On February 14th in 1989, the day my mother had obviously been looking forward to for nine months finally arrived: I was born. One could debate if it was the glee of her finally no longer having to suffer from swollen ankles and morning sickness or finally having her daughter, but I would surely bank on the latter. Whatever the case may have been, I was born. I was the second addition to our four-person family, seven years my sister's -- Tokka -- junior. That vast stretch of age between my sister and I were evident in the first toddler years, but we eventually began coexisting in mutual harmony with one another.

My parents were pretty much flip-opposites of one another neither me nor my sister took at all after their natures. Imerda, my mother, was airy, cheerful, enthusiastic, and overall divine and a person you'd be blessed to be in the company of. When it came to Truth, my father, however… the exact opposite could be said. I would swear on just about anything that he was half-mad. Throughout my years growing up with them, I could almost always hear him muttering illegibly about fire, death, or something of the sort. I suppose he was different when my mother had married him, and felt obligated to remain beside him despite his mental… condition and lack of shame and otherwise humanly-decent emotions, but I don't remember him being any different. Although I had found it difficult to locate any affection whatsoever toward my father, I was increasingly fond of Imerda. Tokka, on the other hand, strayed from either of them even in her infant and toddler years. Independent, you could say.

Such as things were, and are, I wasn't actually Truth's child by genetics. Really tricky story here, but I was the child of Imerda and a nameless incubus who took on the name of Cupid merely for the sake of deception. I probably have thousands of half-siblings out there, due to his trickery, but I have yet to meet anyone else flaunting the fact that they're 'Cupid's' child. Imerda was fully aware of who had fathered me, even as she raised me and my sister, but she never told a soul. Truth seemed to, despite his lack of intelligence, pick up on the fact that I couldn't possibly be his child. My hair was brown, my eyes pink; Imerda's hair was blonde, her eyes blue, and his hair and eyes were both raven. And this suspicion only grew as the years wore on, and he eventually separated from the family with scarce few words. It wasn't until I was ten that I even gained confirmation of my heritage.

My childhood was fairly normal, as one could easily tell, despite Truth's leaving when I was five. However, that all took a drastic turn and things became a little… interesting, for lack of better word, when I was ten. Tokka was sixteen at this point, and as most teenagers do, she had left the house to apparently spend some time with friends at one of their houses. This left my mother and I at home to go about our night alone, watching TV and nonchalantly chatting, as mothers and daughters often do. We didn't find the clumps and blunders outside to be offsetting or even the slight bit alarming, as we resided in a rather busy neighborhood at the time. It was very plausible that a dog was wandering around outside and had flipped over a box or the like. It'd have been of luck for us if it actually had been a dog upturning a box, for this was the last we'd ever be seeing of this house. Or the world, for the next two years.

Truth was devastated at his lack of faithfulness from his wife, or ex-wife as the case may be, and had returned home just to exact revenge. I suppose I should say here, that my father was just short of a pyromaniac. The smallest spark exhilarated him, and huge plumes of combustion were just the pinnacle of fascinating. It was only natural that this would be his element of destruction. He started the fire near the right-hand side of the house, in an area shaded by a huge maple tree in our neighbor's yard -- to go unnoticed, you see. He obviously hadn't kindled the flames very much, and hadn't used an accelerant, so the flames grew at a somewhat sedated pace. Imerda and I noticed nothing, no scent of burning wood, no nothing. And it was this lack of attention to our surroundings that led to our demise.

Shortly after Imerda had tucked herself and I into bed, the flames had reached the interior of the home, burning away at carpet and furniture near the origin. This was a one-story house, so the flames needn't venture too far. By the time the smoke had alerted my mother that there was fire, she knew there was little time left. She rushed to my room and woke me, giving no explanation as she bundled me close and half-dragged, half-led me toward the nearest door leading out. It was then that a panel collapsed overhead, crashing down in front of us and blocking our path. After that panel, another fell. And another; before long, both she and I were trapped and too far gone to reach safety now.