A
firefighter shouldn’t be afraid, let alone of flames; flames that devour
whatever lies within their paths. Jarrod
is having the nightmare again— the one that keeps him awake at nights,
shivering from the cold sweat streaming down his entire body, while his throat
constricts.
Charlotte’s at home,
still out of work for the month. Jarrod
has been off at work, making little money.
When he finally gets home, searing heat emanates from the walls of the
second-floor apartment. The key won’t go
into the lock, and the door won’t open when he tries to bang it down. Flickering orange and yellow flames lick the seams,
as he proceeds to ram himself continually into the hardwood. Cracks in the wood begin to form, and then
expand . . . finally, the entrance way breaks open.
Running
in, Jarrod is surrounded by flames all around.
In the bedroom on the bed lays Charlotte. Her hair and clothes are engulfed. He yells.
He thinks she is already dead.
The love of his life, the love of his barely twenty-eight useless years,
he believes is lying there dead slowly being cremated.
The young man rushes to the bedside,
trying to find something near by which he can use to douse the flames out. The only liquid substances he can see all
contain flammable elements. There is no
use in smothering the fire, for the bed is burning. All materialist substances that could be used
to put out a fire within the room are burning.
Burning. Charlotte’s face is burning. Burning, the flesh on her face melting. Melting, becoming molten. It was sickening to watch, he had to do
something. Then . . . .
Her eyes snapped open. They locked on his. He couldn’t look away. Staring into those death-taken eyes, he was
held in a trance, unable to move. This cannot be happening; she can’t still be
living, he thinks. Not
possible. But it’s happening.
Her charcoaled mouth spreads into a
black hole; a rasping sound protrudes in an echo of her voice. “Jarrod, Jarrod . . . come with me, do not let
me pass into Hell’s void alone. Come
with me. Jarrod . . . .” He could not
escape such an infernal gaze. “Love me . . . eternally.”
He leaned in, and kissed her
dripping, liquefying lips. Faster than
one would imagine, and with more strength than a crisped, dying girl should
have, she grabbed him, pulling him closer to her decaying body. Soon, her flesh cemented to his, making them
one. As she uttered her last, her body
convulsed and her fingernails dug into his back and drove bleeding stripes into
the skin. Jarrod screamed while Satan’s
flames caressed his ten flowing furrows, and Charlotte’s body went limp.
This is no nightmare.
This is Hades’ perpetual damnation.
