So. Long. The heat took so long to fade.
Jack could almost feel the insides of his ice veins melting, seeping into his blood and causing who-knew-what kind of damage. The heat lamps of the cell blazed crimson, and a silent scream shook his body. His throat had gone too sore to make any sound hours before.
Images flared up like flames in his brain. They formed a tall, strongly built man – shocks of messy blonde hair; wide, piercing blue eyes; that ridiculous traveler’s hat he always loved to wear, even though it was big enough for a Nordic Frost Giant. Mentor Hermes, a century older than Jack.
The only one, besides Holly, to stay with Jack during those nights. To even care about those nights.
The image in Jack’s head seemed to take flesh in front of him, still flickering and burning. “Make it stop!” Jack rasped, straining against his chains. “Please, Hermes, I’m begging you, just turn it off!”
The fire-Hermes, flames licking over his brown-edged tunic and pants, padded closer to Jack. Jack recoiled as his former mentor reached out a burning hand to his face, but the short chains would only let him go so far.
So hot... he’s not real... can’t be... but it’s so hot... so... hot...
Blazing fingers touched Jack’s face, and a terrified scream ripped from his throat. The chains rattled a death knell as he tried to pull away from the specter, but they didn’t give. Instead they just blazed hotter and hotter, burning into his skin and bone and blood.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” that too-familiar voice said, mingled with the hiss and crackle of fire. “But no.”
“Please!” Jack gasped, warm moisture leaking from his eyes and down his face. His cracking voice steadily rose to a shriek. “Don’t-don’t-not-ready-can’t-do-it-so-many-ghosts-thousand-year-curse!”
The lamps faded to ash gray.
The fire-Hermes flew into pieces, each flame sucked into a different section of the now-dead lamps.
Everything went black.
Jack slumped forward over his knees, his exposed torso blistering in the darkness. Even from beneath tightly shut eyes, cold tears dripped down to his cheeks and then splattered, unheard and unfelt, to the floor.
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