CHAPTER ONE

It's early in the night when I find myself walking down a seemingly abandoned street. The rain thunders down, a wall of water seeping into my clothing, filling up my shoes, flowing down my arms and dripping off my fingertips. My eyes glimpse an open window on the second floor of a modern building. It's illuminated with a lamp, and even though the light is dim, it shoots out into the darkness, coating everything in a soft glow and casting ominous shadows. Someone appears in the window and I whip my head around and focus on my feet. With any luck, I'll blend into the rain and the dark and I won't be noticed.

The cold air swirls around me every now and then, but other than that, it remains still, like it's tip-toeing through a sleeping house and pausing every few seconds when something moves. I can feel the rain dribbling and dancing on my arms, but I don't feel the icy touch that leaves everyone else shivering. Correction: I can't feel its icy touch. Just like I can't feel when something's too sharp or too hot. I experience life in shades of grey: mild weather, dull colours, muted sounds, stifled scents, bland flavours. I still remember the time I leant on the stove top, not realising it was on, and melted the skin off my arm before mum noticed and screamed at me to move away. And just like extreme heat, extreme cold fails to win my notice.

But the rain at least is better than those apparently freezing days that I can survive without even needing to wear a jumper – the cold air doesn't even raise a hair on my arm. At least this rain triggers involuntary shivers that slither through my body, making me feel, for once, alive. And normal. But even now I walk with bare arms and bare legs, wearing nothing but a loose t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. I will the ice to seep into my skin even though I know it's hopeless. Nothing I do now will change who I am.

There is someone walking down the street ahead of me, heading god-knows where, and I step further into the shadow of the trees lining the road as I walk. The person passes me by without even sparing a glance in my direction and I wonder if they know that I'm the one who has caused these freezing temperatures – if they know that the person responsible for this early winter is standing only a few feet away. Probably not.

They disappear into the darkness behind me, just another nameless face that I'll never remember, another life that I've turned upside down.

Stepping out of the shadows, I turn left onto my street. From here, my home looks dilapidated. The grass lawn is unkempt and overgrown, the curtains are all drawn tightly shut, and our 'garden' is a mess of dying flowers and leafless bushes. The tall metal fence surrounding my house on three sides is coated heavily in graffiti, not all of it pleasant. The most common phrase is, go back to hell, closely followed by murderer and demon. I think my favourite is, die, satanic saucerer. Whatever their intentions, it always makes me laugh.

I recall when we first moved to Sydney and our neighbours did us the 'favour' of petitioning the council for a new fence. "Privacy," my mum had said as we watched the local council workers tear the old fence out of the ground and replace it with a taller, thicker and stronger version of the old one. "The old fence was too short – we could see into each-others homes." And yet, everywhere else, the same short fence remained and no one seemed to mind.

My mum doesn't use the word home anymore, and nor do I. At the moment, our 'home' is more of a cold empty house playing dress ups, pretending to be something that it isn't by hanging family pictures on the walls and turning the television on to fill the silences. Some mornings when I wake to my room, I catch myself wondering where I am, as if I haven't lived there for six months but only one day – as if all the memories of waking up and getting dressed in that very spot are alien, belonging to a different person in a different time. Nothing there is familiar. Nothing there feels like home. My house is a fake – a forgery – and my family is simply going along with the act.

With the rain still battering down, I walk the small dirt path that leads to our front door and knock twice. A lengthy moment later, the door swings inwards and my mum appears, her brown shoulder length hair turning golden in the light from the house. Her hair used to flip up slightly at the edges and she would spend hours each morning getting it to sit just right, but now it just hangs limp, like a dead thing resting on her shoulders.

My mother smiles and instantly I catch the wisp of a grimace sitting on her full pink lips. For a while now, it seems, my presence has slowly been growing less and less appealing to her and more like something you dread – something you wish would just go. Her half-smile drops completely when she sees my dripping-wet hair and drenched clothing. Beads of rain cling to my skin and I can imagine that they glisten like diamonds in the lamp-light.

Her deep blue eyes dull to the point of sadness and something inside me twists painfully. I hate to see her like this. I miss the mother I grew up with, the one that was always so cheery and would drop everything to comfort her daughter. But now she's gone, and in her place she's left this replica that's as different from the mother I used to know as fire is from ice.

"Again Melissa?" she says sadly, her voice almost bored. I can tell instantly from her tone that she's sick of my crap. "You've made enough mess as it is. What is it with you and the rain?"

I send her a look that says you should know. And I know she understands as she sighs, looking defeated. I walk in the rain, day after day, because it's the only way I know how to feel, and sadly, she knows it.

"Hold on a sec," she says, "I'll go get a towel." I can hear her voice echoing down the hallway as she walks. "And you can take off your shoes while you wait!"

I follow her instructions and remove my drenched sneakers. They'll probably have to be thrown out soon from all my walks in the rain and mud, and the sad part is I couldn't care in the slightest. I haven't ever cared for possessions. It's just easier to have less when I'm constantly moving from place to place, doing my very best to evade the unnatural winters that follow me everywhere I go.

After removing my socks, I stand barefoot on the welcome mat, momentarily distracted by how pointless it is. I nearly laugh at the flowing script bordered by snaking vines that reads: welcome. Welcome who? No one comes anywhere near this house, so who is there to greet? My mother and father? Me? I don't want to go inside as much as anyone else in the city does.

Seconds later, mum is back with a dry white towel, and I take it out of her hands to begin wiping away as much excess water as I can. The whole time she just stands there, watching, her forehead creasing as if she is trying to figure me out – or find a solution to the problem that I think she's had for quite some time now: what to do with me.

When I'm done, I hand her back the towel and head upstairs, solely focused on getting to a shower. Halfway up the steps, I send a look over my shoulder and see that she hasn't moved from the doorway. She stands silently with her eyes on the spot I only just vacated, the wind blowing in the rain with every strong gust.

"Mum?" I ask.

"Yeah?" she replies, her voice eerily normal.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she says and closes the front door with a resonant slam. She doesn't say anything more, nor does she move away from the door, her eyes trained on the wood detailing – panels of flowers and leaves etched into the back, like a secret painting only we can enjoy. I stare at her for a moment longer before retreating upstairs. It's scary how normal it all seems: a mother who stares at thin air, as if she can create something from it with the deadness of her gaze; a house as quiet as the Sydney street it rests on, it's inhabitants cold and distant. Welcome to my life.

Once I reach the upstairs bathroom, I turn on the shower and peel off my drenched clothing, glad to be free of the annoyingly wet clothes. I like walking in the rain, sure, but I don't particularly like being wet. It's complicated.

Hopping in, I step under the stream and let the water run down my back in a more violent imitation of rain. I try to adjust the temperature but no matter how much I turn up the hot water, the shower still only seems lukewarm. Angrily, I scrub at my skin until it turns red and raw, deep down hoping that somehow, I may just be able to feel something – that if I were to just rub hard enough, I could cure myself of this disease. I rub until my skin starts throbbing in protest, and when I still feel nothing but the lukewarm water bouncing off my skin, I toss the face washer at the glass in frustration and put my head in my hands. I can hear a voice chanting in my head, three words that ring true: It's all pointless. I try to push the voice aside, but it seems the more I push, the louder it chants, until the words have morphed into something else entirely, something worse: you're pointless.

My head is throbbing now, a dull ache residing in my temples. It's hard to focus, hard to stand, hard to breathe, and I steady myself by putting a hand on the glass wall in front of me, breathing deeply through my mouth as I try to pull myself together. The humid air rushes down my throat as I breathe in and when I breathe out, cold air fills the space in front of my eyes.

I know that's not normal. I know that most people breathe hot air. Yet my breath is cold and has been almost my entire life.

After a few minutes, I turn off the water and step out into the steamy bathroom. A mirror confronts me as I close the swinging glass shower door and I am caught off guard by my reflection.

Dark brown, nearly black hair hangs limp and dripping wet on my shoulders, providing a stark contrast to my ghostly pale skin. Eyes coloured an icy blue reflect the stormy emotions raging within me and small drops of water cling to my long, dark eyelashes. My small lips, which are almost as pale as my skin, sit beneath a small nose. I don't have any freckles or sunspots, nor do I sport any form of a tan, which is all due to the fact that I rarely see the sun.

Once I'm dry, I slip on a pair of grey track pants and a loose-fitting black shirt. I towel dry my hair until it's damp before exiting the bathroom and heading downstairs for dinner. The smell of food hits me as I'm walking down the stairs and I feel my stomach grumble as the smell sinks into my lungs.

The basic black and white clock hanging in the hallway declares that it's 8pm. We've been having dinner at a late hour for a while now because dad works so late, but I don't mind. Eating isn't really my thing.

A year or two ago, all my meals were home cooked, but now we have takeaway every night. The expenses that accompany moving houses all the time have left my parents with little money, and when my mum's home cooking was scrapped for cheap take-out meals a couple years back, my appetite left as well. Not that mum's home cooking was really all that better. I could never taste it anyway.

I sit down at the dining table opposite my dad, ignoring the plastic bowl of food before me. My father has light brown hair that's been getting exceptionally greyer and shorter in the past couple of years. His once tanned-skin – a result of spending many hours outdoors – has paled because of the recent lack of sun, and his brown eyes rest above dark shadows, which is the only physical evidence of his restless nights – nights spent worrying about his job and our next location and me.

Those brown eyes now stare unseeingly at the food in front of him and they seem as silent as his voice. My dad doesn't speak much, not anymore. I suppose all the extra work he does has made him too tired for engaging in conversation.

When he catches me looking, he smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes and a second later the smile has vanished as if it were never there, leaving behind the dismal father I have come to know. My dad used to be really fun. He was always cracking jokes and smiling, and he would talk for hours on end about nothing in particular. Nowadays when dad attempts conversation, it always comes out awkward, like he is trying too hard to be the good father I know he desperately wants to be.

I hate that everything has changed, and I hate myself for being the reason everything changed.

I finally start on the meal in front of me, immediately sick of the bland taste but aware that's as good as I'm ever gonna get. All my senses – including my ability to feel cold and hot – are dulled and no one, including me, knows why. I suppose it's just to make my life that extra bit more miserable, like hey, she is harassed at school, her parents hate her, and she has to move all the time. I know! Why don't we take away her ability taste food? That's a great idea, Life. Just great.

After a minute, my mum joins us at the table, keeping her eyes on her food like the rest of us. Family meals seem to be lacking a lot of the family these days. We sit and eat together at the same table out of habit. If it wasn't for that, I'm sure my dad would eat in front of the TV and I know that I'd retreat to my room with my food – the atmosphere is too depressing out here.

"So, how was your day?" my father directs his question to no-one is particular and so I keep my mouth shut. If he asks me I will answer, but I won't if I don't have to.

"It was alright," replies mum, half-sighing. I know this conversation off by heart. My dad always asks the same question and my mum always gives the same answer. I sit with my hands in my lap, preparing my sentence in my head just as she speaks.

"What about you, Melissa?"

The words flow off my tongue without any thought on my part. "As normal as it gets." I shoot a short, shy smile in her direction, fully aware of how fake it probably looks, before breathing out a quiet sigh of relief and returning to my food, knowing that our communication for the night is over. For a long while, the clinking of eating utensils, the ticking of the clock and the distant chatter of the television are the only sounds that fill the house.

And then: "How long do you think now, Melissa?" The suddenness of my father's question catches me off-guard and I nearly choke on my food.

He leaves out the specifics because we all know what he means. He wants to know how long until we have to move again, how long until my disease freezes the city and everyone in it. I shake my head and say, "To be honest, maybe a couple of weeks, a month at the most."

The awkwardness of this topic hangs in the air, choking me until it hurts to breath. I don't like to talk about my disease – the conversation always feels unnatural and strained. It's just too hard to confront the issues that I struggle to cope with inside the walls of my mind, out loud.

My father nods and we lapse back into silence. There's a month until we uproot ourselves and move somewhere else. A month until my life changes, once again. I really don't think I can handle yet another relocation. Having to change schools, introduce myself to new people and confront another batch of stares makes me feel sick. And I'm on the brink of doing it all again, for the fourteenth time in my life. I heard my mother chatting with my father the other night about where it is we'll be headed next. Apparently we'll be moving to some place in America, which is almost on the other side of the world.

And it's strange, but I don't want to leave this place, not the house – I couldn't care less about the house – but the city. I feel a connection, an invisible thread tying me to these Sydney streets. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Australia is my home country – the place where I was born. Or maybe it's something else.

Of course, there's no way I'll be able to escape the stares that follow me everywhere, whether I stay or go. My mum always has to let the authorities know where we'll be moving in case they don't accept us into their country or city. And then somehow, that information makes it into the newspapers, telling everyone in our soon-to-be-home about my rare, undiagnosed disease.

I finish off my dinner, eager to leave this depressing void of a dining room behind, and head straight for my room. I take the stairs two at a time and even though I know they can't see me, I can feel my parents' gaze on my back. It's not until I've slammed shut my bedroom door and drawn the curtains that the feeling eases and I collapse onto my bed.

Deep breaths, Melissa, whispers that small voice in my head. It will all work out. But I know it won't. As much I try to reassure myself, I know that things never work out – they only ever get worse.

A/N 

Hey! :) I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Cold Fire!

On the side of some chapters, I've added some songs for you to listen to that I think suit the mood of my story, but you can always listen to the playlist by clicking the external link (I've also put the link in the summary). If you happen to know any good songs that you think would fit with my story, feel free to let me know. I'm always on the hunt for good music :)

So yeah, this is my first novel that I've gotten past chapter five in writing and I just wanted to thank you in advance for reading! I know its not the best, but I'm trying my hardest to make it an enjoyable (and hopefully realistic) read. And also, don't be afraid to let me know what you think of each chapter! I'm a nice person, and I will always try my best to get back to you :)

Lots of love, 
Shaye

EDIT:

I want to apologise in advance for the state of this book. Having read over it, I have discovered many sections which need a serious amount of work (and some which should be scrapped entirely). I am in the process of editing, but it is a slow process. So while reading, just keep in mind that I was only fifteen when I wrote the majority of this book, and therefore the ideas and plots portrayed in it are not always of the highest standard. (AKA some of it is rather messed-up. You have been warned.)

Thanks :)