He knew from the picture on the wall that the whole family was home. He duct taped them to chairs and duct taped their mouths shut.

“Don't worry. I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to play you a set” and he did. He made them look the whole time. And from the reports of each family member after the incident all claimed that when he was given the appreciation for a full set, while starting at him, his burns went away. And he looked like an angel.

He played his set. And became an angel, for a moment. During his final song though, the youngest daughter of the family averted her gaze from him, and he went back to being disfigured.

He left the stove on and the popcorn on it. Once the kitchen was on fire, he let the family go. They all ran out of the house.

Alone in the house, he could hear his brother screaming for help and in pain upstairs, where the house had already caught fire. He saw his brother up the stairs, his face melting. Only this time, instead of turning away from the pain, Alex kept climbing the stairs, each one more and more of him burned. More of him melted.

Nothing stopped him, this time, Alex would climb the stairs, this time. Alex would save his brother.