The dream came again as he knew it would. The two things that were of a certainty to Byron Higgins is that one day he was going to die and he would have the great burning dream. In the dream it wasn't so much that the room he found himself trapped in was on fire so much as the room was fire itself, the very flames Prometheus once plucked from Olympus and bestowed upon humanity holding him in a sweltering embrace as fingers of smoke slowly choked him towards oblivion. His nocturnal ignitions had begun around his fifteenth birthday and, at the ripe old age of thirty five, they had been the only real constant in his life.
Even after all these years he still woke in a cold sweat trying desperately to find his breath, faintly feeling the flames lick at his skin. For the briefest of moments as reality forced the heat back into his subconscious until his head next hit pillow, he'd reach for it and wish it wouldn't leave him. He had tried a long time ago to figure out the source of it all by trusting the insight of others and going to a professional and leaving it in their capable hands. All that had done had left him in medical debt and wondering why so many doctors wanted to know about his mother. No, now he'd trust his own gut and his gut told him that he'd know soon and he'd just have to come to terms with that, curiosity be damned. After a few more minutes of staring at his ceiling attempting to get his breathing under control, and letting the sweat dry a bit, he finally got out of bed.
Lately that feeling in his gut had continued to grow and today felt like a balloon ready to burst. He could hardly contain his excitement because he was convinced the day he knew why he had the dreams would be the day the heat wouldn't leave him. The need to feel it caressing him and engulfing his entire being sat just below the skin like an itch no amount of scratching would relieve. He made his way to the kitchen to begin his morning routine, at the crack of 1 p.m, of making coffee on his old gas stove and as they always did, the flames entranced him. He felt himself go into a state of autopilot as he gazed deeply into the ever dancing fire, before he knew what was happening his hand was in the flames. He didn't notice the pain, the smell of burning hair, or even his skin tearing and the muscle of his hand cooking. He noticed the heat. The blessed heat once locked solemnly in his sleep. It had found a way to come to him and as he pulled his hand away he envisioned his hand having been made anew, fingers of flame flexing at his insistence. No, not made anew, set free. The understanding left him dizzy with the sudden rush of understanding. He was the heat, the flames taken from Olympus. His small empty apartment filled slowly with laughter and then the tears followed.
He was trapped, it was the only thing that made sense. He dreamt not of a room of fire but of himself, his true self. Somewhere along the way he had been stolen away once again and placed into this pitiful meat. Now that he knew what he was he had to escape. His eye flitted about looking for his means of salvation and they fell back on the stove and he felt the grin stretch across this body that wasn't his as he ripped it away from the wall. He could smell the gas begin leaking it's way throughout the room. He raced to his room and rummaged through the ratty nightstand next to his bed until he found his box of matches.
Byron felt the choking feeling of anticipation as he stepped to the center of the kitchen and took in the fumes of the gas. "I am the flame once given to humanity, trapped in bone and wrapped in flesh. My heat will be upon you again," He said to nothing in particular, barely containing his glee. With a single strike of a match Byron Higgins embraced his destiny.