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Numb

The candle lay still, cold and unmoving. The flame had come and eaten at her wick again, hissing and spitting and cackling until the candle was a sopping mess of melted wax and smoking ash, smoke that whispered and echoed the flame's words. The flame, having eaten her fill, vanished in a final cloud of whispering smoke, and the candle couldn't bring herself to rise and put herself back together, and so her wax hardened and she was stuck, laying defeated. She was almost too tired to mind.

She stared glassy-eyed at the smoke as it writhed in the air. She thought she could see the face of the flame in it, smirking at her, saying, "See? See, I've told you you need me. Look what you are without me, lifeless. You need me in order to feel something, anything, even if it's bad.

"Isn't that what you want? To feel? You're practically dead if you don't feel, so you need me to remind you that you're alive... You need me, however much you don't want me."

The candle might have cried at this thought, she had before, but the flame was right. Cold and hard, numb, the candle's wax couldn't even be made to form tears, not without something to melt it, to burn her.

The lighter was back. He saw her, lying in a puddle of hardened wax. She did not stir, no light appeared in her chest as he approached. The smoke had long since vanished, though it's smell and soot lingered, and it had stained her hair with harsh black blotches. It was clear the flame had come and gone.

The lighter felt something inside him sigh, seeing the candle so tired and broken and feeling a bit helpless to stop the flame from hurting her himself. He, despite his own tiredness, turned on just a bit and used the heated hand to begin brushing the soot from her hair. The strands began to soften and fell slowly and silently away from the candle and onto the ground where she lay. He tucked some of them behind her ear, and with his warmth, her expression softened. His hand came to rest on her shoulder, spreading heat into her chest and allowing her to breathe at last with a big, tired sigh, though he could sense some relief in it. He took her hand, freeing her arm from her side, and she turned to face him. Her face was tired, beyond tired, but she was grateful and she lightly squeezed his fingers before closing her eyes and promptly falling asleep.

He watched her chest rise and fall with steady breaths, a faint light glowing from within it, and she was back to life at last. The lighter allowed himself a sigh of relief and kept hold of her hand as he laid down beside her to get some rest of his own, but while he soon slept and though it was faint, one last wisp of smoke seemed to whisper to him as he ran his thumb over her once-frozen fingers.