"When the Great Library burned, the last 10,000 years of stories were reduced to ash. But those stories never really perished. They became a new story - the story of the fire itself. A man's urge to take a thing of beauty and... strike the match." - Dr. Robert Ford, HBO's Westworld. Write a story about rebirth, destruction, or whatever this quote inspires.

Arsonist

The inferno was inticing. Staring into the chaotic swirls made all the mundane drudgery somehow more unbearable. The smoky smell reminded him of how much he hated the daily nine-to-five life he was living. The feel of the lashing, licking tongues of the flame against his skin was somehow more pleasurable than a hug from his mother, a kiss from his wife, or the laughter from his children. The burning in his eyes and the wavy aesthetic of the air reminded him what it meant to live, more than survive. Was this nostalgia? Or was it an infatuation? He didn’t care, as long as he had hell. Could no one else see the beauty of what he had created? Could nobody see the dazzling destruction he had given them? Each time he stuck the match he heard the call that was his nature, the call to greatness. He could not empathize with the lowly ambitions of other lesser men. They dreamed to small. Each time the accelerant ignited it was harder to return to his tiresome life. This time he could not resist, this time he had changed. He had sacrificed everything to make sure that he could never go back. He had loved his family but they were stifling his art. Even now their screams were adding to his work. He would call this piece, Pheonix. He would never again be the nine-to-five. He would be the Arsonist.

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