An old story of mine that got deleted when the forums went down.

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I wish swiftly that death should take me now. I crave an end to this torment that has devoured me. I am now frightened more than any moment in my past. The events that lead up to an event such as this are of chilling vividness. Yet I feel my mind strive to lock such memories into a corner of mind so far away that with each minute that passes, the days and nights of before fade like nightmarish dreams in the first light of morning. But still I shall try to recite the sequence of events that led up to this darkest of moments.

It began and ended (if such a thing does, or shall, ever exist) at the logging company where roughly thirty others and I spent the best part of a decade working and living in each other’s company. We were all contented with the knowledge that life, whilst far from perfect, was good to us. The main building was a large one of some fifty feet high, and one hundred feet square. Most of us had been employed by the owners since the building’s erection nearly a decade ago, which was situated some two miles from the small town where we lived and played, so to speak. The mountains that surrounded and watched over the snow-bathed ocean of conifers - where our workplace lay nestled within a small clearing - were of monumental scale, bathed in legend and myth. It was a simple, if not romantic, lifestyle, in which the local tavern was the main attraction for us of an evening.

It was at the birth of a predictably harsh winter that I recall it commencing. The afternoon was of snowbound fury, and the majority of the workers were situated within the building. There appeared to be a general consensus that this day was to be a bleak one. Many attended their duties with an almost robotic air. Good mornings had been passed round like a collection plate, and now the workers’ tongues lay dormant. I fail to remember what I was about to that day, but I was tired; and tired memories are usually of stubborn vagueness. The overhead lighting cast uncomfortable blankets of radiance over the floor and machinery, and I recollect feeling the onset of a migraine encroaching.

Norman, a friend of mine, was within my immediate vicinity, and the smell of whiskey about him acts as a milestone of sorts in my memory. Outside, the wind howled sorrowfully, it would seem, and I felt little comfort from the heating of the building. Snow had been fast shrouding the land over the previous days, and I found few blessings in the prospect of returning home to poorly lit rooms with only myself for company. It was in the moment when my shift ended that I noticed the figure of a man in the building. His presence would have been of little importance to me, were it not for his rather conspicuous demeanour. Something about him aroused a feeling of unease within me, and I stopped, peering into the gloom of the corner in which he stood. Norman appeared to have noticed something peculiar about me, for he soon appeared at my side.
“Know who he is?” I enquired, curious as to why this man was of such prominence to me.
Norman appeared uninterested, and afforded barely a glance into the corner where the man stood. “No idea, new kid, perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” my voice sounded heavy, enough even for Norman to offer a concerned frown.
“You look drawn, get some rest,” he said as if in profound wisdom.
No more was said on the matter.

I slept few hours that night, annoyed with myself for undoubtedly overreacting. Yet that niggling feeling that accompanies a spell of illogical anxiety kept at me. The next morning, I appeared at work with little to no energy. As soon as my feet crossed the threshold from the splendour of the blizzard outside - which raged with the collective fury of a cavalry-charge - into the brightly-lit interior, my eyes scanned tirelessly for the mysterious person’s figure, but to no avail, for he was nowhere to be seen. I felt a shadow of relief, mingled with a nervous trepidation; I wanted to ignore the ominous worry that had found its way into my heart, and yet the image of his shadowed face provoked a need within me to know more about him. It was his familiarity. A curious oddity of recognition, that kept him at the forefront of my tired mind, but for the moment, I went to my duties.

It was on the following day that he returned, if indeed he had ever left. Norman and I were stood alongside a large machine, which processed the logs that we acquired. Norman had in his hand a plain white sandwich, and I, a plastic cup of lukewarm coffee. Norman’s words passed me by comfortably, and the sounds of the building started to dim soothingly. My eyes grew lazy, and happened on a corner of the room.
And he was there.
With haste, my eyes sharpened their gaze, my muscles tensing, and I stared piercingly into the same corner as before. The man stood still in shadow, yet with somewhat less of it about him to shroud his features. From my distance, it was nigh impossible to distinguish his features still, yet still his familiarity struck me instantly. I watched on as Norman continued, oblivious to the fact that his audience was of other interest. My stomach tightened coldly as I watched the man stand, seemingly indifferent to his surroundings. My eyes travelled down to his right hand, and the object that he was holding, which had a cast of light upon it.
“-are you listening?”
I turned. “What?”
“Forget it,” Norman muttered, before walking away, presumably to find a more attentive ear.
I immediately turned back to the figure in the corner, and the thing in his hand.
A silver lighter.

I left, complaining of fatigue and nausea; a disturbing mental image embossed on my mind. I felt a tremor of guilt at having fled the place, knowing not even why I had done so. I fought my growing fear with the argument that a lighter was of no vast importance. Yet I lay sleepless that night regardless.

The final time I saw him was a week later. I stood, back against an admirable tower of fresh logs, listening to the wind outside. The wind, my God, it howled for the Apocalypse, as I amusedly thought. I chuckled absently, and drained the last dregs of the thermos that I held.
As my eyes wandered aimlessly, I caught sight of him once more. For days I had watched the corner with constant attentiveness, expecting to witness him standing in the corner once more, but no form had lurked there until now. In my previous encounters with him, he had appeared to be looking at everything and nothing - certainly not at me, but now I knew that his gaze was fixed firmly upon myself. I felt a sweat erupt over me, along with a feeling akin to an Arachnophobic’s reaction to the sight of a large spider. In his hand, he held the same silver lighter, which from the top of it now protruded a small flame. Even though his eyes were hidden from plain sight, I could feel them piercing into me. I felt my own eyes lock with his, and I stood, as rigid as a condemned soul. For what seemed to be hours, I lingered, the lighter with the tiny wraith of stark light as unmoving as he was.

Our shift had started late, and was to continue until the small hours of the morning. Yet now I slipped out, unchallenged, and slept effortlessly at home, forbidding any thoughts from entering my conscious mind. I dreamt of fire. Tall, roaring funeral-pyres of furious golden shades. I dreamt that my workplace of nearly a decade burnt to black ash.

It ended where it began - at the logging company’s main building. Or in callous accuracy, what was left of it. The night had brought with it death to the workers - the vicious fire of an arsonist to the building. And thus my story ends here, as I stand before my reflection, I recognise the gloom-shrouded face of the shadowed man in the corner of the building.
His face, a flame-licked mirror of my own. I awoke as my dream dispersed - stood in the corner of the main building, clutching a lighter, half-depleted in my hand. Before me howled the fierce heat of the raging inferno that I had created, a putrid stench of petroleum about the air. I was the only one to flee alive, and now I wish it had not been so. I fear greatly what may become, as reason is clouded in my head, and fire takes a darkening hold over me.
As I flick the silver lighter in my hand.