[ He knows it's coming, but Peter can't help a kneejerk flash of anxiety, and it's brighter than he expected it to be. It's like a flare going off behind his eyes, making his vision strange, his head dizzy. He blinks, staring at the flames she starts spreading, watching them flicker.
His mom never struck the match, he woke up before she could, but in his nightmares it's struck, it's spreading, it's all over his body, and he's screaming and screaming, and Charlie's beside him just as wet, coated all in paint thinner the same as he is, but she isn't screaming. Isn't reacting at all. It's like she's already dead, and it's just him, alone, screaming. There'll be nothing of him left — no, that's not right. There'll be something, he saw it in his living room, what it'd be like. Charred up black, fingers curling inwards, looking more like some puppet than a person anymore. It's what happened to Dad. What she did to him. What she was trying to do to him and Charlie, too.
He can't forget the smell of it.
Peter's throat convulses all of a sudden; he almost gags. He's trying to listen to Johanna's words, hears most of them, but he's remembering that circle of candles in the attic again, and he doesn't want to get anywhere closer to this thing she's drawn on the floor. ]
I don't like fire. [ He admits, staring down at the hexagram. ] Do I have to go in there?
cw: nightmare description of being on fire.... and a dead body
His mom never struck the match, he woke up before she could, but in his nightmares it's struck, it's spreading, it's all over his body, and he's screaming and screaming, and Charlie's beside him just as wet, coated all in paint thinner the same as he is, but she isn't screaming. Isn't reacting at all. It's like she's already dead, and it's just him, alone, screaming. There'll be nothing of him left — no, that's not right. There'll be something, he saw it in his living room, what it'd be like. Charred up black, fingers curling inwards, looking more like some puppet than a person anymore. It's what happened to Dad. What she did to him. What she was trying to do to him and Charlie, too.
He can't forget the smell of it.
Peter's throat convulses all of a sudden; he almost gags. He's trying to listen to Johanna's words, hears most of them, but he's remembering that circle of candles in the attic again, and he doesn't want to get anywhere closer to this thing she's drawn on the floor. ]
I don't like fire. [ He admits, staring down at the hexagram. ] Do I have to go in there?