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Lily would usually never find herself in a map like this...
Every single step seemed to echo in the dreary grey walls and empty hallways, like it was a foreign, unwelcome thing.
The worn steps seeped loneliness, suffrage and misery, like the cries that once haunted these walls were still there, just far distant, trapped and silenced, even more than it was when it was still in operation as an orphanage.
Making her way to the hallway beyond the cafeteria, she couldn't help but feel pity for those that had to be here. Has it always been this… disturbing? Everything is turning and twisting in all the wrong ways it shouldn't, repeating over and over. It almost makes her sick, if not for the fact that she came here for a very important reason.
She straightens her resolve, gripping the pom poms in her hands just a bit tighter for comfort.
Among the dim and admittedly faulty lighting, a warmly lit room stands at the side of the hall. Dragging her feet just a little bit closer, she's greeted by foggy windows. It's cracked and broken, has it always been like that?
The inside of the room was lined with long wooden benches and cracked tiled floors. At the furthest wall towards the front was a few steps leading up to a pedestal. Its carpet was folded awkwardly over itself, a piano stands next to a podium, and most important a wooden carving of a cross hung on the far wall. It was obvious that this was a place of worship—was—the abandonment of such an important place that people probably flocked to day after day gave her chills despite not being the most religious person herself.
Nevertheless, it doesn't obscure her vision from the thing she searches for.
Florian Brand.
Despite holding the exact same face, clothes and overall appearance, he couldn't be more different. Disheveled and worn, the bags under his red eyes suggest a restlessness you would never usually find in the composed fire investigator. Most importantly though, the reassuring, ever-present grin on his face was wiped clean, replaced by this haunted look.
A hollow eye that reflected only the light of that flame he seemed to zone in on and none of its own, his lips whispering a desperate prayer to the burning pile, hands clasped together so firmly it was shivering. This was definitely not the Florian she knows.
She was almost afraid of calling him out, to disturb that terrifying focus and devotion he has to that faith. Would he even respond? Even her presence alone wasn't enough to signal her to the man like it usually would. What would he say? Would he talk like Florian would, the one she knows?
There was one thing Lily knew among the barrage of questions: she could not give up on a precious friend. Not now, not ever. No matter what he's going through or how different he is. That's what Florian would do.
Slowly, with ever advancing steps, only growing more determined with one foot in front of the other, she calls out. “Florian?” It was slightly hesitant, like calling towards a mysterious sound in a dark hallway, half unsure if he's even there to respond at all, yet calling for the reassurance that he noticed all the same.
Lily wasn't met with silence however. What returned was worse than silence, worse than an angry shout. His prayers only picked up in volume, just as it did with speed. Incoherent words flew everywhere as his eyes zoned in on only the flame—constant and alive—in front of him.
It was almost like he was trying to drive her away, if indirectly but refusing to acknowledge her presence nevertheless. She was torn between calling out for him again. Pulling him out of that muddied sea of thought he finds himself drowning in, and letting him mellow in that very same pool. Let him have some quiet, some time to think it through.
She had never been the best at comfort, nor important decisions.
Lily stands there petrified. Even a determined girl such as her still met things that froze them like stone upon contact. One step, then two, always followed by another, a little less hesitant than the last, a little more convinced she could make a difference. That she could help. She stops just at an arms length away. The distance, or lack there of, proved only to paint a more distressing picture.
The warmth of the flame wasn't welcoming, it was consuming, overtaking in a way not a hug would be, but rather an unfathomable rage. Florian's eye looked almost manic, wide and gazing further away, beyond the flames that cackled in its view. It was a little easier to decipher his incessant rambling from this distance. A mixture of written prayers that Lily recognized from her own bible studies along with begging, apologizing, all repeating, constantly.
Lily wonders if he's lost his mind,
Just one look gives her the answer…
“Florian, I know you can hear me,” firmly now, she tries, only to be met with failure once more.
Unfortunately for the fire investigator, giving up wasn't exactly in her dictionary. Her hand reaches for his slumped shoulder. "Florian, please," her voice was pleading more than it was insistent now, asking instead of pushing.
He flinches visibly at the contact. He couldn't handle this, not at the state of disarray he was in.
He turns his head to face her anyway, mechanical, hesitant—or terrified—in its weakness. He doesn't even force a smile anymore, doesn't try to keep up that facade he's played for all these years.
Truthfully, it wasn't because he didn't want to. He wanted nothing more than to look okay, to appear alright as he's always been, to play that part of a tall and unyielding, like a shelter in the rain. He'd always prided himself as someone who can smile through any obstacles served by fate. But god he couldn't be here, not now. Not when that wound is so recently fresh and that helplessness clung onto him like a thousand hands.
Even if he knew grief like an old friend, even if he's learned time and time again that nothing lasts, like a flame can be extinguished, the perfectly preventable cause of this loss burned him like no other ones before could.
It was evident in his stance alone. Lily's eyes softened at the sight of it—a man she's looked up to for his strength and courage looking so utterly broken.
“Lily!” His voice was raspy, cracking in all the wrong places. His lips curl into something akin to a smile, as if clinging to the bits of joy he could feel, no matter how forced they might be in his mind.
She falters, terrified almost, but definitely not for too long, no. She wouldn't let herself be weak. “You always said being alone wouldn't do me any good when I was sad. Let's talk?” her head tilted to the side slightly, projecting a welcoming grin on her lips.
As disarming as it was, Florian couldn't—no, wouldn't—he’d get too honest, tell her things she's not supposed to know, and as broken as he is right now, he's sensible enough to protect the image he displays to everyone, especially her. He's strayed from it enough already.
Shaking his head sluggishly, he refuses. Gaze turned back to that fire at his peripheral, the only thing to truly know him, the one constant that never leaves despite being put out. The only warmth that never grows cold.
The cheerleader’s smile drops. Her hand pulled away gently. That wasn't the answer she wanted nor expected.
She opens her mouth to speak, yet the answer returns to her before the question was even asked.
“I can think better in silence.” Perceptive as ever, despite his disarray, he answers the unmouthed inquiry. “But I appreciate the concern, Lily. Thank you for coming to visit,” he spoke with the politeness seen only through TV screens.
It was more of an attempt to save face, to return and uphold the face she knows him as, even if only slightly. Damage control would probably be an applicable term for his act.
“But-” she paused, trying to find an actual reason to stay, one that would be enough to show her legitimate concerns and wish for solidarity.
“I want to stay, to be here for you, like you were for me. It's- I can't leave you here knowing you're hurting, Florian. It's not right, it's not what I learned from you at all.” Her brows were furrowing, hands clenching into fists at her side. Nothing but concern on her lips.
“I know, Lily, I know,” he paused, wetting his lips, waiting for the right words that always seemed to come so naturally, reach him. “But it's not what I need right now.” A blatant lie, really. He himself knows better than to stay alone with these putrid thoughts longer than a moment or two.
And yet he couldn't.
Not one more person, not one more observed moment of him absolutely breaking apart.
He's already ruined enough.
“Go back, please. You don't need to worry about me.” He smiles gently, a different kind of smile from his usual happy-go-lucky, but a more sincere and human one, tugging at heartstrings.
Lily had always been easy. As bad as that sounds Florian never tries to take advantage of it for genuinely terrible things, just to stir the situation more in his favor. The girl's naturally ingrained naivety and hopefulness, her tendency for reliance and reassurance easily makes her believe whatever he says with even the smallest bits of sincerity in them.
A moment of silence. It was followed by another. The crackling sounds of burning just at their side filled it with just enough to not become awkward, but still visibly tense.
Lily exhales, her shoulders slumping at her sides as she decides to leave him, as per his own request. Obviously, she was more than reluctant, yet she knew better than to question the fire investigator in his already shattered state. God knows she would hate that if she was in his shoes.
“If you ever need someone to talk to, I'll be waiting, okay?” She says with one last, forlorn look as she heads for the door of that holy room.
Florian just nods and smiles as she leaves. When she leaves the sight and her footsteps dulled into the hostile silence, Florian turns back to gazing at that flame, visions that no one else would understand once again appearing for him, and him alone.
As lonely as that fate sounds, he didn't mind. After all, not everyone can bear the truths of a miracle.