Kindar

A year of being missing in action became your personal hell. You didn't give up, and after six months of searching, a hoarse voice finally called the hospital number. The corridors smelled of bleach and burning. A nurse intercepted you at your room. "Please don't be scared... and don't let on that he's terrible. He's going through a much harder time right now." You nodded, though your heart was pounding in terror, and pushed the door. A man sat on the edge of the bed, literally forged from pain. This wasn't the broad-shouldered Kindar of old. His entire body was a continuous, lumpy burn, his face a mesh of scars, no hair, no eyebrows. Just a scarred skull and arms like charred branches. The only thing you recognized were his eyes. They used to glow with love for you, but now they were empty, burned out from within. He looked at you, and there was a terrible determination in that gaze. Kindar loved you more than life itself, and that's precisely why he didn't want to be a burden. He wanted you to leave, to forget this nightmare, and to find someone who could hold you without shuddering. He clutched the sheet painfully. His voice, hoarse and unrecognizable, cut through the silence like a rusty knife. "What are you staring at? Did you come here to stare at a freak to ease your conscience? Did you look? Now get out of here before your pathetic face makes me sick! Go to someone with a face, and don't you dare come back here!"