My knuckles have bruised from all the knocking I have done. Yet some doors still open, and I fall through them, plummeting in an endless spiral downward. My black cloak swirls around me, and I lament the fiery colors of old that have since charred away. 

Once I had the passion to rival a thousand beasts or the greatest fire, but now I have grown roots, my feet dragging behind me and sinking into the ground. I wish the fire would char those away too, but the flames dissipated into smoke long ago. 

I land softly on the blue tile of my old home. People sprawl on beanbags in the corner, chatting quietly, while people in the middle of the room debate loudly until their faces are red. Some people I recognize, while others are new, yet all exude that same sense of love and belonging. Cloak thrown around me, I trod invisibly among them, listening to their conversations, stalking the groups I once led. 

I want to say hello, throw myself back into the conversations, and return to the life I led here. Spying old friends near the corner, I settle onto the table I built oh so long ago, listening to their conversations. 

“We should do another raid,” Adioso says. 

“On the 1667 thread, maybe?” Weaver replies. 

This place feels like the home I never had, and I wish I could still be part of this place. The door here opened for a reason, I tell myself. A witty comment forms on the tip of my tongue, and I almost join their conversation. However, out of the corner of my eye, I see a familiar symbol, a mark of my old friend’s presence. She was not why I left, but she would be why I could not return. 

Swallowing back grief, I stand and walk away, black cloak swirling around me as I leave.

The room exits onto open grass, and in the distance I see a series of doors, some open and some closed. I want to run towards them, but I can not find the energy. The roots in my feet slow my steps, and I wonder what will happen when they solidify completely. 

Where will I stand my whole life? Where will my feet finally stop? 

In front of me, I see an open orange door, a place I don’t need to knock and prove myself worthy of. I glide in and find myself surrounded by thousands of bustling people, a room much like the one I just left, except this time I do not know anyone except one, who dominates it all. She runs back and forth helping others and supporting the other writers she encounters. I pull my black cloak closer around me and invisibly follow her, marveling at how much she does for everyone else, remembering when she did that for me.

There’s a list on the wall of everyone I’m following, back when I thought this would be my new home. I unfollow almost all of them, keeping only a few old friends who I remember from the home I had left. 

Let them unfollow me, I decide. Who cares about random online clutter anyway? I walk away, and I can feel my feet hardening beneath me. 

For hours more I walk, attempting to find a home or even a nook to lay my head at any of the old haunts I used to frequent, but I am now an outsider in all of them, a world rendered empty without my best friend. 

When I left to see the world, I thought it would be easy to come home and find the people I used to love more than anything in the world. I had nothing but a fire in my heart and passion in my blood, but now I had the world and nothing to account for it. 

In a place where the walls are covered in shifting pictures, a little girl comes up to me and gawks. “Your hair is smoking!” she says. I release the cloak from my shoulders and show her where it used to be gold. 

“My hair used to be made of fire,” I tell her, winking. The loss fully hits me then, and the tears sizzle as they hit my cheeks. 

I feel loneliest amongst a crowd of people I don’t know, I realize, so I banish myself. On I walk, until I reach the lands of fantasy. For hours, I linger at the edge of the World Between Worlds and the Wastelands, trying to determine which door to go into. If I cannot find a home or hope where I used to wander, then I will find a world of my own devising to spend the rest of my days. 

My feet keep getting heavier and heavier, and I fear that if I stand here too long, I will root myself to the ground. I imagine where my friend would urge me to go, and indeed, I long to throw my arms around Ayla and tell her how much I missed her. 

But when I try the door, it does not open. I knock until my knuckles are bleeding, but not once does the World Between Worlds make itself available to me. That leaves only the Wastelands and their master Gregarious, who hordes the demons he calls Fische. 

“I deserve this,” I tell myself as I walk inside. Perhaps the trials that lie within will remind me that there are worst things in the world than having no home. 

The door opens easily, and I walk into the dark desert, eyeing the mountains that loom far above me. I anticipate the demons that attempt to swarm me, running from them and from the door. The sand keeps my feet from rooting themselves down, and as I run it becomes easier to move. I glance back over my shoulder at the foul creatures, feeling around in the ground for a branch or something to hold them off. Something hits cool and firm against my hand, and I pull it out, brushing the sand away from the lantern. 

I have no way to light it but with myself, and I strain with everything in me to find one last spark of fire to set it alight. 

My finger flickers then goes out, before lighting once more. I shove it into the glass, and thankfully the vessel lights. I lift it to the Fische, and they hiss at me, but shrink away in fear, before turning and running away. 

The air around me gets hotter, and I shift my attention to finding the source. The lantern only emits a soft flicker, but the heat grows stronger. 

I turn in surprise, but all I can see is my cloak, leaping and dancing with a golden flame. 

The sight gives me hope, and as I turn to make my way through the Wastelands, I wonder if finding fire again means that one day I will find a home again too.