Ma’sal dreamed of fire.

Glorious flame was eating away at him as he lay in the pyre, his senses blinded by searing light and scorching heat. The sky around him was dark as night, the stars all snuffed out by a cloud of sooty smoke. He twitched painfully, turning his head to find a plank of wood shoved out of his chest.

A gaping wound formed around the shard, the blood congealed and crusted over, and Ma’sal watched as small rivulets of black began to creep out of his chest. Like droplets of water, they hissed into smoke as they touched tongues of flame, leaving behind small piles of ash that began to build up on his chest.

The fire did not hurt as it ate away at him slowly, and its heat was more of a dull comfort than any pain. Even still, he raised an arm to try and pat out the blaze. Yet as the limb passed before his eyes, he found it to be a twisted, repulsive thing of broken flesh and burnt skin. It had swollen to nearly twice its previous size, the flesh underneath gorged with twitching shadow. The veins that crossed its surface were bulging, throbbing with an alien heartbeat, and he flicked the limb away in an instinctual fear.

Those shadow-tipped claws twitched helplessly on his chest, dancing with a will of their own as they began to claw at the shard of wood. They dug into his bowels, snipping like shears through his guts. A deep scarlet began to pool around him, slowly trickling down until it finally reached the low-burning flames. His arm dug ever deeper, clawing at the buried wood before finally grasping it, tugging it out with a wild desperation.

And then the puddle of blood around him touched the flame, abruptly igniting like oil. Ma’sal let out a hoarse cry of pain as his entire body suddenly lit up with fire, his every nerve firing, every muscle tensed as he convulsed upwards in reflex. His chest was aflame, his skin charring black as the heat and smoke stole the very breath out of his lungs. He could hardly think, his mind going numb from iron-hot pain, and slowly the world around him flashed to white.

When he opened his eyes next, he found the dream around him falling away. It was an uncomfortable feeling, like peeling back still-clinging layers of reality.

Fire. Always, it is fire. Even now, it followed him. He lay trapped, pinned between fallen stone and shattered beams. The debris was smoldering with embers, his own body badly burned, and he strained desperately to break free, only to no effect.

Glancing around weakly, he saw other hooded brothers fleeing in a panic. Their skal were weak and crying out for aid—for their Mother—and Ma’sal called out hoarsely for their aid. Few of them noticed, only seeking to run as far as possible, but one hooded man seemed to see him. The brother rushed over quickly, reaching out a black-gnarled arm, and Ma’sal reached out with a wave of relief. The cool sensation washed over him, making the world around him spin, and he suddenly fell back into unconsciousness.

There were no dreams with this sleep, only pervasive nausea and paranoia. He felt the clawing fear in his gut, felt the ever-present terror that threatened to overwhelm him. The panic was partly his own, yet it also belonged to the foreign skal inside of him. The creature was terrified, wounded by the flame and scarred beyond healing. The damage was like a scar over his lung, and he felt it burning heatedly even as he tossed in his sleep.

He woke on occasion, feeling his body sore and unresponsive. A few times, he was able to open his eyes blearily, only to find the world around him utterly devoid of light. There were always brothers near him—he could feel their skal.

Yet the brothers were all dead, their skal tiredly consuming their bodies for much-needed nourishment. Ma’sal felt that his own skal very much might do the same, if only it were not so wounded and he no so strong willed. Yet his thoughts could never stay long on the subject, his body swift to return to slumber before long in each instance.

The last time, in his deepest sleep, his thoughts took form as a strange dream. He was at the docks once more, in Ossia so many years ago. The air was warm and humid on his skin, not like the dry winds of these strange lands. The dirt under his toes, the water that crashed against the planks—this was home.

And once more, there was fire. He saw his father raving like a madman, sobbing through his laughter as he danced on the rooftop. Flames licked up to encompass the man, giving him a throne to sit upon, a coffin to die upon. Yet as the flames ate his father, a sudden surge of wind struck them. With a shower of sparks, they fell down on him, wreathing him in scorching hot fire.

Panicked, desperate, he rolled about on the docks to extinguish the fire. Yet every motion seemed to only feed the blaze further, the orange burning ever brighter as he struggled. Pitifully, he yelled out at the onlookers to help, to fetch water. But as he opened his eyes, he saw nothing but disdainful faces scowling down at him, mocking him as he died. And as his vision faded to black, one by one the crowd turned away.

And so the dream faded.

When he finally woke for permanence, it was with a callous blow to the head. Another brother had cuffed him rudely across the temple, and yet Ma’sal felt shock from the other man as he woke. Clearly, he thought inwardly to himself, my life was most unexpected.

“This one wakes.” hissed out a low voice from the dark abyss next to Ma’sal. “Do we offer it still?”

“Aye.” replied another, deeper of voice that rasped with the sound of a wound. “She is wounded. She will need it.”

Ma’sal opened his own mouth to protest, only to find his body strangely unresponsive. No wind whistled through his throat, no sound buzzing out of his mouth, and even his own tongue did not twitch. He felt frozen, locked inside the prison of his own body.

He could not protest as a man grabbed him roughly off of whatever pile he had been placed on, callously dragging him over stone and shadow through what seemed to be a tunnel of some sorts. All around him, skal floated hungrily, their umbral forms unnoticeable against the abyssal background of their environment.

Down here, Ma’sal wondered deliriously to himself, even gods could go blind. There was not a single speck of light; had there been a wall a hair from his nose, he could not had seen it.

There was nothing to help him see Her, and yet he still felt as they neared Her.

He felt Her massive presence, stifling and swollen. It was utterly unnatural, an overwhelming weight on his mind that seemed to press away at his will. His own body went limp as they neared Her, his mind stumbling into incoherence as he struggled to hold onto a single line of thought. The skal inside of him writhed in eager excitement, with a familiarity that sickened him.

Mother, it called out in a soundless tongue. Mother.

The brother shoved Ma’sal forward, letting him collapse against the stones. “I’ve no idea,” he called out after him, “if this will be any worse if you’re awake. But I imagine it can’t possibly be any better.”

In the darkness ahead, She stirred and began to move with a pulsating slowness, creeping forward with an inexorable pressure. There was a faint rattling of the stones as her insect-like legs scuttled across, and the ground underneath her cracked and trembled as her immeasurably large frame slithered across. She had no eyes to see with, and her mouth was stitched shut by some dark magic, yet Ma’sal could still feel her gaze on him. It pierced through to his soul, stripping aside safety and security until he was once more naked before the gods.

Yet there was something strange about her presence, something incongruous with the massive wall of darkness that she presented herself as. That wall was cracked, a thin vein that ran along its face. Her body bore a scar, still-healing, painfully torn, and Ma’sal could feel the heat that it radiated on her otherwise chilling form.

Inwardly, he let out a small laugh. Even now, in this frozen hell, I cannot escape fire.