Red Candle

Each time I meet a person, I would light a candle for them in my dark cave. They come in different shapes, colors and luminosity yet I do not know how long they burn for. Most are a pastel white that burns dimly without flickering but only a few eventually burn out, leaving nothing but smoke in their place.

They are all scattered around my cave for they light up a new path that I've explored. They guide me to places I've been to and behave like wards for the monsters of the dark. Some of them illuminate my empty caverns in an azure glow with scents that remind me of rain, and some burn into a blinding oblivion that dazes my feelings. Some taste sweet like honey and some give soot that chokes my body.

I remember lighting a red candle. It had a slender body that bled a rosy immortality that smelled like strawberries and bloomed into the dark. It had an alluring flame that danced in a fiery fury, as if it knew just how captivating it was as it lit up my grotto. There was no flicker either, no doubt of dying, and it gleamed like no other.

However, the red candle's crimson warmth drowned out everyone else for it demanded more than any other. It had no intention of being a shared source of light. So I hid it away from the other candles. But finally for once, I didn't depend on other candles but one. I had found my light.

Each day I would come back to the candle to watch it blossom in the dark that it faded away. Every other candle had lost its luster for this one outshone the rest. It illuminated my path no matter how far I was from it and I was free to venture out to places unexplored for the dark or the monsters did not matter anymore, not with the candle burning. The candle unshackled my fears and I was free. I was free to do anything I could ever want.

Days went by, and I had explored many places that I've never been to before. The candle's light extended and blossomed in familiar places that I knew all too well to forget. But I became dependent on the light for I was tethered to it. I was tethered to its wavy gyrate and its tart aroma. It's mellow embrace that brought forth security. I was tethered to the light that painted the once shadowed cave in a soft but burning gold. And it knew, it knew it was adored.

And soon, I felt no need to leave the comfort of the candle. I could've spent all day gazed into its twisting heart and enchanted by its eccentric sparks. It knew it swallowed my attention whole yet I still gave into it. There was just something so hypnotic about the wallowing flame that mesmerized me. The smell of the candle. The dance of its flame. It was a lullaby drilled into my mind at birth and it played on and on like broken record that looped on forever. It was fixated in my head. And it just wouldn't get out. It was too much.

Everything felt so natural and so still, like I was frozen in a stasis, a comfortable stasis. But I had to go. I had to run. Away from its comfort, away from it's warmth. I ran away for it knew me too well and it didn't chase me. How could it? Did I expect it to? I ran out. Out of my cave, out of my solace for I grew too numb to its comfort, into the blinding sun. I was free, free to roam the world, to conquer hidden lands and explore vast seas. Yet I came back.

Every single time I tried to run, like an addict, I would come crawling back. Perhaps that's why it didn't bother chasing me. It knew me too well to know that I would never leave. Or at least, that I would come back.