#pyrorize

  navigating through the woods is difficult enough without your hearing to warn you, but when you add in the shifting shadows and the way a hungry mind plays  tricks  on you.. well, you might as well be playing with  fire.  -- speaking  of:  he imagines no one would be foolish enough to ignite one this late, it would only draw whatever was in the close vicinity  (  the  dead  aren’t the biggest problem in this scenario, more so the living and their eagerness to  leech  off of anyone  ), but his nose beings to ruffle as it  sniffs.  smoke.

whoever it is, they must have put it out awhile ago, but with the drought that’s taken over the state he imagines it’s taken a lot longer to get it all muffled. he wonders if they’re nearby. a part of him, for once, hopes there’s someone nearby. he misses company. ever since the camp got run over and he got separated from willow and the others  --  from her...  --  he has always worked well alone, but he realizes now that it may not be something he’s built for in the long haul. -- being  alone, that is.

  it seems he won’t have to suffer  that fate much longer.

covered in blood that’s now dried on,  crusted  to this newly formed beard he’s grown in isolation, he must look  feral  (  he’d probably look worse in the  light  ). which is why when a swift kick to the back of his leg knocks him down to his knees and a knife is put up against his throat from behind  --  he can’t  blame  her.  how  could  she know it was him?  (  how could  he  know it was  her?  )   

               drop your weapon.

he’s already raised his arms, put them up in a kind of surrender. with her stomach pressed to his back he can feel the vibrations when she speaks, and he does his best to make the  assumption  of what she wants. which is why for his next move, he does as she has requested  (  unbeknownst to him  ).  his gun hits the leafy ground, and he gives it a moment before he  speaks:  

               ❛  if you want to speak to me, i’d prefer face to face. i’m a little hard of  hearing--  ❜

“i really think you underestimate how much i really don’t care about what happens here.”       

     “  oh,  that’s  it.  ”   seth had always been angry. anger had made a home for itself within his chest since the day he was born -- that blistering kind, the kind that ate away at him until sometimes it was all he was. all he could ever be but seth’s anger and his rage had never been a terrifying thing, not really. violence was a tool of the trade -- a cold and clinical execution of action to intimidate in his line of work, or to protect himself and his brother in others but now? now seth feared his anger. feared what it could do, when that boiling rise of fury rose up in him -- it burned.

something snapped. maybe it was the blaring alarms over head, maybe it was the the pain of the shock collar around his neck zapping him one too many times or the guards or the fucking warden’s smug face or maybe it was the fear. the cold, drowning, dark kind. seth hated being afraid and therefore the fear transformed into that familiar burning rage.   he felt his body temperature rise, saw the heat rising off of him -- the shock collar flared to life around his neck and it only made the heat expand tenfold. something snapped alright, with a huff of sharp breath, seth lifted his arms and let the rage uncoil within his gut and fire burst free like the hands of some vengeful beast.