Chicago in February is so cold your breath can freeze mid-air. But for a firefighter like me, the world exists in only two colors: the ash-black of ruins and the violent red of roaring flames.

I’m Jax, Captain of Fire Station 19. Over ten years, I’ve saved hundreds of lives, facing Death so often I consider him an old acquaintance. But the fire at the lakeside apartment complex that night changed everything. It wasn’t an accident. It was a psychological game, and I was the pawn led blindly from the start.

Part 1: A Cry from Hell

The sirens wailed. The high-rise was smothered in smoke as thick and black as tar. When we arrived, flames were already devouring the fifth floor. Over the radio, Dispatch crackled: “One soul trapped in Unit 502.”

I didn’t hesitate. Oxygen mask on, axe in hand, I charged into the screaming heat. Visibility was near zero. When I kicked down the door of 502, I saw a girl collapsed near the window. She looked small, fragile amidst the collapsing timber beams.

I scooped her up, shielding her with my heavy turnout gear. In that moment, I felt a strange warmth pressed against my chest. She wasn’t coughing frantically; she wasn’t struggling. She was too still.

As we burst out of the building just seconds before the fifth floor collapsed, the crowd erupted in cheers. I laid her on the grass, gasping for air, sweat pouring down my face inside the mask. Paramedics rushed in.

Part 2: The Shock Under the Strobe Lights

The girl began to regain consciousness. She had crystal-clear blue eyes—the kind that make you feel guilty for even dreaming of suspecting her. But as I stripped off my gloves to help steady her, my eyes caught something in her right hand.

She was clutching an object. A small, silver metallic item, gleaming under the flashing lights of the ambulance.

My heart stopped. It was a vintage Zippo lighter, engraved with an intricate letter “J.”

It was my lighter. The one I had lost in a mysterious fire three months ago—the fire that claimed the life of my closest partner.

Trembling, I felt the chest pocket of my gear. Empty. But how did she have it? And why was she holding it right now, at the scene of a fire that had nearly killed her?

Part 3: The Arsonist in Victim’s Clothing

I leaned in, my voice a whisper meant only for us: “Where did you get that?”

The girl looked up at me. The mask of fear vanished in an instant, replaced by a haunting, half-smile. She flicked the lid of the lighter open. A small flame danced to life, illuminating a face smudged with soot but eyes glowing with a manic light.

“You were two minutes too slow this time, Jax,” she said, her voice terrifyingly calm. “You should have seen how your friend died in the last one. You know? Fire doesn’t kill people. It’s the delay of ‘heroes’ like you that kills them.”

The blood in my veins turned to ice. This wasn’t a random fire. This girl was the serial arsonist the police had been hunting for months. She didn’t just burn buildings; she “hunted” firefighters. She used herself as bait, playing the helpless victim to lure men like me into death traps, then savored our agony when we failed to save someone.

The fire three months ago… my partner didn’t die because he couldn’t get out. He died because he tried to save this “victim,” only for her to lock him inside a room as the flames turned into an inferno.

Part 4: A Duel Amidst the Ash

I reached for her arm, but she deftly recoiled, pressing the lighter toward a small oxygen tank next to the gurney. “Don’t move, hero. One more spark and this whole area goes up. Do you want to save more people, or do you want to be the cause of the next disaster?”

The crowd was still chanting my name, calling me a hero, never knowing that a murderer stood right before them, holding the trigger to a catastrophic explosion.

I realized she didn’t want to escape. She wanted me to choose. She wanted to shatter my faith in the badge.

“Why?” I growled.

“Because my father was a firefighter too,” she laughed, tears streaming down her face. “He left my mother in a burning house to save a stranger on the floor above. He was a hero to the world, but a demon to my family. I’m just helping you all fulfill your mission of ‘martyrdom’.”

The Aftermath: The Final Flame

In a split second of her distraction, as she reveled in her own twisted monologue, I didn’t lunge for her. I lunged for the oxygen tank, using my full body weight to shove it far away from the reach of the flame.

The lighter hit the ground. The police swarmed.

As she was handcuffed and dragged away, she never broke eye contact. She screamed: “Jax! You saved me! You just saved the person who killed your friend! How does it feel to be a hero?”

I stood silent in the winter night, watching my Zippo lighter lying lonely in a puddle of slush. I had saved the life of my enemy. Was that a victory, or the most painful defeat of my career?

The sirens faded into the distance, leaving me alone with a haunting question. Tomorrow, the papers would headline “Jax the Hero.” But only I would know that in the black smoke tonight, a part of my soul had permanently turned to ash.