It showed up at the thrift store.
A small painting. Old frame. A boy with glassy eyes and a tear rolling down one cheek. The tag read:"Don't Hang Near Heat."
Ellie bought it as a joke.
Her boyfriend Dan hated creepy stuff. "It's just a sad kid," she said, propping it above the mantle. "He's kinda cute, actually."
That night, the house got cold. The heating clicked off on its own. And the boy in the painting looked different,his tear longer, his mouth open slightly, like he was whispering.
Then came the smoke.
The fire marshal said it started with the wiring. Rapid, violent combustion. No time to react. Everything was reduced to ash. Walls, furniture, even the steel picture hooks on the wall.
Everything... except the painting.
It sat perfectly intact on the floor, facedown.
The back was warm to the touch, but not burned.
And someone had scrawled three words onto the canvas, in black soot:
"I cried first."
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The Truth
"The Crying Boy" wasn't a one-off. It was mass-printed using a heat-resistant varnish... sure, that's what the skeptics say.
But the original subject? That's where the curse began.
Rumors say the child in the painting was a mute orphan from Spain. His foster home caught fire. Everyone died,except him. He was found standing outside, staring into the flames.
He never cried.
The artist tried to capture his grief on canvas. But legend says the boy died in another fire shortly after one he may have started.
Since then, every copy of the painting carries something that refuses to burn. Some call it grief. Some say it's guilt. Others believe it's the boy himself, still looking for someone to weep with him.
And when no one does...
He makes them burn.